It’s OK to like Notre Dame football again. Brian Kelly is gone, and defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman is staying, and finally the Irish have a coach to rally behind.
Hey, is it OK to admit I never liked Brian Kelly? Shouldn’t be that big a surprise. Five years ago, when the long list of problems in Kelly’s program suddenly included the unthinkable – NCAA violations stemming from academic fraud … at Notre Dame – I said he should be fired. Didn’t happen. The power of the pen isn’t nearly as mighty as the power of winning a lot of football games.
More:5 things to know about Notre Dame’s new head coach Marcus Freeman
Kelly won a lot of football games. He won so many games, other issues you’d think would derail a man’s coaching career – truly unthinkable issues like a student-manager falling to his death from a 50-foot hydraulic scissor lift after being sent up there on a frighteningly windy day; like a linebacker being accused of raping St. Mary’s College student Lizzy Seeberg, with Seeberg committing suicide 10 days after the alleged assault – didn’t slow him down. Didn’t humble him, either.
After the alleged rape of Seeberg in August 2010, after the death of Declan Sullivan two months later, Kelly was so humbled by it all that he decided the punishment in 2016 for academic fraud in his program, involving a student athletic trainer and three players, was overstated.
“Any negative criticism about me now is because we’re 4-7,” he said in 2016, demonstrating his philosophy on coaching a big-time football program:
Bad stuff is bad only if we don’t win enough.
This guy is your problem now, LSU, but don’t stop reading just yet. I have a lot more to say about you.
But first, to cleanse my palate, to feel good again about college sports – to express my affection, finally, for Notre Dame football – let’s talk about Marcus Freeman, the man Notre Dame just hired to replace Brian Kelly.
Notre Dame loving Marcus Freeman already
Marcus Freeman married his college sweetheart, then went back to school in 2011 to get his Master’s degree. Does any of that prove he’s a wonderful human being? No. Does the reaction to the video introducing him as the new Irish coach – it’s love at first sight – prove it? No.
But it’s a start. Right now all we have is a vague outline – who is Marcus Freeman? – but with his help, we’ll fill the gaps as we go. Please, Marcus, be who everyone says you are. Please. For Notre Dame’s sake, and ours.
More:Video naming Marcus Freeman as Notre Dame’s coach has fans ‘ready to run through a brick wall’
This was a man with a plan, an elite football player at Ohio State whose NFL career was derailed by an enlarged heart, but a man whose charisma and intelligence were so large that his future in coaching was assured. So he got the Master’s, because he’d need that. He and his wife and their six kids started climbing the ladder.
Freeman was at Purdue there for a minute, coaching linebackers and spending one season as defensive coordinator under Darrell Hazell, whom he followed from Kent State. Hazell wasn’t good, but Freeman was, and he rejoined one of the men who knew him best – Luke Fickell, who recruited and coached him at Ohio State – as defensive coordinator at Cincinnati in 2017. By 2020, Freeman had been nominated three times for the Broyles Award, given to the country’s top assistant coach. He was named a finalist in 2020, the same year that 247.com named him defensive coordinator of the year.
A rising star, this guy. Now, hiring a defensive coach is a risk in today’s football, college and pro, where offensive masterminds like Lincoln Riley and, yes, Brian Kelly, are all the rage. But Fickell’s background is defense, and he’s worked out for Cincinnati. We’ll see.
Hiring a coach without head coaching experience anywhere, especially at a job as enormous as Notre Dame, is also a risk. This job will crush Marcus Freeman, or he will crush it.
Here’s where I come clean, as if this will surprise any of you, and admit that I’d prefer the teams in the state of Indiana to do well. More than that, I’d prefer to like those teams, which starts with liking their coach. Does that make me a homer? Not in my head. Inside these ears, it makes sense to want to like the people I spend so much time with, and it makes sense to want the people of my state – fans of Notre Dame, Purdue, IU, Butler, Colts, Pacers, you name it – to be happy. It makes my neighbors happy when their teams win. I’m supposed to pretend not to care about that? Won’t even try.
So this is me, right here, saying I want Marcus Freeman to succeed personally and professionally. Most of us should want that. The football coach at Notre Dame, along with the basketball coaches at IU and Purdue and the leaders of the Colts and Pacers, are among the highest-profile people in the state, in any walk of life. It’s OK to want to like them.
Notre Dame football winning? What’s wrong with that? If I had it my way, the Irish, Boilermakers and Hoosiers would make the College Football Playoff every year, and join Butler in the Final Four.
That’s how I feel, today, with Marcus Freeman in charge at Notre Dame.
When Brian Kelly was there? Impossible to root for that guy. He’s your problem now, LSU.
Speaking of that.
LSU deserves Brian Kelly, Will Wade
Here’s what would be nice: For fans to be honest about who their coach is.
More:Noie: A wild week got a little weird with Brian Kelly introduction presser at LSU
At LSU, they’re not honest at all. See for yourself. Go on social media and wonder aloud how Will Wade can still be coaching at LSU. See the reactions of LSU fans.
Wade was caught in 2017 on an FBI wiretap with the wannabe agent eventually convicted of bribery, Christian Dawkins, saying he’d made “a strong-ass offer” on “this Smart thing” – seemingly a reference to then-LSU freshman guard Javonte Smart, a five-star recruit – and joking that the player who’d received that “strong-ass offer” would be paid more than the NBA’s “rookie minimum.” Wade went onto say that he’d made deals for “as good of players as him” that were “a lot simpler than this.”
The NCAA’s investigation into that continues, with Wade reportedly interviewing last week with the NCAA’s Complex Case Unit.
More:Doyel: NCAA’s new independent infractions structure is terrifying
Unless – until? – the NCAA forces LSU’s hand, Will Wade remains the coach at LSU. Because he wins, I guess. And because LSU has no shame.
Like, hiring Brian Kelly. It’s the tragedies of 2010, and the academic fraud of 2016. It’s the way he singles out players on the sideline and, with national cameras rolling, berates them for their mistakes. It’s everything about the man, including the way he faked a Southern accent Thursday night when speaking to the crowd at an LSU basketball game, and it’s also this:
Notre Dame still has a legitimate shot at the 2021 College Football Playoff. Things have to happen elsewhere, namely UC losing Saturday to Houston, but weird things happen. LSU didn’t care, throwing a fortune at Notre Dame’s coach and then proudly hiring a man who would walk away from his team in the middle of such a season.
Think about that. LSU hired a man whose willingness to accept their offer should have disqualified him. But again, LSU has no shame.
More:Doyel in 2016: How can Notre Dame not fire Brian Kelly?
And think about being Brian Kelly. Yes, $100 million over 10 years – that’s what LSU will pay Kelly in basic compensation – is a lot of money. He was already making a lot of money at Notre Dame, generational money, life-changing money for him and his kids and their kids. Now he’s making even more. And to some people, that justifies leaving your team in the middle of a potential national championship season.
Here’s the thing about principles: They’re easy to have, until you actually need to have them.
Brian Kelly is a man without principle. LSU has none, either. They deserve each other.
Back home in Indiana, Marcus Freeman is our guy. We’ll see if he’s an upgrade over the last guy as a coach. That bar is high. To be an upgrade over Brian Kelly as a leader, as a person? Much lower bar. Like stepping over a curb on your way to the news conference.
Watch your step, Marcus Freeman. You’re going to be loved here. Please deserve it.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
