Notre Dame Notebook: Marcus Freeman Talks Final Preparation For Oklahoma State
Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman met with the media on Friday for the final time before their game with Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl. Here are the highlights of his press conference.
Obviously, we know it's your first game. I'm curious, as you get to within 24 hours of kickoff here, are you starting to experience any excitement or nervous energy? Anything that you're not used to? And secondly, I'm curious if you thought about what you'll tell your team right before you send them out on the field tomorrow.
“Yeah, right now I'm focused on making sure we have a good walk-through today and we finish our final preparations as we go into tomorrow. Yeah, I'm usually nervous before every game, because you can't go out there and do it anymore. So you live through these young people. And I'm most excited for them to be able to go out there and compete and play against a really good Oklahoma State team. So we'll get to tomorrow when it presents itself. I'll figure out what I'll say to this group of guys here tomorrow. But there's really nothing else that needs to be said. We practiced. We're prepared. Now they want to go play."
This is for Marcus Freeman. This last week, actually the entire bowl prep time, Mike Gundy has spent a lot more time on the defensive side of the ball with the absence of Jim Knowles. As a head coach, how quickly have you acclimated to watching the offense and being involved in what you want them to get accomplished?
"I mean, right now, my role has been pretty much what it's been all year, in terms of being very involved with the defense. And the only time I'm not involved on the defense is when we do good-on-good. Then I get a chance to run around there and be the ref. So that's my fun time, a chance to go out and run around and spot the ball and blow the whistle. When we go scout teams, I'm with the defense; very involved with the defense. Our offensive staff had done a great job all year. I trust what we're doing on the offensive side of the ball. And that's what we're going to do as we move into tomorrow."
Without Kyren Williams, who's been the emotional leader of this offense for the last couple of years, who fills that void? And then in order to play complementary defense with your offense and defense, what's your message to Tommy Rees going into this?
"How do you replace Kyren Williams? You don't. You don't replace Kyren Williams with one person. You try to replace his production with a group of guys. You're going to see all three of them, between [Logan] Diggs and between Chris [Tyree] and between Audric [Estime] and those guys. Everybody has got to help fill the production that Kyren Williams had. The emotional leadership that he brought to this team will have to be picked up by other guys, other leaders that we have amongst this team that I'm confident will do a great job of being the emotional leaders for tomorrow. So as far as complementary football, again, we all understand that we're going to need all three phases tomorrow to be successful.
"We're going to have to do a really, really good job on all three phases to have a chance to be successful in this game. So every phase, offense, defense, special teams understands that you're going to have to do your part making sure that we have success. We have to take care of the football. We have to try to take the football away. We have got to take care of the ball on special teams. You see the punter for Oklahoma State (Tom Hutton) somehow finds a way to have so many returns as muffed punts. It's something I just watch over and over. If we can't take care of the football, then it's going to be a long game. Everybody has to understand let's take care of the football on offense, try to take the football away on defense. And we have to hand the ball to the official on special teams."
Who will be handling punt returns?
"Right now it will be Matt Salerno."
Marcus, what are these last 24 hours going to be like for you as far as your to-do list as a head coach compared to when you were the defensive coordinator?
"It will still be very similar. Again, after this, we have the walk-through. Then we have to go to the stadium and come back. The players will have a little time off before we have dinner tonight. My mindset will still be similar, just my last-minute preparations. And then as we go into tomorrow, we have got to wake up and play. And so we don't have a lot of time to think about what you're going to do tomorrow morning. We have got to get up early and be ready to go from the minute we get down to the lobby.
"That's my whole thought process, of what can I do to make sure our guys wake up and are ready to go in the morning? And at the end of the day, you have got to trust your preparation. You have got to trust we prepared the right way. Then they have to go out there and execute. You see it over and over. Everybody has a plan for success, and they're not that much different. But it's the ability to go out there only game day and execute that you see the teams that are executing are the ones that are winning these bowl games."
Going off the running backs, how have you noticed Chris Tyree in recent weeks, now that he at least told us the other day he's fully recovered, it seems, from turf toe. That was not a fun injury for him. What have you noticed about how much -- or how close, I guess, he looks to pre-injury form and how he's looking at tomorrow's opportunity?
"The reality is I haven't seen Chris Tyree practice much before this last month before I became head coach. I didn't pay much attention to it. But I saw the highlights from last year and obviously the explosive plays he made. Even in terms of our offense this season, as a defensive coordinator, you don't have much time to watch the offensive side of the ball, but he's done an unbelievable job of bowl prep. He has reiterated to me that he feels healthy, finally feels 100%. He's done a heck of a job in practice. All I can do is make my observations off what I've seen these past four weeks of bowl prep. I really can't compare to what I've seen during the season, because I didn't pay much attention to what our offense was doing in terms of the scout team and stuff like that. So he's done an excellent job for us, and I expect him to play well tomorrow."
A lot has gone on with this Notre Dame team throughout the season, lots of ups with lots of downs as well. What has this season taught you about yourself as a person?
"It was a great, actually humbling experience for me to start the season. You come from Cincinnati where we had a lot of success, and you feel like you really had a good spring. You really had a good fall. As you go into the first game versus Florida State, after that game, you're like, "Oh, crap, we're not as good as I thought." In terms of defensively, we didn't play as well. Toledo, we didn't play as well. It really made me lean on our staff and say, What changes do we need to make? What small changes do we need to make to make sure this scheme fits the players that we have? What you've seen over the course of the year is just trying to make small, strategic changes to our scheme to make sure it fits the players we have.
"Then all of a sudden, after week 6, your best player, Kyle Hamilton, goes down. So you have to say, Okay, now how do we fit this scheme around who's the next guy in? This group has just trusted us and this coaching staff. The coaching staff has done a tremendous job in terms of just figuring out what's the best way to teach these guys. What's the best thing that fits these guys? We've worked as a team. The defensive staff has been a team all year. Taking other people's ideas is something that we've done. And just the ability to try and get to this final product that we have, it's been a growing experience. But I think as of the Stanford game, we were playing our best ball. And so I hope that momentum can continue to keep going in the same direction as we get ready to go out there tomorrow."
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