UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 21, 2024

Marcus Freeman

Press Conference

Notre Dame 28, Miami 3

MARCUS FREEMAN: Yeah, proud of the way our guys competed. You know, it wasn't pretty. It wasn't clean.

But to beat that football team, 28-3, I told them, that's a really good victory. I think they are going to be a really good team.

I told Coach Martin after the game, that's a good football team. I'm really impressed with their offense, their quarterback. So to hold that offense to three points, man, was a huge, huge sign of how the way our defense had played. But battled.

Again, we got down 3-0. Didn't start the way we wanted to. You know, we had too many penalties that we had to clean up; that we've got to clean up and see why they occurred, and make sure that we don't continue to allow that to happen. That's on coaches and we've got to own it and make sure we drill it and we fix it, and put our guys in positions to have success.

So I'll just open up for questions.

Q. With three different starters on your offensive line today compared to what you opened camp with, and two different from even a week ago, how much does this offense need a dual-threat quarterback like Riley that can help open up things both ways?

MARCUS FREEMAN: I think there's benefits no matter who your quarterback IS. To me, that's like you have to call things around the strengths of your players. And obviously Riley, one of his strengths are the ability to run the ball, and you know, they showed today that we can run the ball and they had a lot of success.

I'm proud of the way those two guys stepped up, pat and Rocco, and really performed well. It felt like they performed well, obviously the rushing yards showed they performed well.

We'll go back and watch it and continue TO get those guys to improve but I'm really proud of our offense, being able to run the ball, but also those guys being able to step up and get their job done.

Q. ARE your special teams generally clean through the week on the practice field and then these issues are popping up on game day, or what is keeping them from playing clean?

MARCUS FREEMAN: I think the first one was the muffed punt. One of our players, I think were -- I kind of saw it when we were watching on the iPad. One of our players was trying to get away and kind of ran right into Faison.

We've got to be better there. We've got to peel off earlier. You know, the block in the back on the reverse was unacceptable, and you know, obviously we weren't clear enough as coaches.

I'm not going to blame the player, you know, and we've got to hold them accountable but we've always got to own it as coaches. We can't do that. We can't block in the back.

And then the field goal. We had a new guy doing short snaps, and you know, after that one snap, we put Rino back in who had been our short snapper, and so again, that's what happened. Can't happen. We've got to make sure we are continuing to attack those issues in practice, and perform better on that football field.

Q. As you continue to work on offensive game plan moving forward, how much does Riley's ability to break off the big play at random times factor in to how strongly you guys feel about him?

MARCUS FREEMAN: It definitely factors into it. You know, we have a lot of confidence in him making the right decision in the run game and the pass game. You know, I think, I don't know, we had, what, 270 yards rushing, which -- yeah, 270-yard rushing which is, again, a lot came from him in running the ball.

You know, I don't think we design plays to say, okay, this one is going to go for 50. But he has the ability to, if you mis-fit or if he makes a tackle, to take it all the way.

Q. Thinking about the game as a whole, how do you balance a three-and-a-half-touchdown win which looks comfortable with the fact that it wasn't comfortable and there were a couple critical early mistakes that could have changed this?

MARCUS FREEMAN: Yeah, it's the same way you really look at every game, except for, you know, the only thing that's different between a win and a loss is the 24 hours from now until you get back together. Our guys are going to celebrate. They won a tough game and did a good job. We are not going to shy away from that. It's hard to win. You get 12 guaranteed opportunities, and you can't take any win for granted.

So I told them to celebrate. But when we get back together, we own it. We evaluate the film. We own it. We come up with a plan to attack the issues that we've had. We come up with a plan to enhance the things that we did well and then we move forward throughout the week. That process won't change. It's just the 24 hours from now until we get back together that changes.

Q. I may be stepping on your answers here, and let me preface this by saying you obviously believe in Riley Leonard because you think he provides you with the highest upside and gives you the best chance to win. But what gives you the confidence to stick with him when he's struggling like he is, and when you can obviously feel in the stadium that the sentiment is that they are looking for a change at the quarterback position?

MARCUS FREEMAN: Yeah, we don't make decisions based off what the sentiment of the stadium is.

Q. I understand.

MARCUS FREEMAN: So that's to answer that part of the question.

But again, I don't know how many yards Riley led our offense to through rushing and passing, but there's always parts to clean up. And we've got to continue to look at the mistakes that he made and say, okay, how do we do a better job of not putting him in a position to make mistakes, and where was the disconnect.

But we've got a lot of confidence in our quarterback that led us to a great victory today.

Q. You did a great job with Gabbert. He was 14-for-35, just 119 yards and two touchdowns. What was the overall game plan going in against a guy that had thrown for a lot of yards in his college career?

MARCUS FREEMAN: Yeah, he's a really good player. He's talented. He's experienced. You're not going to confuse him. We tried to get pressure up the middle and make him uncomfortable. We tried to give him some different looks but we still have to do what we do well.

Our defense did a really good job of competing. We had some drives where they had some yards but stuck the cleats in the ground and didn't let them into the end zone, which is a huge credit to Coach Golden and our defense and the players.

Q. You mentioned the 3-0 start, a little bit slow, the run defense, gave up a couple plays early. How did they regain their composure and stop the run for the rest of the game?

MARCUS FREEMAN: Yeah, I think as you look at how the game started, you know, the must have had punt didn't hurt. They came out, our defense did a good job. All of a sudden we muff a punt and then we're able to get an interception on the goal line. That's a heck of a job by our defense. I can't remember the drive they ended up getting a field goal.

We're greedy. We don't want to give up any rushing yards. We'll look at it and see where they had the ability to run the ball and we'll attack it and fix it.

Q. This was Rendell's best punting day so far by a wide margin. You mentioned some of the things you're going to do this week. How did you see them work on the field?

MARCUS FREEMAN: They did a good job. Our job, again, I always say this, as coaches, is to put our players in position to do what they do well on Saturday, and we tried to call some punts that we feel -- he felt comfortable with in the stadium. We were able to do some different things in practice, as I talked to you guys about on Monday.

But at the end of the day, he went out there and performed. Coach did a good job of getting his head into a place that was confident; and he booted the ball and we're going to continue to build on that.

Q. The secondary, in addition to those eight pass defense and pick off, I think 17 coverage wins by the secondary by seven different guys, was it a plan that you guys can guard them man-to-man, corners and safeties as needed to try to slow the offense?

MARCUS FREEMAN: That's who we are. That's who we are. We play some zone as change-ups but as you watch this defense, that's what we're built off of. We play a lot of man coverage, and again, our job as coaches is to call the things your guys do well and if we played man well, then let's call man and have enough change-ups to make sure that every play, they don't know what we are playing and show some different things pre-snap. We were confident in our DBs being able to execute the defense that we called and they did a good job doing it.

Q. Special teams play notwithstanding, would you address the vypers, Traore because Tuihalamaka made a lot of big plays, especially in the second half, as well.

MARCUS FREEMAN: Jimmy had a huge pick, I know, on the goal line. I know he made another good play. I can't remember exactly what it was -- big tackle for loss. Carr is playing at a high level. He's been playing at a high level the first three games, and he's continuing to progress. And so we need them both. And proud of the way they performed today.

Q. I wanted to give you another Riley Leonard question. My question is this: I'm curious how he dealt with the boos and missing some open receivers.

MARCUS FREEMAN: I don't know. I didn't ask him about how he feels about people booing him; that people boo me. We can't perform to -- like to make sure everybody cheers for us, all right. That's a part of the game, right. If you don't do your job, people are going to boo you.

But if you let that affect the way you go out and execute the next play, then man, you're not the right person for this job or to be our quarterback at Notre Dame. I hope he handled it the exact way that I would expect him to is you hear it, great, what do you need to do to refocus to go out the next play and get your job done.

Q. Other than letting them celebrate and stuff, what do you feel like was the most important part of your message as you slide into Louisville week now?

MARCUS FREEMAN: I don't know if I gave them something that was, let's move to Louisville. They know who we play. We know who we play next week. They will be ready to go. But right now, let's just celebrate. Enjoy it. Enjoy this hard-earned victory because we are going to get back together Monday as a full team and we're going to go on the attack and we're going to evaluate. We're going to find ways to get better and then we're going to have a great plan to attack our next opponent. That's exciting.

That's the ultimate challenge of a coach and players is how can you come up with a plan each week to beat your opponent, and that's what is so fun about this game.

So we'll get back to work as coaches tomorrow, bring the players in Monday and look forward to attacking our next opponent.