How Notre Dame plans to move forward after heartbreaking loss
During his weekly press conference Monday, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman started a thought about the aftermath of last year’s loss to Ohio State. The question was about how he’d make sure the response this time around is better than it was in 2022, when the Irish lost to Marshall at home a week later.
“You lose to Ohio State, then you lose to Marshall, you don’t know…” Freeman trailed off. He paused.
“You never know. You just don’t.”
By his own admission, Freeman’s mind was “all over the place” after the Marshall loss, which is more comparable to Saturday’s last-second defeat in terms of just how much it hurts.
There’s no panic from Freeman, a much more seasoned coach in Year 2, or anyone in the Irish Athletic Center this time around. But there is a sense of urgency to fix what went wrong. And what went wrong, Freeman said, was that Notre Dame made too many mistakes and did not play to its full potential while the Buckeyes escaped South Bend with a dramatic victory.
A certain level of pain, Freeman believes, is necessary.
“I want every person on our team to take this loss personally,” Freeman said. “It hurts you physically, you’re sick when you lose. But in the midst of that pain, you gotta own it. And you gotta face it, you gotta attack it, you gotta go back to work.”
The second-year head coach met with his team at 2:40 p.m. ET on Monday. Before he addressed reporters at noon, had already met with a couple of players, though he didn’t say whom.
In those meetings, Freeman implied his players — and coaches, for that matter — shouldn’t expect much consoling. That part of the process is over.
“You gotta pick your head up,” Freeman said. “And you can’t feel sorry for yourself. And you can’t hope that somebody pats you on the back and says it’s gonna be okay.”
Freeman has a phrase: “Choose hard.” It’s up to Notre Dame to choose the hard way, no matter how painful it is, and face what cost them the game head-on. That includes watching film and reliving the events of the final drive.
“We have to face the mistakes that we make and truly own it,” Freeman said. “And it is so hard to do. But we have to do it, and resilient people and people of character do that, especially during tough times.”
Freeman was angry when he woke up Sunday morning. It wasn’t for the same emotion he was feeling last year, or at least it wasn’t the most prominent one.
After another upset loss to Stanford, Freeman was “still trying to figure this thing out” with the 2022 team and with himself as a head coach. This year, he believes he knows exactly what his team is. And he believes that team’s ceiling is remarkably high.
It’s his and his staff’s job as coaches, he said, to get the most out of their players and help them reach that ceiling.
“We have to get back to work,” Freeman said. “We’ll meet with our players [Monday afternoon] and get back to work and attack some of those issues that we’ve had. And we’ve got to get back to work and prepare for a really good Duke team.”
The road to redemption starts in Durham, N.C. Freeman knows if the Irish take the “bury the tape” route and try to wash Ohio State out of their minds, they could meet the same fate in Week 5.
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