Notre Dame vs. Penn State: The Showdown at Hard Rock

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00:00Irish and the Nittany Lions cannot wait for this down at Hard Rock in Miami Gardens.

00:07Let's start with Marcus Freeman, the head coach of the Irish.

00:11Of course, the Irish, they had to wait an extra day to play the Sugar Bowl last week

00:16against Georgia.

00:17Penn State played on New Year's Eve.

00:19This time of year, rest matters, and Penn State had two extra days of time to get ready.

00:24Marcus Freeman says, I don't care about any of that stuff.

00:27We're going to win anyway.

00:28You know, I think the coaches, we probably were a little bit behind to start just because

00:33of the travel and in that aspect.

00:37But physically, our guys were good.

00:39Our guys were good.

00:40And, you know, we're going to be ready to roll.

00:43But we've got to utilize, as you just said, every minute we have from now until tomorrow

00:49night at 730.

00:51And so that's the mindset that we all have is every minute we've got to utilize.

00:56We didn't have two extra days.

00:58So let's utilize this time that we have physically and mentally to make sure we're prepared to

01:03go tomorrow night.

01:04Well, there you go.

01:05And tomorrow night is now.

01:09Look, I know that this was made a big deal out of last week.

01:15If it's a week, I don't care.

01:16You know, if he had less than a week, I'd probably complain about it a little bit.

01:20But they played last Thursday.

01:22Today's Thursday.

01:24It's a regular week.

01:25Seven days.

01:26End of story.

01:27There's no excuses.

01:28No excuses.

01:29Play like a champion.

01:30As I said earlier, I don't want to hear about sick kids.

01:33I don't want to hear about two extra days of rest.

01:36Go out there and win the football game.

01:38That is what you need to do.

01:39Now, this press conference yesterday with the two of them was pretty interesting.

01:42Let me play the Franklin one first, and then we'll get into the other nonsense.

01:46Here's Franklin.

01:47Of course, they just faced Gente, who I know had 102 yards against Penn State.

01:52Yeah, that was on 57 carries the guy had in the game.

01:57So I'm glad he got his 100-yard game.

01:59Gente, they handed it off to him about 50 times.

02:01Franklin knows he also has to stop the Irish running game tonight.

02:05Notre Dame does a phenomenal job with their running backs.

02:09What they're averaging per carry.

02:11How they play up front.

02:14But now you're also having to factor the quarterback into it, which creates another challenge,

02:19which creates more stress.

02:22And how do you do that?

02:23At the end of the day, our focus is still on trying to defend the run.

02:30Notre Dame does it in a little bit different way than what Boise State did last week.

02:36But it's still the whole philosophy, trying to make them one-dimensional as much as you

02:40possibly can.

02:42But also understanding that the quarterback's going to make plays.

02:45The running backs are going to make plays.

02:46And you're going to have to flush it and move on to the next play.

02:49This is going to be a four-quarter football game?

02:51I think this guy has had the easiest path to this game of any team in the college football

03:00playoff.

03:01They played SMU and Boise State.

03:02I am sorry.

03:03But now they're finally running into something tonight that is legitimate.

03:09I'm just not buying SMU and Boise State.

03:12And frankly, that's like people saying Indiana shouldn't have been there.

03:15Well, they lost to Notre Dame by 10.

03:18So they lost.

03:19And then Arizona State lost by 8.

03:21They did the two best jobs against these powers were Arizona State and Indiana.

03:27Make fun of them all you want.

03:28I thought SMU and Boise were worse.

03:32And it was a cakewalk for Penn State.

03:34Well, tonight they run into something much more powerful in Notre Dame.

03:40They certainly do.

03:42Remember these numbers, of course.

03:43I always love James Franklin numbers.

03:46And top five opponents, and technically Notre Dame is a top five opponent, you get to this

03:50thing.

03:51Franklin, 5-12 against the spread in such situations.

03:55In fact, if you go back a little bit further, straight up, he's 1-14 versus top five teams,

04:02James Franklin.

04:04So as much as we talked about Marcus Freeman and Notre Dame needing to finally break through

04:09against a big opponent like they did in the Georgia game last week, same can sometimes

04:15be said for Franklin and what he needs to finally do.

04:18Now here's the other part of this press conference yesterday.

04:21So Marcus Freeman was very businesslike, I guess you could say, Scotty, is the way that

04:27you want to say it.

04:28Franklin was making jokes about how old he is and his hairline, you know, and Marcus

04:33was kind of just giving him like this sly little laugh, you know, I'm going to kick

04:37your ass tomorrow night.

04:39But then someone asked Franklin about Notre Dame not being in a conference or uniformity

04:44in college football.

04:46And here's where Franklin got on his soapbox and went after, I'd say went after, but said

04:51some things about the Irish.

04:52I think it should be consistent across college football.

04:56I think, again, this is no knock at coach or Notre Dame, but I think everybody should

05:02be in a conference.

05:04I think everybody should play a conference championship game or no one should play a

05:08conference championship game.

05:11I think everybody should play the same number of conference games.

05:14Yeah, whatever.

05:16Who cares what he thinks?

05:17Listen, he doesn't seem to understand how much Gucci Notre Dame has in the world of

05:22college football.

05:24And they've had it since before Christ.

05:26And Penn State's never mattered.

05:28I mean, they've won a couple titles, but they've never mattered like Notre Dame has.

05:32And anybody that knows anything about anything knows that's true, too.

05:35Penn State don't matter when it comes to putting them up against Notre Dame.

05:39You can sit here all day and argue until you're blue in the face.

05:41All you people that send your kids to school there in the East Coast, I mean, who doesn't

05:45have a kid at Penn State, right?

05:47I know five people right now that have kids at Penn State.

05:50Everybody goes to Penn State.

05:51Well, that's because they couldn't get into Notre Dame.

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