Marcus Freeman signed a lucrative contract to remain with Notre Dame, but the timing of it is raises some questions
Some Notre Dame football fans were met with slight surprise on Sunday when it was announced that head coach Marcus Freeman had agreed to a four-year contract extension, which will keep him signed with the Fighting Irish program through the 2030 season. The surprise wasn’t about Coach Freeman getting an extension, that part was expected […]
Some Notre Dame football fans were met with slight surprise on Sunday when it was announced that head coach Marcus Freeman had agreed to a four-year contract extension, which will keep him signed with the Fighting Irish program through the 2030 season. The surprise wasn’t about Coach Freeman getting an extension, that part was expected this offseason.
Senior ESPN writer Heather Dinich confirmed the extension for Coach Freeman, which she later credited to Maria Taylor. Professionals such as Fox Sports NFL insider Jordan Schultz also were able to verify the report swiftly. As a private institution, an exact money amount isn’t going to circulate for the public, but it’s believed to make Freeman one of the highest-paid coaches in all of college football.
Most people believe that the growth we have seen from Coach Freeman and this program over the last couple of years is a great sign for the future, so locking him up made a ton of sense. The question marks center around whether it was the right time for the announcement. With a playoff game on the horizon against the Indiana Hoosiers this Friday, was this really the most ideal timing for it?
The right move
One thing that people didn’t talk about enough when Coach Freeman took over the position prior to the 2022 season was the adjustment period that would more than likely follow. As if being a head coach on the major college level wasn’t hard enough, now imagine coaching Notre Dame. To add more to it, that was Coach Freeman’s first head coaching job in his career.
After some early struggles, including losses to Stanford and Marshall in that first season, we have seen incremental improvements from this Irish program. From 9-4 to 10-3, and now sitting at 11-1, there is no question this team is getting better every year. We have seen the recruiting impact already take shape on the field.
As Coach Freeman gains more and more experience, other jobs are going to continue to surface. We have already seen his name mentioned for some openings, such as the Chicago Bears on the NFL level. Coach Freeman’s name will also be heavily speculated with most big college jobs, including if his alma mater Ohio State opens up sometime in the near future.
Freeman is an easy sell for a program. He is a younger coach who is consistently getting better, and more importantly, is open to getting better. The former Ohio State standout is also a tremendous spokesperson for a program, possessing outstanding communication skills and a dynamic personality.
Notre Dame was smart to get this deal done, and make sure Coach Freeman is a path of this program for many years to come.
The wrong timing
The pushback on the announcement is, and never was about Coach Freeman or him being extended. The whole conversation centers around the timing of it all. There just feels like more optimal times to let it out publicly.
For these types of announcements, you want to capture everyone’s attention and generate as much buzz as possible. You are now in a situation where Coach Freeman has the full attention of the masses heading into the game against Indiana, and two things can happen, you either win and build the excitement or lose and completely bungle it.
If you would have done it after a hypothetical victory against Indiana, or after the season, there isn’t a downside. That would mean that you did something a Notre Dame coach hasn’t done in a long time, win a big postseason game, or have the blanket of offseason optimism on your side. Instead, you are leaving the optics to chance.
You also could have announced it right after the regular season concluded. That would mean you would be coming off of a big victory against rival USC, and solidified a berth in the first-ever 12-team college football playoff. That also would have given you a couple of weeks to let everything settle, and focus solely on the game against the Hoosiers.
Some people have argued that this was best for the program dealing with constant rumors about Coach Freeman and other jobs, threatening the team’s chances with transfer portal targets and having uncertainty run through the current player’s minds. While a quality thought, that just isn’t how the process works.
If you think Sunday was the day that Coach Freeman finalized the deal, you are sorely mistaken. If you think that a school has to announce that the deal is done immediately after the fact, you are also incorrect. The program chose to release it on Sunday tactically. It’s what they thought was best.
Players also don’t learn the news the same moment that it flashes on ESPN, or on Twitter. They will know about it way in advance. There is no need to escalate the whole process this rapidly. It’s just for public consumption, and those opinions are the ones that learn things last, but can get the loudest depending on what happens next.
In the end, if the Irish win on Friday, this conversation becomes a moot point. It just feels a little counterproductive to announce it this way, especially when you have done your best to delay transfer portal news until after the game as well. You would have thought the game would be the only focus the program would want this week.
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