Marcus Freeman Is Entering The Show Me Season For Notre Dame Coaches

Notre Dame fans are well aware of the "Year Three" success of past head coaches, and that is the period that current head coach Marcus Freeman is entering. It is a show me season that has been predictive of what direction a head coach's tenure would go, and this is Freeman's chance to either vault the program forward, or take a step back.

Knute Rockne's historic tenure ended tragically after the 1930 season. Since that time Notre Dame has hired 16 full-time head coaches (including George O'Leary). Only six of those coaches finished with a .700 win percentage after coaching more than one season. Four won national titles, another had a runner up season, and the sixth was a loss to USC in the season finale from winning a title himself.

The other 10 coaches largely failed, and only one (Terry Brennan) had a win percentage higher than .583.

Year three was quite predictive for those coaches.

Frank Leahy went 15-2-3 in his first two seasons, but in season three (1943) he led the Irish to a national championship. It was the first of four titles for Leahy, who owns the all-time Notre Dame record for national championships.

Ara Parseghian went 16-3-1 in his first two seasons before leading the Irish to a national championship in his third season (1966). It was the first of two national titles for the Hall of Fame coach.

After Parseghian retired he was replaced by Dan Devine, who went just 17-6 in his first two seasons, and the Irish didn't finish higher than 12th in the polls in either season. Year three (1977) ended with a national championship after the Irish blasted then No. 1 Texas (38-10) in the Cotton Bowl.

Lou Holtz went just 13-10 in his first two seasons at Notre Dame, but the Irish put together a perfect season in 1988, winning the program's 11th - and most recent - national championship.

Brian Kelly and Elmer Layden failed to win titles, but they were hands down the two best coaches to not win a title at Notre Dame. Kelly went 16-10 in his first two seasons before leading the Irish to a 12-1 season in year three, which ended in a loss in the national title game. Layden led the Irish to a 6-2-1 record in his third season, which was a typical campaign for him.

Brennan started his career off quite well, going 17-3 with a pair of Top 10 finishes in his first two seasons. In year three the Irish went just 2-8, he never recovered and he was fired after his fifth season.

Bob Davie led Notre Dame to a 9-3 record in his second season, but he couldn't build on that momentum. The Irish went 5-7 in his third season as Davie showed what he would always be at Notre Dame. An inconsistent coach who couldn't get the program back on track.

Tyrone Willingham led the Irish to a 10-2 record in his first season, but the Irish went just 5-7 in year two. Willingham couldn't right the ship and he was fired after going 6-5 in year three.

Charlie Weis had one of the best starts of the coaches that didn't get it done at Notre Dame, going 19-6 in his first two seasons, with the Irish ranking 9th and 17th in the polls in his first two seasons. The Irish went just 3-9 in season three for Weis, and the Notre Dame alum couldn't recover, going 13-12 the next two seasons before being fired.

That brings us to Freeman, who has gone 19-7 in his first two seasons, with the Irish ranking 18th and 14th in the final polls in his two seasons. Freeman enters year three with a .704 win percentage (including the Fiesta Bowl in 2021), and a .731 win percentage in his first two full seasons. Which direction will Notre Dame go under Freeman? Can he build on his solid start and restore Notre Dame to glory, or will Notre Dame falter and Freeman's name gets added to the list of coaches who couldn't get it done?

Year three won't be the end all be all, but it will clearly give us a clue about who Freeman is and will be. So why does year three matter? Year three is the time when a head coach truly gets his DNA throughout the program. The majority of the players were either recruited by the current coach, or at least have only been coached by the current coach. It's when his culture becomes dominant, and when he shows how well he has adapted - or not - to the expectations at Notre Dame.

That means that a coach can't rely on the success of the previous coach, or in other instances he can't make excuses for the failures or struggles of the previous coach. It is how "his team," and the success - or struggles - are on him.

That's the period Freeman enters. This is when we truly start to see who he is as a head coach. Since he had so little experience coming into this position, Freeman will have had two seasons to work out some of the kinks that come with all coaches who are learning on the job. Freeman will show us that he's just not good enough to really take the program over the hump, or he'll prove that he has the chops and the Irish will take a big step towards being the program it is supposed to be.

The good news is that Notre Dame is certainly trending in the right direction. Freeman has shown success in his first two seasons, he's made strong coaching hires this offseason and the Irish are adding a lot of impressive talent to an already talented roster.

Now he gets a chance to truly show what he can do, because now it's truly his program.

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