Marcus Freeman Revisited

[GATTACA!]

Well that lead was fun while it lasted. What an epic choke job.

 

[irishff1014]

He is getting smoked today. Man oh man

 

[GATTACA!]

Went pussy mode to end the first half and probably cost us the game.

 

[calvegas04]

What's the buy out?

 

[chicago51]

His prep before the game was actually really good. The game itself was a different story.

I do worry we have a Charlie Strong situation though. Great DC who had crappy Ds as HC because your attention is split and you can't prepare the D like you did when you were a coordinator. Charlie Strong could recruit too as a coordinator.

 

[phillyirish]

This game tells us almost nothing about the Marcus Freeman era with all things considered: short turn around from coaching change, players opting out, etc.

Sucks to lose all the enthusiasm and momentum we had though. Gives him shorter leeway next year as well with the likely first year struggles.

Our currently ranked #1 recruiting class won’t mean much either when we go 8-5 next year and the kids got NIL deals dangling in their face.

 

[ACamp1900]

I’m more bummed over this than any ND loss I can remember in years,… and yes Im worried about MF moving forward. Great game plan coming in,… but seemed pretty out of his depth once adjustments and in game flow game into play

 

[irishff1014]

This is nothing but a failure and an embarrassment. Notre dame is the reason no one wants them in any big games.

 

[GATTACA!]

I’m more bummed over this than any ND loss I can remember in years,… and yes Im worried about MF moving forward. Great game plan coming in,… but seemed pretty out of his depth once adjustments and in game flow game into play

Hey you thought we’d lose by 65, shouldn’t this result be encouraging?

 

[phillyirish]

I’m more bummed over this than any ND loss I can remember in years,… and yes Im worried about MF moving forward. Great game plan coming in,… but seemed pretty out of his depth once adjustments and in game flow game into play

I agree. There were worst, lopsided, and embarrassing loses in ND’s past. But since I’ve started watching them as a kid, this is definitely the most disappointing. Finally get a NY6 matchup that isn’t a death sentence, come out on fire in the first half (or should I say 29 minutes), then at half time Freeman must of reminded the team that this is a NY6 bowl, so the team went out and played the 2nd half in typical ND fashion since the turn of the millennium.

 

[GoldenAura]

We win this if Kyren & Hamilton play. Too bad the game wasn't important enough. See you guys in March.

 

[IrishSteelhead]

This honorable approach MF has towards the game is admirable and will pay future dividends, but I was disappointed we did not fake injuries on defense to slow them down.

You dont have to over-do it like Purdue did against Tennessee, but a few lineman falling with a cramp here and there during key moments is whatever.

Its like speeding. It isnt right, but everyone does it.


I digress. Rocky first outing for him. He will improve.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[irishff1014]

We win this if Kyren & Hamilton play. Too bad the game wasn't important enough. See you guys in March.

We win this without them. They quit playing hard. And the momentum switched and Rees couldn’t make any adjustments to be productive. And that made a struggling defense tired. Like they needed help struggling.

 

[IrishLion]

He needs to figure out a plan during the off-season for how involved he is going [needs] to be with the defensive play calling. His DC hire is going to determine that answer. Maybe I’m just paranoid and pissed about the game, but he looked lost and like he had nothing to do but cheerlead on the sidelines.

There were a lot of weird factors involved with this game though, and almost none of them should say anything definitive, either good or bad, about Marcus Freeman (or Tommy Rees) moving forward.

If getting wrecked in the third quarter becomes a trend after three or four games next season… then we need to revisit some things lol

 

[ACamp1900]

I can’t believe they thought Coan throwing it 70 times was how you win this game,… just wow

 

[GoldenAura]

We win this without them. They quit playing hard. And the momentum switched and Rees couldn’t make any adjustments to be productive. And that made a struggling defense tired. Like they needed help struggling.

I don't disagree. Just frustrated that our two best players decided against participating.

 

[Dale]

No one likes to hear it for some reason but I don’t see much to put on the coaches. Players play and every Sanders scramble had a missed tackle. Bauer blitzes and doesn’t make the tackle. Bauer spies and doesn’t make the tackle. What is Freeman/Elston supposed to do? They tried different options and the players didn’t execute whatever option we tried. Sanders scrambling and Lewis basically lost the game. So the one thing they could have tried but didn’t I suppose was bench Lewis.

On offense, 2 2H TOs, no run game and some drops/slight overthrows.

 

[AKRowdy]

BK would’ve lost this game as well. Still hampered by QB play. Young players looked good. Give them a year to get MF culture. He was using BK players who hampered him in the long run, Doer and Coan.

 

[benneboy]

We win this if Kyren & Hamilton play. Too bad the game wasn't important enough. See you guys in March.

Absolutely.

But we should still be super supportive of them making the decision that's best for themselves.

 

[NDFAN2008]

It is one game you guys need to pump the breaks when's the last time ND came out firing and fired up in a bowl game like this? Give credit where credit is do, one thing they need to work on is half time adjustments. I didn't like how we came out in the second half and starting running more. But Sanders was probally right up there with Riddler for the best QB we have seen all year and our DB's got exposed like they have in years past.

 

[dankgesang]

No one likes to hear it for some reason but I don’t see much to put on the coaches. Players play and every Sanders scramble had a missed tackle. Bauer blitzes and doesn’t make the tackle. Bauer spies and doesn’t make the tackle. What is Freeman/Elston supposed to do? They tried different options and the players didn’t execute whatever option we tried. Sanders scrambling and Lewis basically lost the game. So the one thing they could have tried but didn’t I suppose was bench Lewis.

On offense, 2 2H TOs, no run game and some drops/slight overthrows.

No one likes to hear it because it's a goddamn dumb thing to say. The players play the way they do because the coaches put them in the game and prepared them accordingly, for better or worse. Good players occasionally drop balls or miss a block but it comes out in the wash, and over time you're left with what you've recruited and what you've coached. Blaming the players for looking like ass is like blaming the oven for burning the pizza when my drunk ass fell asleep last night (purely hypothetical example.)

The extent to which you blame the coaches for non-tactical stuff is the extent to which the development and recruiting are on them. In this case the extent is considerable, but not total. Freeman is pretty new to the program, and it's entirely possible he'll recruit and develop something very different to what we saw today.

 

[Rockin’Irish]

I thought missed tackles on defense were one of the biggest factors, players were often in position to make plays. Turnovers pretty even and certainly gave ND some chances to pull the game out. Definitely a disappointing end to the season. 11-2 is a pretty decent year and I’m looking forward to how the staff rounds out, how recruiting continues to progress forward and how the roster shapes up before the next OSU challenge. Go Irish!!!

 

[Jimmy3Putt]

We lost because of one reason: their quarterback took yards on the ground and ours didn't. We left 200+ yards out there with the huge amount of open real estate if our quarterback was even halfway mobile. The seas parted in the second half and Coan threw into tight coverage vs taking the 5+ yards he was capable of.

I really wish they gave TB12 a drive or two once the offense showed they couldn't beat the tighter press OSU adjusted to in the second half.



I'm not putting this loss on Coan. He played a brilliant game and was probably the best he's capable of playing.

 

[stpeteirish]

BK would’ve lost this game as well. Still hampered by QB play. Young players looked good. Give them a year to get MF culture. He was using BK players who hampered him in the long run, Doer and Coan.

you think he should have changed kickers?

 

[Dale]

No one likes to hear it because it's a goddamn dumb thing to say. The players play the way they do because the coaches put them in the game and prepared them accordingly, for better or worse. Good players occasionally drop balls or miss a block but it comes out in the wash, and over time you're left with what you've recruited and what you've coached. Blaming the players for looking like ass is like blaming the oven for burning the pizza when my drunk ass fell asleep last night (purely hypothetical example.)

Freeman didn’t recruit any of the current players, so you’re point makes little sense.

 

[SouthSideChiDomer]

When there is new hire, one of the things people have started to discuss is how the hire can fail. Hires are almost always sunshine and rainbows surrounding the team and no one wants to actually go into the strategic implications. This game gives the template for how Freeman can fail. He is a defensive minded coach, so either he calls the defense and his attention is split enough to not be good, or he hires someone else to run it but can't get top candidates because they worry it will be them running his defense instead of their own defense. That means our defense isn't as elite as it has been and Tommy doesn't have a good enough offense to make up for it when we face any sort of real competition. He is a good recruiter so we should still be okay, but we won't be the double digit win program we have been.

If we want to avoid this trap, Freeman has to go after the best DC we can possibly get, even if that means giving up control of the defense. I don't want to hire a position coach like Eliano or just promote someone from the staff so we can keep things the same. The truth is things are not the same and Freeman cannot expect that having himself around the defense is the same as being DC.

Along with that, he needs to make the hard decision on offense. Rees is obviously staying. But once again our receivers have failed us. We simply did not have enough talented depth out there today to compete for an entire game. There were plays to be made that we didn't make. And that same thing has been consistent. I don't care if they think Del can get better results in recruiting now somehow. Its not the results, but the process, that matters. Del's process has failed multiple times, and even the one success there was is now being threatened.

Freeman must realize that his role is now completely different, and we hired him for what we think he can do in that completely different role. His job is to recruit the best players, create the best culture, and hire the best coaches to recruit, develop, and gameplan. Our defense failed in that game planning aspect while our offense has failed in the recruiting and developing aspects throughout the last few years. Hopefully Freeman recognizes this because he seems like he will be pretty good at the recruiting and culture parts.

 

[Luckylucci]

If I’m going to give coaches credit for developing players throughout the season. Then it’s in the coaches when the defense and certain individual players just fall apart like a wet napkin to end the season. They had over 1 month since they played last. Started hot and just melted down.

 

[AKRowdy]

you think he should have changed kickers?

F@ck yes. Doer has been suspect all season. Never clutch, always shanking shit, can’t even kick the onsides correctly.

Coan fits the same bill, Lenzy can’t get off the line of scrimmage and run crisp routes. Lenzy and Austin never catch contested balls or have critical drops.

Get HH back for OL, kick Lugg and Madden to the curb. Del can go with Lenzy. The young talent on this team is amazing, let them shine.

 

[Irish2155]

Strike 1.

cannot lose tonight but he did.

one of the worse losses that I can remember is MF’s. I mean that was piss poor too. Has some ground to make up

 

[IrishTusker]

You can focus on a bunch of things that went wrong. To my mind, however, the offense put up 35 points and that should be enough to win. I do think that throwing 76% of the time is insane, however. We put up 28 points in the first half and only 7 in the second, but there seemed to be no adjustments, it was just air raid again and again. While I get throwing a little more with KW out, 76% is irresponsible and absurd. Drives ended quickly and the D was tired. MF should have told Rees to run more or put Buchner in.

The bigger problem was of course the D, though. No way should we have given up 37 points and given up back-to-back TDs at the start/finish of halftime. And we saw similar issues (sudden defensive meltdowns and TD drives) throughout the season. Is this Freeman's D?

And although the game was already out of hand at this point, not punting on 4th & 7 with 3 TOs and 2:30 or whatever left deep in our own territory was insane. I assume that was MF's call.

The game was the nightmare scenario for a first-time HC (despite a dreamy start). There seemed to be little in the way of adjustments. If things get ugly next year we will definitely be hearing about how we should have nabbed Fickell.