Notre Dame introduced its new 35-year old head coach Marcus Freeman on Monday afternoon to an assembled crowd inside the indoor practice facility. Exactly 11 months ago Andy wrote an article for this website announcing the hiring of Freeman as defensive coordinator in a battle with LSU that many thought the Irish would lose. Then, Brian Kelly booked a flight for Baton Rouge and here we stand today with Freeman thrust into the head coaching spotlight.
Freeman opened his remarks mentioning that success can never be up to one person while pointing to the special nature of the people at Notre Dame and citing that the players are “exceptional thinkers” committed to excellence. After a brief biographical piece as the son of an Air Force veteran father and Korean mother, Freeman outlined what he called his “golden standard” featuring 3 topics:
1) Challenge Everything – “This is why I’m here…challenge everything is a mentality to find a better way.”
2) Unit Strength – “Unit strength means love…it’s what turns players into teammates.”
3) Competitive Spirit – “Winners are created through intentional actions.”
Freeman then highlighted his family and their sacrifices, especially his wife Joanna. Editor’s note: They’ve been married since 2010 when Freeman was a grad assistant at Ohio State following his brief NFL career and their 6 children are named: Vinny, Gino, Rocco, Siena, Capri, and Nico.
During questions with the media it was hard not to sense a recurring theme: Recruiting. Here are all of the soundbites Freeman mentioned with recruiting:
“I think it starts with we’re going to recruit at the highest level and we’re going to recruit the best football players in the country that fit Notre Dame. And you’re not going to change the standards of Notre Dame, but there are certain players out there that fit Notre Dame and they might not know. So our job as a coaching staff is to be able to communicate with these young people what Notre Dame can do for your life, and that’s what I plan on doing.”
***
[On hiring assistants]:
“Number one, you have to be a leader of young men. You have to treat these guys the way I believe you have to treat young people. Number two, you’ve got to be a relentless recruiter. If you can’t recruit, you probably aren’t going to be the best for our university and our team.”
***
“I’d better be the number one recruiter. I’d better be the lead recruiter in every kid that we recruit, and I plan on doing it. We obviously have to depend on our staff, and I will depend on our staff to make sure we know who and what and why we’re recruiting every individual. If I’m not the lead recruiter, then we’re cheating.”
***
“Well, I think it’s the ability to communicate with the best players in the country that this place is special, and that’s what — people keep saying what’s the difference? What do you understand about this place now that you’re here? It’s just that whatever these — maybe at 16 or 17, when I was a recruit, I was looking for, hey, where can I go win a National Championship? If that’s all you’re looking for, you can look right here at Notre Dame because we’ve been in the playoffs two of the last three years.
But it’s the ability to show these young people, get their minds to think past football. Get their minds to think whatever that point is, as these guys will tell you, whatever that point is when you’re done playing — it could be after your senior year. It could be one year in the NFL. It could be ten years in the NFL. The minute you’re done playing, that’s to me where the value of Notre Dame really shows itself.
And that’s what we’ve got to be able to do is to get these young people that are the best players in the country that fit Notre Dame to understand there is no better option for you.”
It’s a breath of fresh air isn’t it? Last January, shortly before Marcus Freeman was hired as defensive coordinator, I wrote a program assessment article that detailed the need to improve in recruiting. While there was some pushback the truth is now on full blast and everyone seems to agree–Notre Dame didn’t have a great recruiter at head coach and believes this is a major program strength now.
This is exciting because a great recruiter at head coach can quite literally speak roster improvement into existence. You still have to be excellent in targeting the right players and finding hidden gems but in this day and age Notre Dame needs to be led strongly from the top man.
Still, let’s not forget the immense challenge ahead of Freeman. Recruiting alone won’t appreciably change the fortunes of the Irish, and even improvements in this area will be a daily challenge with so many high-achieving programs like Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, and others.
It’ll be fascinating to see this tenure unfold. Today, the spirits are incredibly high and the fans are about as unified as I’ve ever seen since the early 1990’s. With that brings a lot of pressure that will come sooner rather than later. In fact, an 0-2 start to his career on the field isn’t far fetched at all. For all the bravado about recruiting it’s still about taking that aspect and continuing to win games–and as Freeman mentioned pushing toward winning that 12th National Championship.
Extra Notes
- No new coaches for the bowl game, they’re moving forward with the staff they have now.
- No decision on DC for 2022 yet.
- Freeman hasn’t decided if he’ll call plays on defense during the bowl game.
- He’s not looking for a certain scheme on offense but keeping Rees was without question.
- Kyle Hamilton has not told him if he’ll play if he’s healthy.
Thankfully with current recruiting rankings people will generally be able to see an improvement in recruiting even if it’ll take 2+ years to make a difference on the field. In the meantime, he and the coordinators are going to have to continue coaching well to keep winning games – esp. with some tough schedules ahead (OSU + Clemson together two years in a row + now an improved USC). Winning 10 games is not going to be as easy as it was this year.
Was Freeman speaking hyperbolically? What does it mean for him to be a lead recruiter on every recruit? That doesn’t really seem possible – though I appreciate the sentiment.
With time management there’s only so many hours in the day. But I think it’s safe to say Freeman will at least be the equal of Riley and Day in terms of effort and dedication of an HC in recruiting. Those guys seemingly focus on the very elite players and establish great relationships and it has worked. Proof is in all the QB’s and WR’s that Day has pulled and we’ve seen all the players decommitting from OU, if not outright following Riley to USC.
Freeman wrote this for the Players Tribune which is most definitely worth a read:
https://www.theplayerstribune.com/posts/marcus-freeman-notre-dame-college-football
That’s a fantastic read. Never seen that website before. Thanks for sharing.
It’s a cool website, the stories are (almost?) always ghost written after an interview with the subject, but you get really cool stories out of some players allowing them editorial control over the articles.
I read the Denard Robinson article and was shocked at his eloquence. It’s funny I didn’t even think about ghost writers.
Well, I guess maybe something good came out of Ty’s years if it left Freeman with a good impression of the school.
What do we think Freeman’s ceiling is for recruiting? Kelly had a stated desire to get top-5 classes but under Kelly 2.0 247 had the class rankings at: 10, 10, 15, 18, 9 for 2017-21.
2022 is currently 5th, and seemingly mainly because of the Freeman boost to add players who we know 100% would not be coming to Notre Dame otherwise without his presence (Sneed, Ford, etc). It’s early in 2023 but ND is 2nd with the top four recruits all on the defensive side and obviously a healthy Freeman impact there.
Can Freeman compete with the football factories that get like 23+ commits year in and year out and then see attrition and churn through a lot of players? That’s not the Notre Dame way. It looks clear that from 2022 & ’23 results that Freeman has shown he can and will bring in more talent than Kelly, but it will be interesting to see just where he can take it. And for the love of God finally sign and see a 1st round talent developed at QB to really send the program to the moon.
You’re right that our numbers will never be that high in multiple classes back-to-back-to-back. The thing to watch out for is the average recruit for the class. Basically, I think we’ll know it’s successful if and hopefully when the average recruit score for the entire class is (hopefully notably) over .92. Until this class it has basically hovered around .90 for the last seven years or so.
Right now the 2022 class is .915, but with a 2-star punter dragging down the average. I think this level of a class for four straight years is a bare minimum that you need to realistically think you could win multiple playoff games (absent an otherworldly quarterback, which is not on the roster and is not in this recruiting class), but really we probably need to do better than this.
Good point on the avg. I don’t have the time to check it right now, but that would be a real area to improve on, and one like you mention probably will noticeably bump up under Freeman.
Call me crazy optimistic but I bet .92 will do the trick to make ND competitive against anyone, with the huge caveat that you touched on that they have to get future 1st round quarterbacks. That’s really the kicker at this point. My hopes are very high that Freeman/Rees will close the deal on an elite 2023 QB like Dante Moore. If they pull Moore+Carnell Tate, which seems quite plausible right now, things will really be looking up on the skill player front.
.92 seemingly would put us just below those elite recruiting teams, but much closer to them. Certainly coupled with 1st round QB’s would be plenty. I think our recruiting now with 1st round QB’s would make us competitive but it’s *really* hard to get that kind of QB (even if you are getting a 5* QB EVERY YEAR). Clemson’s run on QB’s is insane.
Yes, that is the tough part. A change in mentality is needed, I saw this quote from Ryan Day talking about his philosophy and it pretty much is what Notre Dame needs to adopt:
Especially if Notre Dame can’t be involved in transfer portal until players graduate, there’s even more of a priority to be bringing in the raw material every single year and be willing to have a good QB leave if he can’t find the field. That way they make sure they can hit on a star caliber QB just based on the numbers games.
ND hasn’t really been aggressive enough at over-recruiting QB like USC and tOSU have done lately. I would expect that changes in short order under Freeman.
Ah, yes. The good old days when we used to debate if we should recruit a QB every year.
Totally agree. Also, specifically, we also appear to have blown it on not offering Drew Allar early enough, thinking Angeli was better. [EDIT: should read all the comments; defer to Brendan on the inside info about Allar not coming.]
I know there’s plenty of excitement around Rees staying, and I enjoyed the video of him announcing it, but: his QB recruiting has been pretty bad thus far.
That’ll be the most interesting aspect of Freeman improving recruiting. Will he be a big part in convincing Dante Moore’s of the world to come? If so, then the bad QB recruiting maybe can’t be put all on Rees’s doorstep since he’s doing it (presumably) without much help from the head coach.
Either way, we need to improve QB recruiting; no more middle of the road 3 stars. The baseline should be top 100 recruit at QB every year.
FYI: Brendan R. above said Allar was never coming no matter what.
Quinn Ewers in the portal. Let’s goooo
Yea, that would be nice. Thought I saw that Texas has the leg up on him. I think that’s where he’s from.
This is why not taking undergrad transfers is going to hurt us (and do so most at QB).
We don’t exactly take middle of the road 3 star QBs. Since 2011, we have only taken two 3 stars, Book and Clark.
2011 – Golson – 4* #275 composite player
2012 – Kiel – 5* #27
2013 – Zaire – 4* #168
2014 – Kizer – 4* #232
2015 – Wimbush – 4* #45
2016 – Book – 3* #519
2017 – Davis – 4* #254
2018 – Jurkovec – 4* #83
2019 – Clark – 3* #522
2020 – Pyne – 4* #225
2021 – Buchner – 4* #70
2022 – Angeli – 4* #239
We do take mostly middle of the road 4 star QBs. Only 4 top 100 QBs (all transferred other than Buchner).
Great data. I still do think there’s room to improve off of that. They need to be recruiting like #1-20 overall QBs and get in that realm. If that doesn’t line up, ideally at least “settle” for bringing in a Jurkovec/Buchner level QB every year. That’s a lot of work to make it happen, but that’s the grind.
That pretty much is or is what the elite (Clemson, Bama, tOSU and now USC) are doing.
Sometimes that might not line up depending on that year’s crop, but you have a 2017-20 run like above and miss on the “plan” (i.e. Jurkovec) and that’s how you end up with a grad transfer in 2021.
TBH, players like Kizer, Book and Clark/Pyne require too much time and development, and some never make it to starting caliber. (Some can be good!) The “aisle you want to be shopping in” if you want to win a national title is going to be a bit more premium than that.
And Buchner. Buchner is not the answer for right now. He might be the answer by mid-season next year.
We need Buchner to have a Kizer-like jump over the summer (only it’ll be earlier in his career to make that jump).
Ehh, maybe, maybe not. I’m not ready to go that far. From the Stroud/Young school of thought, let’s see how year 2 goes. All the circumstances that conspired against Buchner in his HS career might mean you’re right, but like IC says, let’s see how the next off-season goes I’m optimistic enough that Buchner has the talent to make a step forward.
Am I crazy for thinking that all is pretty not-good QB recruiting basically all decade (but particularly since Rees became QB coach, which is the last four names)? I would think QB should maybe be the #3 recruiting position for ND after OL and TE, if not #2.
Anyways, not to reveal pay info, but Irish Illustrated did an analysis of Angeli the other day and it was not particularly kind. Usually they’re very cheery so I take that as a bad sign.
Yeah, not to be disparaging but let’s look at Clemson:
2022: Cade Klubnik #20
2021: Bubba Chandler #388 (signed with Pirates, probably under-rated for being a dual sport and not focusing on football, higher ceiling than that)
2020: DJ U. #10
2019: Taisun P. #288 (probably a Trevor penalty)
2018: Trevor Lawrence #1
2017: Hunter Johnson #30
2016: Zerrick Cooper #235
2015: Kelly Bryant #420
2014: Deshaun Watson #42
2013: none
2012: Chad Kelly #195 (lol)
2011: Tony McNeal #404
That’s a “heck of a run” to have so many hits, and they probably had good fortune to develop Bryant as a good college QB to be a bridge to Lawrence. But that’s also five top 50 QB’s in a nine year stretch from 2014-22.
They’re kinda one year on, one year off, but it’s a lot easier to do that when you’re getting the tippy top elite who are locking down the job and scaring the competition away in the next year’s class.
Rees seems to be basically at the same level as before. Hard to say which QBs really fall under him. He’s been QB coach since 2017, but wasn’t he a GA before? So does he get any credit for Jurkovec?
Without looking at other teams. I imagine this is top 10 QB recruiting, certainly not top 5. Much like our recruiting overall.
I would call it not-great, but do think it is good. I’ll try to look up a few other teams outside the obviously way better of OU, Clem, Bama, and tOSU.
Apparently he wasn’t a GA. He went straight to QB coach. So presumably he wasn’t involved with too much of Jurkovec. So slightly worse, I guess.
QB ranks by year (2022, 2021, 2020, 2019)
USC – X, #69, X, #705
aTm – #21, #171, #131, X
PSU – #72, #450, #420, #274
Texas – #162, #897, #59, #237
Oregon – X, #40, #290, X
UM – #439, #25, X, #268
LSU – #32, #84, #253, #313
Ole Miss – X, #193, 3*, #350
UF – #144, #146, #204, #306
da U – #283, #48, #222, 3*
FSU – #108, X, #192, X
aTm, LSU, UF pretty clearly ahead of us over the past 4 classes. The rest similar or inconsistent.
So yeah, probably around the 8th best QB recruiting in the country. Good, not great.
I guess my point is that if ND is a top-10 program (as it is right now), I would expect its QB recruiting to be top-3 or top-5. Instead, if anything, it’s underperforming the program’s level.
Why? That doesn’t make sense to me. Our QB recruiting is pretty much right in line with both our performance on the field and general recruiting.
The top 4 teams plus OU are the top 5 in QB recruiting. That seems logical to me.
It needs to improve if we want to be a top 5 team, but so does the rest of our recruiting (which has defensively at least).
Here are the top 5
UGA – #62, #17, #250, #311
Bama – #23, #82, #2, #180
Clem – #20, #388, #10, #216
tOSU – #52, #1, #42, (Fields transfer)
OU – X, #7, #448, #11
Yea that does not seem particularly impressive QB recruiting and is it just bad luck that the top 100 recruits were “stuck” behind someone and so transferred? I thought Kiel went on and was pretty good and Jurkovec would definitely be a decent starting QB for us at least I would think.
With the last 4 names why do 3 of them seem to be in the image of Rees? Clark and Pyne seem to be under talented but smart QBs. Is that a trend or just a coincidence or just bad decision on who to take?
Obviously this all looks different if Buchner pans out and Dante Moore signs in 2023.
Yea i didn’t mean to say that we always take 3 star but only that we should never be taking them with improved recruiting.
The absolute only situation to take a 3 star is when they took a 5 star the year before who has the job on lock down. Can’t wait for that day.
Our only 3 stars did come the years after our 2nd and 4th highest rated QBs.
HOLD UP: Avery Davis used to play QB!?!
QB might be the position where we are hurt the most by not taking undergrad transfers.
Hopefully we can start to bring in a top 10 QB every year. But even then…sometimes you need a transfer if you want to make it to the playoffs everywhere.
Yea I think we’ve always hovered around .900 and so bumping up to .92 would actually be a pretty big bump but put us right there (though just below) those other top programs. It’d probably put us closer to top 6 (class) most years.
Actually our average class size from 2018-21 is exactly 22.8; we have 22 in the 2022 class and will likely end up with 24 or 25, which would push the 2018-22 average class size to or just over 23. I’d have a hard time handicapping who the last few guys will be, but I do think that’s where we’ll be in February. Going forward I would expect us to land classes in that range unless an unexpected number of guys stay.
The 2022 class average recruit score is .9212 not including the punter, which would be the second highest class average (excluding specialists in all cases) since 2010 for the Irish. It’s currently sandwiched by the 2013 class at .9231 (top heavy, with Jaylon, Redfield, and Bryant) and the 2012 class (Kiel and Neal, and “helped” by being just 16 kids).
The 2012 and 2013 classes were, of course, big drivers of the playoff-if-not-for-BVG 2015 team. Not a coincidence.
We see what Freeman has done for the 2022 and 2023 defensive classes; I would expect him to drive similar results on the offensive side now. In the 2022 class, I think we would’ve had a real shot at WR Kevin Coleman (#33) and would likely would’ve had WR Kaden Saunders (#56) if Freeman had been running things. I’m not sure what else might’ve changed but either or both of those would be huge additions. (Contrary to popular belief, Allar wasn’t coming no matter what, based on extremely trustworthy info we heard a while back.)
Dante Moore, Carnell Tate, Jalen Brown, Duce Robinson, Justice Haynes, Jackson Arnold, Jaxson Brown, Chris Vizzina… All top 100 2023 guys we will very much have a shot at. We’re not going to land all of them, obviously, but I have more confident that Freeman’s operation will net us a few.
This sounds like you just wrote an article for “Brendan’s (way-too-early) projections for the ND 2023 class”. We’ll hold you to these predictions and bring them up again in a year near signing day
Whoops.
I’m one of the guys that banged heads with you last year on recruiting. My main point back then was that I thought ND had just about reached their ceiling with recruiting. But, after the last 11 months Freeman has changed my mind on that. I’ve called him the “pied piper” a few times in the past week but, I in no way mean he’s selling a bill of goods. He’s a great salesman because he believes he has a great product to sell. That product is the sum of all that is ND football. The school, the program, the coaches and staff, the alumni network, etc. When you add it all up, Freeman has a unique product to sell to recruits. I’m so excited to see where he leads this team.
Yeah, Freeman changes everything on its head because his attitude and effort on the recruiting trail is so drastically different from Kelly.
Last year from the linked article I wrote:
This has changed instantly and in a big, big way. For 2023, Notre Dame has been heavily recruiting three of the top 10 alone (Sonny Styles, Kaidyn Proctor, Dante Moore). They have three top 100 already committed (all Freeman defensive players). Of the top 50 players, at least 13 names are names I recognize for ND being involved with and/or having on campus already.
That’s the biggest perk of Freeman is he undeniably is showing and getting a ton more interest from top 100 players than Kelly ever did. That is what you need to win playoff games is not just 1-2 Hamilton’s or Mayer’s on the field at the same time but like 4-5-6 of that level of players all out there together.
It’s likely that Kelly banged his head on the ceiling for recruiting. What was needed to improve was someone who would live and breathe it from the HC position, and Kelly was never going to do that. He brought in Marcus to do it for him. Kelly’s gamble (and it might be a good one, since he just hired the HC from McNeese State to be his associate HC, a guy that has worked at LSU and knows the state inside and out) is that he can be the CEO and have his assts do the recruiting work because it’s Louisiana and they produce 10 5-stars a year and you’re going to get 7 of them at least by default.
Freeman will put in the work to get kids to ND, and I REALLY like the way he frames it, that there are plenty of top recruits who ARE ND kids, they just don’t know it yet. That’s what recruiting is. Kelly talked all the time about having to “shop down a different aisle,” focusing on the limitations. I want to see Freeman shove that down Kelly’s throat.
Plus one for the last paragraph. Specifically the last sentence.
In the 247 – 2022 class top 35 (5stars), there are zero kids from La. and none of the top 35 have committed to LSU or are projected to. The top player from La. is ranked #55 (LSU). Quick look there are 6 more in the top 100. Yes, most leaning to LSU. ND has 5 top 100 committed.
Are you using the composite #’s?
For 2022, 247 composite has 3 5 stars in La. and 2 of the 3 are already committed to LSU and the 3rd LSU is in battle with A&M.
And there are 2 other top 100 prospects from La. that are CBed to LSU.
And that is compared to ND’s 1 5 star. And 1 other top 100 prospect (who may leave). And this is one of ND’s best class in awhile.
No, used the 247 rankings.
But that’s not even right for the 247 rankings. Pretty sure that when I looked earlier there is only 4 top 100 players committed to ND right now based on 247 rankings. Though I don’t know where there is a list.
And either way you are comparing LSU’s home state to ALL of ND’s recruits. That’s not a fair comparison – but EVEN THEN LSU comes out in a better position (as I noted above).
This post cracks me up. My numbers are correct. You don’t know how to find it ? How about search “247 top 100”. (Sneed, Rairdon, Burnham, Williams, Merriweather) You might want to have your facts right before you correct someone else’s.
Secondly , you didn’t get the point of my post. it was in response to another post saying LSU would recruit 7 homebread 5 stars…let’s keep it on the rails. They won’t and there aren’t 10-5 stars in La., Though there are certainly a lot of outstanding football players.
Fun fact, right now 247comp. has ND with 8 players in the top 150 and LSU with 4.
I said I didn’t find a list. But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t access the information. I just had to click on each of the players info. But I did miss Rairdon because (Wow) he is way different in 247 composite score. So my bad on that one.
I’m not sure why you aren’t using 247 composite since that seems the standard.
I think KG was speaking hyperbolically. There are only 30ish 5 stars every year. I don’t think KG thinks that 1/3 of those come of La.
From the state of La.
2022 – 8 top 100 players (6 committed or CBed to LSU)
2021 – 4 top 100 players (all to LSU)
2020 – 4 top 100 players (3 to LSU)
2019 – 4 top 100 players (3 to LSU)
ND TOTAL # of top 100 players
2022 – 2
2021 – 3
2020 – 4
2019 – 2
So LSU has more top 100 players in La. commit to them than ND has commit to them from the whole country.
Yea, though ND’s recruiting top players is over and for the SEC schools a lot comes down to the end. There are 4 players in the top 100 that seem destined to commit to LSU. And they still have interest even from outside of those 4.
If all 4 of those do commit to LSU, they will have a total of 6 top 100 players to our 2.
“But, I came here for an argument”…
“I’m sorry, this is getting hit on the head lessons”
And Indiana has 3 top 100 players. Who are going to Kentucky, IU, and not ND. Not exactly fertile recruiting ground.
What did everyone think of his response about offense? Basically “I support Coach Rees and what he’s been doing”. I feel like I would have appreciated him having a more thorough answer about their shared vision for the future of the offense, but maybe they haven’t had time to talk about that yet.
If the offense that Tommy ran for the second half of the season is the one he plans to run going forward, I have no complaints!
We will see shortly if the offense changed much, or if the meaningful change was the defenses we played. Let’s hope it’s the former.
The offense has changed meaningfully. We’re attacking the edges much more often. Now the results might only be because we’re playing weaker defenses. But we are absolutely attacking defenses differently than we were to start the season. For example, we only had 1 WR carry through the first 6 games. That’s obviously changed.
I think this is basically correct. Let Rees fly a little bit and see if he can get a little closer to the ceiling that people think he has. If Rees left who do you replace him with that’s either an immediate upgrade or has a perceived higher ceiling? You know, assuming that you can’t have Lincoln Riley or Sean McVay as your replacement OC.
The hot OCs that aren’t necessarily up for HC jobs are mostly under offensive thinking head coaches. Phil Longo, Zach Kittley, Warren Ruggiero? I’d rather roll the dice with Tommy.
Yeah, I think it is really incumbent that Notre Dame needs Rees next year. They wanted the continuity and they know Rees and he knows them. That comfort level is there which will help Freeman in Year 1. Could be too much noise and to hire an external OC that doesn’t have a ND connection or a Freeman connection and may not work. Especially since Freeman is completely inexperienced as an HC, this isn’t the time for a brand new and foreign OC.
I don’t really have a problem that Freeman isn’t going to state a specific offensive philosophy today. I think that will be Rees’ job to develop and have some autonomy there. Which I’m fine with, offense details aren’t Freeman’s strengths, he needs to lean on Rees and focus more on the big picture. Freeman needs to manage/CEO the offense, not be down in the trenches with specifics 4 days into the job. I’m glad and impressed he is not pretending to “know what he doesn’t know” at this point or BS an answer. (Always goes back to being genuine/authentic)….
I could see how those who aren’t very Rees friendly might have reservations about this course, and it is a risk so we’ll see. But I’m pretty comfortable and confident in Tommy, he is a smart football mind and typically a good OC.
I’m with you on this. Also important in keeping Rees is having a coordinator who already is steeped in the culture of the program. There would be a bigger risk in losing that culture bringing in a new OC at this point (where it would not be the same risk in a few years).
As an aside I wonder what Rees’ ambitions are. Will he lean towards taking a decent head coaching position at some point or perhaps lean a little more to, like Brent Venables, sticking with a place that he likes as a coordinator for a lot longer (it helps that he’s young).
We’ve seen with Kelly that good coordinators can make or break a head coach and so keeping good coordinators longer than one “should” (or normally does) is a great benefit – like Clemson and Venables. That’s probably the most amazing thing about Bama – how many coordinators have they gone through in this dynasty and yet they are always amazing??? I would certainly expect, e.g., Clemson to take a step back on defense with whoever they hire next.
I don’t even think having a set offensive philosophy is a great idea. NDN’s fever dream ideal of a coach, Bob Stoops, was more pass happy than Kelly ever was when he didn’t have a workhorse back. His first OC was Mike Leach! Literally the only times he tilted run-heavy were when he had Adrian Peterson and Demarco Murray. Go figure…
Tulane fans are not at all sorry to see Chip Long head off to Georgia Tech. The Georgia Tech SBN site did an interview with their Tulane counterparts, who had this to say:
That was part of what did him in at ND too (also that he was a giant ass, but that’s another story). Meanwhile, Saban has flipped his offensive philosophy from traditional pro set to full-on spread. You have to adapt to your personnel and to the times, otherwise you become Stanford.
Good points, but regarding Stanford, I was under the impression that they went with the 4 TE offense with an additional/sixth OL as a way to go against the grain and to accentuate their recruiting strength. As defenses got faster and smaller to combat the spread, Shaw would have an advantage playing a huge (but slow) lineup
Sure you recruit to what you most want to do but, then you scheme to the personnel you have. The better recruiting you do, the easier to do what you’d prefer. Certainly the offense will be different next year, with a new QB.
You’re 35 years old, a week ago you found out that you suddenly didn’t have a boss or a job, then 4 days later you’re suddenly the HC, and a few days after that you’re being introduced and having to speak to the media. I’m going to give him a pass on not having a “well we want to run this style of offense with this packages, etc.” answer. Do what works. I appreciate that he doesn’t care. The WORST thing a DC promoted to HC can do is force a “ball control, run clock” offense on an OC in order to protect his defense. Last year Aranda did that and Baylor was butt. This year he brought in a new OC with a completely different offense and they’re Big12 champs.
Polian headed to LSU. Since we thought he was headed for Lafayette anyway then, you know, go for it.
I’d call Polian an above average recruiter and a below average on field coach who has a bizarre obsession with both punt-safe and simultaneously not covering all the eligible receivers on punt plays.
Just to be clear thought, he was supposedly heading to the Lafayette in Pennsylvania, not the one in Louisiana.
Correct. Makes sense to take an SEC job instead of FCS, maybe in a year or two Polian can at least get a MAC HC spot or something.
I’m kinda surprised that Polian is the most loyal guy in the world, it seems like on the sideline he’s the only one Kelly bitches out anymore. Which probably isn’t entirely accurate but just seemed like poor Polian was always the one getting Kelly’s wrath.
I wish Polian well — he seemed to put in a lot of effort with recruiting (lots of trips to CA and HI) and he took special teams seriously (even though he had a rep for fair catches)
Polian also was consistently ripped when he worked for Weis. Guess he’s just a guy who responds to that!
Everyone needs a good punching bag and he just looks happy to be involved!
Is his wife Sicilian? Those are the most Italian sounding kids of all time. Is she the real reason ND hired Freeman? Did she make Jack an offer he couldn’t refuse?
In Fiesta Bowl news, Okie Lite lost their DC–he was hired by Ohio State.
Good for the bowl game. Bad for next year’s 1st game.
Believe he’s staying to coach Okie lite for the bowl game
Hard not to believe it won’t affect him somehow – even though I realize this is somewhat common.
They still haven’t fired resident psychopath Kerry Coombs, so I’m curious what the plan is for the Rose Bowl. Also whether this indicates Ryan Day is less likely to jump for the NFL this year.
2022 #1 TE Jake Johnson just decommitted from LSU (his starting QB brother Max entered portal).
Any word on where they might be heading? Would be nice pickups? I know, I know, no non-grad transfers….
Sons of former FSU QB Brad Johnson and from UGA territory. FSU people think they have the inside track, but I think they’re pretty certain to remain in the south.