Marcus Freeman said the NFL interest in him got really loud after Notre Dame finished the regular season, but the Irish coach said he was not ready to walk away from the job he has in South Bend.
Speaking on Josh Pate’s College Football Show, Freeman said the year before there had been some chatter, but Notre Dame was still playing in the playoffs and his attention never moved off the team. This time, with the season over, he said he took a minute to think seriously about what an NFL head-coaching job would mean, having never coached in the league before. He said he wanted to understand what pro teams look for and what they believe it takes to succeed, and that he came away with valuable knowledge.
The Notre Dame coach, 40, said he was straight with his players whenever they asked about the situation. He told them he was the head coach at Notre Dame and could not control what opportunities or outside noise might come his way. Freeman also said he stayed in communication with the school’s athletic director and his family while the job talk was building.
What kept pulling him back, he said, was the chance to keep coaching at Notre Dame. Freeman said he loves the school, loves the people there and is not ready to give up on the young men he has recruited over multiple years. That pull came even as the NFL had 10 of 32 jobs open this year, a number that naturally fed speculation around coaches with rising profiles.
Freeman did not close the door on a pro move someday, but he framed the present in school-first terms. He said team success leads to individual opportunities, and pointed to Notre Dame’s last ten wins as the reason several players drew more attention. He used Jeremiyah Love as the clearest example, saying there is a strong feeling Love would not have been up for the Heisman had the Irish not won those ten games.
That is the balance Freeman is living with now: the pull of the next level and the reality of what he has built in South Bend. For the moment, he said, the job he wants most is the one he already has.
