Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman was coaching in the Orange Bowl with a little extra fire in his belly following comments made at his expense by Penn State coach James Franklin.
At a Wednesday, January 8 press conference ahead of Notre Dame’s 27-24 victory over Penn State on Thursday, January 9, Franklin, 52, ribbed Freeman — who turned 39 on Friday, January 10, just hours after the biggest win of his career — about his age and said, “I mean, I look at the hairline on this guy. Envious of his hairline in a lot of ways.”
Freeman appeared to take the jokes in stride at the press conference, but after his team’s victory on Thursday night, Freeman’s players revealed it was quite a different story.
“He was angry,” Notre Dame safety Xavier Watts told The Athletic. “He was angry with the press conference thing, whatever was going on between that. He was mad about that. All the anger went toward us and that anger went onto the field.”
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Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love indicated he was similarly ticked off by Franklin’s comments, telling The Athletic, “I’m not gonna speak on their head coach.”
“We felt like their team didn’t really respect us,” Love, 19, said. “We wanted to come into this game and make a statement. Be the aggressors. Dominate them physically. That’s the message. Be physical and play violent. The whole game.”
Inside the Notre Dame locker room at Miami Gardens’ Hard Rock Stadium, Fighting Irish linebacker Jack Kiser noticed the clock read 12:17 a.m., meaning it was his head coach’s birthday.
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“Let’s just say that 17 minutes ago coach Freeman turned 39,” Kiser, 24, told The Athletic. “So he’s not that young guy that a lot of people treat him as. Guys want to play for coach Freeman, and when you put gas on that fire, it can get really explosive in this locker room.”
Notre Dame’s win over Penn State earned them a trip to the College Football Playoff National Championship, which goes down Monday, January 20 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. They will face the winner of Ohio State–Texas, who battle on Friday, January 10 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Freeman did not address Franklin’s comments after the game, but he did acknowledge the significance of Notre Dame’s win — which meant Freeman will become the first Black coach in history to coach in a college national championship game.
“I’ve said this before, I don’t ever want to take attention away from the team,” Freeman told ESPN’s Molly McGrath. “It is an honor, and I hope all coaches — minorities, Black, Asian, white, it doesn’t matter, great people — continue to get opportunities to lead young men like this. But this ain’t about me. This is about us. We’re going to celebrate what we’ve done because it’s so special.”
