Marcus Freeman vs Brian Kelly: Revisiting Notre Dame's Coaching Change

I argued that Marcus Freeman won the Brian Kelly coaching change the second that the clock hit zero against Penn State to clinch a national championship berth.

Plenty of Irish fans would've argued that Freeman won the moment that the locker room erupted when it found out that he was replacing Kelly after his stunning departure to LSU.

Four years later, now it looks like the timing couldn't have been better.

How Marcus Freeman and Brian Kelly Compare Four Years Later

Kelly also got the Irish to that same place that Freeman did at the end of the 2024 season - Kelly got the Irish to a national title game, too.

However, Freeman got there by beating a pair of elite teams in the College Football Playoff to give him more top-five victories than Kelly had in 12 years — Freeman has a 3-1 advantage vs. top-five foes.

But that's just the start of the comparisons.

a player's coach@Marcus_Freeman1 | #GoIrish pic.twitter.com/pf9E1OygA8
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) December 3, 2021

And to be clear, I'm acknowledging that Kelly getting fired at LSU was the ultimate nail in the coffin.

This isn't about comparing Freeman's time at Notre Dame to Kelly's time at LSU. That argument is boring when you consider that Kelly never got the Tigers to the College Football Playoff.

We're revisiting the discussion of Kelly's Notre Dame tenure compared to Freeman's.

Yes, Freeman only had 1/3 the time that Kelly had in South Bend, and he appears to be just hitting his stride.

Kelly has 70 more victories than Freeman, though the idea of the latter eclipsing that seems realistic when you consider that it would happen with an average of 8.8 wins over the next eight years (he averaged 10.8 wins through Year 4).

Of course, Freeman had the benefit of both the 12-team Playoff and possibly another expanded Playoff to rack up more victories. He also stands to benefit from that more than Kelly, who had that lone aforementioned victory vs. a top-five team during his tenure.

(If we really wanted to be critical, we'd mention that Kelly achieved that top-five victory by taking down a Clemson team that was without a COVID-sidelined Trevor Lawrence, and instead was led by DJ Uiagalelei, who lost to the Irish in double overtime ... okay, fine. Uiagalelei was magnificent in that.)

So let's focus on how much more proven Freeman is against the teams that matter.

There's already a top-10 victory discrepancy

In 12 years in South Bend, Kelly went 4-11 vs. AP Top 10 teams.

In four years in South Bend, Freeman went 5-6 vs. AP Top 10 teams (his fifth top-10 win came in that aforementioned Penn State game in Year 3).

And for what it's worth, that record includes the bowl game that Freeman coached against Oklahoma State just weeks after he took over for Kelly.

To recap, Freeman needed 1/4 the time to surpass Kelly in that perception-defining area. If you wanted to go back to the side-by-side of Kelly at LSU, he had 4 wins vs. AP Top 10 teams during his four years in Baton Rouge.

And just in case you were wondering about the record vs. AP Top 25 teams in their respective Notre Dame tenures, Kelly had a respectable 23-23 mark in those games while Freeman is a much more respectable 16-8.

It's not crazy to think that Freeman could match Kelly's total victories vs. AP Top 25 teams in half the time (that would mean beating seven more ranked teams by the end of 2027).

It's especially important context to remember that Kelly left Notre Dame for LSU to win a national title. He did so because, whether he admitted it or not, he didn't feel like Notre Dame was a place that could win a national title in this era of the sport.

While Freeman has yet to give the Irish its first national title since 1988 — his 2024 team certainly got closer to ending that drought than Kelly's 2012 team — it's hard to say we've seen his ceiling.

There's another underrated stat that's working in Freeman's favor

So much of handling a job like Notre Dame is dealing with sky-high expectations. You could argue that, for the most part, Kelly succeeded in that area and that he brought the program back to national relevance.

What's worth noting, however, is that Kelly started and finished as an AP Top 10 team just once. Freeman, in just four years, has already done that twice.

Why does that matter? In a sport with an eight-month offseason, expectations shape perception.

The national perception of Notre Dame for the majority of the 21st century is that it's consistently overhyped and that it can't get it done on the big stage.

The irony is that Notre Dame hasn't gotten a preseason No. 1 vote in the AP Poll in 20 years. There's a decent chance that this year ends that drought and Notre Dame gets at least one preseason No. 1 vote in the AP Poll for the first time since 2006.

Make of that what you will. I make of it that Freeman has earned the right to move past both Kelly and pre-Kelly era narratives about the program.

Some will make of it that Notre Dame is still in the same spot it was at under Kelly, and until it can be the last team standing, it's the same product but with different packaging.

There would be too much irony if the championship drought ended in 2026

As in, Freeman leads Notre Dame to a title while Kelly isn't a current head coach. Or rather, while Kelly is working as a consultant in an off-field role.

Sustaining Freeman's success in this era, with transfer restrictions looser than ever, is also not the same as it was during Kelly's tenure.

In many ways, it's more impressive to see Freeman's advantage in the side-by-side, even if we acknowledge that he inherited a better situation than his predecessor.

Whatever the case, Notre Dame won by being able to elevate Freeman into the head coaching role, even over the winningest head coach in Irish history.

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