Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman Addresses Concerns Over Defensive Play Calling

Three games into the 2025 college football season and Notre Dame's defense looks anything but golden. The Irish have allowed 98 points through three games, and sit at just 1-2 after beating Purdue this past weekend.

The latest 30-spot Purdue hung on Notre Dame this past weekend had plenty of fans enraged, calling for defensive coordinator Chris Ash's job. On Monday, Marcus Freeman was asked about if there would be any potential change made as to who calls the defensive plays, and gave a roughly four-minute response as to the defense's issues.

Marcus Freeman on Potentially Taking Over Defensive Play Calling

"If I thought it was a call, if I thought we weren't calling the game the right way
- trust me, I know the definition of insanity, and if that was the case, you gotta do what's best for your program. But that's not to me the issue when I'm evaluating our defensive play. It's not what we're calling at this time or why we're calling it. It's, OK, why aren't we executing it? Me saying I'm gonna call the defense, it's a call. If I'm gonna call the defense, it's based on a call. We're not calling the right calls. I don't believe that's true or I would say, 'Hey, Chris Ash, call this.' It's, 'OK, we called this for this reason and it didn't work. They executed an explosive play. OK, what's the reason behind it?' That's what we spend a lot of time evaluating and discussing.

Marcus Freeman on Getting Better Execution

So how do you get them to execute it at a better level or play with the right fundamentals? I think it still starts with a buy-in of, 'It's me.' Everybody. I think right now we gotta make sure in our football facility that we're not pointing the finger at a call. We're not pointing the finger at, 'If he would've called something else or if he would've ...' We're pointing the finger at ourselves: 'What am I not doing to execute this call the right way?' If I'm confused, then you better speak up and say something, because you're gonna be held accountable. But if we do this and we do this, we'll get it fixed, and that's the challenge during tough times.

Marcus Freeman on Dealing with Tough Times as a Coach

"I get excited when I talk. During tough times, there's two options: you either fight or flight. And the guys that flight blame other people: 'It's the call. It's his fault. It's this coach's fault or it's that player's fault. We gave up a big play; that corner should've covered.' That's the flight mode. You deflect and blame other people. But the fight mode is, 'Gosh, call man again. Call man again. I promise you my man's not gonna catch the ball. I'm gonna play with the right technique and I'm gonna refuse to let my man catch the ball. Put the pressure - 'Nah, I gotta coach this better. I gotta coach this better. He should've known that this is the technique to play with. OK, I gotta change this technique.' That's the fight mode. But in order to do that, everybody's gotta be bought in. Everybody's gotta believe that we have the answers. It's a person. It's not, 'Marcus Freeman should be calling the defense.'

Marcus Freeman Says Notre Dame Already Has the Answers

We have the answers. We gotta all buy in and execute this the right way, and that starts with leadership, that starts from the top down. That's my job, but also Chris Ash's job, it's our coaches' job, all down to our players. You have to create the buy-in to what we're doing and the ownership of it. If we get that, we'll get it corrected with urgency. If we don't, if we do this: '(Points fingers at others). It's your fault, you shouldn't have called that. You're a bad coach,' then it's gonna be bad. I know our culture ain't gonna let that happen."

Nick Shepkowski's Quick Takeaway:

It would appear that if you're hoping for Chris Ash to be replaced as defensive coordinator at Notre Dame, you're going to be waiting quite some time. Freeman isn't the kind of guy who would come out and publicly embarrass an assistant coach, but this speaks to it being a more widespread issue than simply an Ash problem.

If a move like this were to happen at Notre Dame, it's not happening the week before a challenging offense in Arkansas. It would instead happen during an off week, which doesn't happen again for Notre Dame until after it plays USC on October 18.

With the way Notre Dame's defense has been going and the way the Trojans are lighting up the scoreboard, let's hope October 19 doesn't end up being a day the Fighting Irish faithful start looking forward to.