Is it already time for Notre Dame football to be back on the field for spring practice?
SOUTH BEND – When last seen leaving his work environment where first downs and chunk plays mattered, Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman carried the distant gaze of someone who had seen a professional dream dissolve.
Up a drafty, concrete tunnel of Mercedes-Benz Stadium and a right turn into a solemn locker room. Down a hallway in the opposite direction to post-game interview obligations. Seated between two players, two captains, two cornerstones in veteran linebacker Jack Kiser and first-year quarterback Riley Leonard, who both fought through tears as the three talked of not completing the journey.
Back down that hallway went Freeman, into the locker room and pretty much out of the spotlight for the next few weeks as he dealt with being a play or two or three away from winning the school’s 12th national championship in what was the longest season (16 games over six months) in program history.
Fifty-eight days later, Freeman was back in his work environment. On the football field. At five minutes after 9 on Wednesday morning, he bounced between stretch lines in the first practice of spring. It was as if nothing had changed. For Freeman. For the Irish. For the program.
Those 58 days passed like 58 hours. Like that. Weren’t we all just in Atlanta, like, last month? Spring practice? Already? Sigh.
This is a different Notre Dame football March for myriad reasons while coming clear of a season that felt like it would never end and feels like it only just did. Key players will work through college football’s version of load management in the run-up to the annual Blue-Gold game on April 12. They may be available for some practices, but unavailable for others. Take a day. Take two.
The off-season program was tweaked to compensate for the extended run through four College Football Playoff games that took Notre Dame from South Bend to New Orleans, South Florida to Atlanta. Returning players had little time to recover. By the time the 34-23 loss to Ohio State went final, the spring semester already had started.
They literally went from Mercedes-Benz Stadium to God Quad.
What about Freeman? How did the fourth-year, 39-year head coach recharge in the shortest offseason of his head coaching career? Downtime didn’t much exist. Not with staff comings and goings, administrative additions, and everything else that comes with being the head coach at Notre Dame. Off days? No way.
“You take off one hat, put on another,” Freeman said. “That’s the reality of the profession. You don’t have much time to recalibrate. You’ve got to move to the next thing. We’ve been really busy from the end of the season to the first day of spring ball.
“I’m recalibrated enough. I’m ready to go.”
Turning the page in the time he did have to get away wasn’t easy. Reminders of 2024 were everywhere. When Freeman was courtside at a Notre Dame men’s basketball game in February, he and his team were recognized at halftime. Same thing days later at a Notre Dame women’s basketball game. Freeman went to the Maxwell Awards Gala last week in, of all places, Atlanta.
Even Wednesday, there was a big piece of 2024 there on the sideline in shorts and a T-shirt in Kiser, who finally exhausted his ninth (really, sixth) season in January.
In spring's past, Freeman might’ve grown restless counting down the days when he could be back in the meeting room, be back on the practice field, be back coaching his guys. Spring practice then couldn’t come soon enough. Spring practice now couldn’t come late enough.
When was Freeman ready to look hard at 2025?
“Today,” he said. “There’s just been a lot of stuff to do and handle from the end of the season to now. It was good to be out there and turn all your attention to actual practice.”
We saw a different version of Freeman in his 28-minute session with the media, which followed a workout where the Irish were on the indoor turf field of the Irish Athletics Center for barely an hour. He was loose. He was relaxed. Custom sports coat and fresh kicks? Back home in the closet. He wore sweatpants and a sweatshirt. He wasn’t so buttoned up as he normally is when he steps in front of the media microphone inside Notre Dame Stadium.
That was understandable. He’s not that concerned about naming a starting quarterback – that will come in time – or naming captains – again, in time – or worried that he’s taking precious minutes away from a Georgia or an Ohio State game plan. The ink has dried on the contract extension that keeps Freeman in South Bend through 2030 and makes him among the highest-paid head coaches in the game.
Life’s good. There’s no reason to be anxious about your Mike linebacker or left tackle depth chart or the kicking game or what analytics says to do on fourth and two. Not in March.
After his media session, Freeman did something that he rarely does after media sessions. Maybe never has done.
On a sunny morning with temperatures already close to 70 degrees, Freeman exited the stadium and walked back to the Gug. Right there along the sidewalk that runs parallel to Moose Krause Circle. Just a guy out for a stroll across campus with not a worry in the world.
At least, not yet.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at tnoie@sbtinfo.com
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: After coming close last year, Notre Dame football begins its 2025 journey
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