Notre Dame football will return to the field this weekend to face Texas A&M on Saturday night, as with that the schedule has returned with head coach Marcus Freeman speaking to the media on Monday afternoon.
The Irish head coach touched on many aspects of his team, as they prepare to take on the Aggies in the 2025 home opener. Without having a game this past weekend, Notre Dame had a much different style of practice, as they went more good on good, as the team needed the reps to stay fresh.
Freeman ended up speaking for about 30 minutes today, and here are my takeaways from what he said as the Irish prepare for the Aggies.
Disappointment for everyone
After the game two Sunday’s ago, everyone in Irish Nation was disappointed with the result, and you knew it was happening inside the program as well. Freeman noted that when you put the work ing and don’t get the desired outcome, “it hurts.” He mentioned sleepless nights, potential off of appetite but “what you have to do is turn that frustration into work, we did.” You had to know that this was where Notre Dame was headed, especially after Freeman’s post-game speech was shared on social media.
Issues Freeman saw against Miami
We all played armchair head coach after the loss to the Hurricanes, but Freeman laid it out pretty clearly the issues which glared in the defeat. He said that takeaways, ball handling, tackling, third down on both sides and the two minutes at the end of the halves hurt. Freeman knows that they didn’t execute well, and wants the team to start off faster. The final drive clearly still bothered him, as he said it “was not a lack of effort, it was a lack of execution… they finished the game better than we did.”
Have to tackle better in the box
Freeman said tackles missed were in the box, but the team couldn’t have live tackling in practice due to safety of team, but “we have to be intentional about finding ways to tackle.” It was a bit unusual Notre Dame to have missed so many against Miami, which could have been part of adjusting to Chris Ash’s scheme over Al Goldens. It was a bit odd that Freeman suggested that the team could use equipment or even other people to help with tackling. However, the main goal was pretty clear for him, the Irish’s execution has to be better.
CJ Carr has to be better with RPO decisions, but showed he’s ready
We all know that CJ Carr won’t be a finished product for a while, and it was nice to hear from Freeman that he “can execute the entire game-plan and playbook.” What might change is the decision making with his Run-Pass options, as the coaching staff is looking to simplify that aspect. There is potential to take out the read aspect from these plays, and just instruct Carr what to do, but that could take away the numbers advantage the Irish could have. It’ll be interesting to see how the coaching staff approaches it, as they “were very intentional about trying to put the ball in J-Love’s (Jeremiyah Love’s) hands,” but didn’t work out the way it was supposed to. The good news is that Freeman believes that Carr is ready to have full reigns of the Notre Dame offense.
Offensive line issues against Miami
The Irish offensive line struggled against Miami, and Freeman thinks they played well, but “the standard is to play higher,” than what we saw. He did give credit to the Hurricanes defensive line, but one game won’t define this unit. Freeman is “confident in that group as anyone on our team, they’ll be fine.” I tend to think so as well, it just happened that the majority of them didn’t play well all at the same time.
On Texas A&M
When you face a team in consecutive seasons, you have a general idea of who the opposing is personnel wise, but that might not be the case this weekend. Freeman said that the Aggies “aren’t the same team we saw last year, core principles still there,” so there is some familiarity with the opponent. He respects their program, but isn’t “concerned with conference, just opponent,” as the SEC has multiple teams ranked inside the top-25. “It’s a chance for us to see how good we are against a good opponent.. we get to see how much we’ve improved from the start of the season till now,” as Freeman put it, and it should be another great test for Notre Dame on Saturday night.
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