Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman met with reporters on Thursday as the team looks to rebound from last weekend’s 16-14 loss to the Northern Illinois Huskies. The coach dropped names, clarified remarks from the sidelines and exemplified the Irish mentality as they prepare to face the Purdue Boilermakers.
The Irish QB
Regarding Irish signal caller Riley Leonard’s practice since the NIU game, Freeman said, “Nobody has changed their role. Riley has had a really good week of practice. He’s made some really good throws and made his decisions really well, taken care of the football, and everyone else has done a great job of what they’ve been asked to do, but nobody has been asked to do anything different this week than before.”
Explanatory comments
Leonard had spoken before the NIU game about wanting to test his limits against the Huskies. Before the matchup, Freeman told NBC’s Zora Stephenson that he wanted to see Leonard “play on offense,” and continued, “Do exactly what your coaches tell you, play the game plan and the rest will take care of itself.”
Freeman said Thursday: “I don’t want my comments to Zora to be misconstrued as Riley and I not seeing eye to eye. I think Riley was excited about the opportunity to go out there and compete on Saturday. And I really wanted to make sure our guys were focused on doing their jobs and doing what their coaches told them to do. And that’s probably more what I meant by those comments, is that coaches and players are on the same page. It takes time, like everything we’ve done, everything we do.”
Freeman continued, “Experience comes with improvement. I think Riley and Coach (Mike) Denbrock and Coach (Gino) Guidugli are constantly making sure we’re very clear about what we want in the plays that we’re calling. Sometimes we give maybe too much freedom. We have to make sure we’re clear about what’s expected, but there’s also a part of the game as a quarterback where you have to give them certain freedom to make good decisions. That’s something I think we’ve been working on constantly. It’s important that we as coaches call plays that our players feel very confident about.
Intentional and effective
On the impact and development of Irish linebacker Jaiden Ausberry given his strong performance in the third and fourth quarters against NIU, Freeman said, “Jaiden has improved tremendously from year one to year two. He’s still improving and he does a really good job of training at a high level and you see him play at a high level in the games. He’s a guy that helps our defense. He’s a guy that, like a lot of our players, just wants to get better and is really dedicated to training that way and it shows in the games.”
The mental game
On the Irish’s mentality since the win over Texas A&M, Freeman said, “The mindset after a big win, ‘how do you handle success?’ is totally different than the mindset after a loss. Our guys have been great this week: hungry, extremely motivated, competitive, wanting to improve, embarrassed. But they’re ready to improve. But I think the biggest challenge we have to learn from week one to week two is how to handle success. (There will come a time) when that challenge comes, we have to make sure we’re ready, no matter how the last game turned out.”
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