One-On-One With Marcus Freeman - Part Two: Al Golden, Building The Team's Identity, Competition

Part two of my one-on-one interview with Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman.

Q: With the defensive coordinator hire, that was a little bit of a unique hire compared to the rest of the jobs that you’ve done, because that’s what you did and that’s your strength .... What was it about Coach Golden beyond just the former head coach aspect .... that said this is the guy that can really help take this defense to the next level?

Marcus Freeman: "There’s a couple things. I think it started with the ability – it was unique where you were going to come in where three position coaches were already in place. The ability to understand that you’re not going to be a walk around coordinator because the fourth coach on defense has to help out at a position which, but we also had some pieces in place with James Laurinaitis here and Nick Lezynski was here at the time in terms of being able to help with the linebackers. It was a unique situation, so I wanted to find somebody that could come in and embrace that. Embrace the staff, but embrace what the players had learned.

"I didn’t want someone to come in here and say, 'I’m going to change everything.' I wanted somebody that said, 'Let me figure out what your players know and tailor my philosophy on defense around them.' That’s what he did. Over the course of meeting with him through Zooms and Zooms and Zooms I said, "This guy … this is what he wants to do, this is what he believes in.'

"And then, over time listening to how intelligent he was, and the schematic knowledge that he had, I think was so impressive to me, and so he’s been great. To add on top of that he’s a former head coach, you know? So, all those things fell in place, and I said, 'This is the guy for this job right now,' and he’s been a huge addition to our staff."

Q: When you look at the defense and you look at Coach Golden, you’ve been very clear that he’s running Al Golden’s defense. Were you looking for someone who could obviously have his own thoughts and ideas but had a similar philosophy to what was already here? .... I want to find someone that has a similar philosophy, which would then make the transition to a third coordinator in three years a little bit smoother for your players?

MF: "Yeah, I would agree with that. The philosophy being the things we believe it takes to have success with defense. It’s not a scheme. It’s not, 'Hey you better run this coverage and these pressures.' It’s the ability to one, can our guys play fast so there’s not so much on their brain that they can’t play fast. Two, it still comes down to fundamentals; block destruction, tackling, the pursuit to the football, and then takeaways. Those things he agreed with, and I was glad he didn’t come in here and say 'Here’s the five coverages you have to run and here’s the five pressures you have to run and we’re going to be good on defense.'

"It was the little things. We started talking about that and I said he has the same philosophy as me in terms of how to be successful on defense. I have never said this certain scheme. As you saw last year, it was always about tailoring your scheme around your players. We started off being a 4-3 and adjusting – four linemen, three linebackers, and then we adjust almost like a 3-3, and then we adjusted when it was 'Okay, Kyle Hamilton gets hurt and now let’s adjust.' That’s what I think, that’s what I believe. You adjust your scheme around your players, but you put them in positions they can play fast. So, I know Al Golden has those same philosophies."

Q: Would it have almost have been a strike against a coach to come in here and say this is what I want to run without know the personnel he'd inherit?

MF: "Yeah, yeah. I think that any coach that comes in and says 'My scheme is the greatest scheme, your players are going to have to figure out offensively or defensively, you’re going to have to figure out my scheme' … That’s a red flag for me, because games will always be about players. It’s about seeing your personnel and adapting your system to the personnel you have. That’s just my belief. Other people might say, 'Freeman you’re wrong, you’re crazy.' But that’s my belief and I’ll stick with it."

Q: The one thing I wanted to ask about Coach Golden, the NFL is obviously a little bit unique and Notre Dame is unique in that you’re not in the Big 12 where everybody kind of is similar. One week you’re playing Sean McVay, the next week you’re playing Kyle Shanahan, and those are two completely different animals to prepare for. Does coming from an NFL pedigree where like last year, one week you’re playing Wisconsin and the week before you’re playing Jeff Brohm and Purdue and then a month later you’re playing Navy? Was there something to that, saying you know what, there’s some value to this?

MF: "Absolutely. We’re going to see so many different offenses. We’re going to face teams that are just as good if not more talented than us right now. The ability to have the creative mindset in terms of your scheme was a part of that, yes it was. To see the defense that he was a part of in terms of the Cincinnati Bengals, you know, be able to play some talented offenses and have success. That was very attractive to me."

Q: What is the process like when it comes to really building a team’s personality? Whose personality are you adopting? How do you identify leaders? How do you build the team up from early January to getting ready to go to Columbus on September 3rd? What’s the process like and where are you guys along that process?

MF: "I think a lot of it is created in the weight room, and that’s why the relationship between myself and Matt Balis is so crucial in that we are almost hand-in-hand in terms of how we are implementing our culture, how we are developing leaders, how we are putting guys in leadership positions. You know, my core philosophy is saying we’re going to be the most physically and mentally tough football team every game we face. It is created now; it’s created in the weight room, it’s created on the football field to prepare us for fall camp.

"Our fall camp has to be physically and mentally tough on our players and so that when we’re facing tough teams in the fourth quarter, we feel we have an edge. And so, it’s ever going. It’s ongoing forever and ever, and it’s still to be determined right? You don’t know yet. To me, the true character of a team isn’t really exposed until those tough moments happen. We try to push them for tough moments in the weight room and conditioning, but until you do it in between the white lines …

… With 100,000 people wearing scarlet and gray …

MF: "We’ll see really what our culture and our leadership is when that game arises."

Q: When you look at building a team, how do you balance “This is the direction I want it to go” with then adopting what the specific unique nature of your leadership is? How do you balance those two things as you’re putting a unit or a team together?

MF: "Well, you have non-negotiables, right? There’s certain non-negotiables I have, in that here’s the expectations. You’re going to be pushed to the brink. You’re going to be physically and mentally tough. You’re going to have to sacrifice for the man next to you. You put them in positions where you don’t think you can go any harder or any farther but because the guy next to me, I’m going to.

"You try to make them competitive, and you try to put them in winner and loser situations. But it’s also about adapting to your personnel – who they are. You can’t create false leadership. That’s something that’s real. The true leaders, they show themselves. They’re the ones that are speaking up. They’re the ones that you can just tell just flourish in those tough times.

"But, as I tell these guys all the time, we need everybody to hold everybody accountable to our standards. So, if there’s any question on what the standards are, then us coaches have to make sure we’re very clear on what our standards are. But everybody in this whole football organization has to hold each other accountable to those."

Q: You’ve talked a lot about creating competition. There’s different ways to look at competition. One is I want to create as many situations in practice for guys to compete against each other. I want to do more one-on-ones, or I want to do more good-on-goods, or you know, whatever coaches look at as a competition. Is it just that, or is it also sort of a sense of there’s always competition in regard to, you can’t just say, I’m the starter so I got this place at the table. You have to compete every week. Is it both of that? Is it one more than the other?

MF: "I think it’s all-encompassing. It’s not just on the field, it’s not just 'Hey, you’re an established starter.' We have established starters that I expect to be starters, but how do you make it a competition within yourself, in that 'Hey, here’s the competition, here’s the standard we need you to go at, are you performing to that standard?'

And, then you call them out. You push them and you say, 'Hey if you’re a competitor you’re going to practice at this level.' We do things like competitive openers where you’ll get two starters to start a meeting and that will compete in a Gatorade chug contest or free-throw shooting contest and we make it so that you’re a winner or a loser and so that there’s just that drive, that feeling inside of you that is dying to be known as a winner and try to make it grow.

"It’s not just on the football field, it’s everything you do. The academics, I make it a competition. Like we’re going to be an above a 3.0 GPA team. Well guess what, it’s a competition to make. You have a job; you’re doing your part to make sure we’re a 3.0 team. If you’re not able to do it, then somebody is saying you’re not good enough. Need to make that into a competition. It’s life lessons. You’ll compete as a father. You can be a lazy father, you can be a lazy husband, and I tell them all the time that we have to make conscious choices with that competitive person within our own self. We have to compete to be great fathers, husbands, football players, and whatever it is."

Q: As you look at the balance between there’s value in experience and there’s value in talent, and sometimes the guy with the most experience isn’t always the guy with the best talent, how do you handle that as a coach? What is the role of a coach to say, look, this guy may not know it all but he’s really talented and we have to figure out a way to find a role for this guy?

MF: "Yeah, the perfect guys you have high trust and high talent. The common dilemma is the guy that has high trust, average talent, or high talent, average trust. I believe that you’re going to have to continue to lean on those guys that have high trust, above average talent. We need to continue to recruit and develop those high talent, high trust guys, but to me, if you can’t trust a guy, then that’s scary. So, we have to develop those above average talent, those high talent guys to be high trust guys. To me, it’s coaching. It’s how do you find better ways to teach them. But if you don’t trust them, we can’t play you yet.

.... When you’re on the field, can we trust you?"

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