Marcus Freeman Ranked By ESPN As One Of The Top Head Coaches In College Football

As we get closer and closer to the 2025 College Football season more preseason rankings and lists come out, and the latest is a ranking of the Top 10 head coach coaches in college football. ESPN put the list out and Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman cracked the list.

Freeman checked in as the No. 4 coach on the list by ESPN, continuing the trend of Freeman gaining more and more respect for the 14-2 season the Irish just put together. ESPN writer Jake Trotter ranked Freeman as his No. 2 coach, and he explained that decision.

"In just his third year, Freeman coached Notre Dame all the way to the national championship game. Despite being outgunned by Ohio State, the Fighting Irish hung tough through the fourth quarter. Under Freeman, Notre Dame remarkably has returned to being a top-five program." - Jake Trotter, ESPN

Another writer, David Hale, inexplicably left Freeman completely outside of his Top 10.

"If I had it to do over again, I'd probably have Freeman somewhere in the 8-10 range, but my initial doubts are still reasonable: some notable in-game blunders (10 defenders vs. Ohio State in 2022), inconsistency on offense and not quite enough of a track record of success ... yet. He can silence any doubters this year." - David Hale

It's fair to say that Freeman still has things to prove after just three seasons, but using data from previous seasons to drop him completely outside of his Top 10 seems to be more than just being in "I need to see it" mode. It would seem that Hale is holding older data in higher regard than most recent examples of Freeman out-coaching both Kirby Smart (No. 1 on this list) and James Franklin (No. 8 on this list) during the playoff.

This is the same writer who had Iowa State's Matt Campbell on his list at No. 4.

Shockingly, the ESPN writers voted in a way that had North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick as No. 12 on this list. The same Belichick who has never coached a game in college football and went 29-38 in his last four seasons in the NFL.

I have also been a critic of having Steve Sarkisian (Texas) and Dan Lanning (Oregon) ahead of Freeman on lists, but Bill Connelly had both of them outside of his Top 10 while ranking Franklin No. 5 on his list. He also advocated for Lane Kiffin being in his Top 10. Head scratching for sure.