By John Brice
Special Contributor
The routine never wavered.
Marcus Freeman did not get here, arguably one of the world’s most recognizable institutions of higher learning and without question the program that puts its golden stamp on college football, as Notre Dame’s head coach with self-doubt or unmoored principles.
Saturday morning, some nine hours before the Fighting Irish would kick off their final home game for a month with a chance to end an overhyped winning drought that had stretched 10 days shy of 10 months, Freeman stuck to his foundational tenets.And to the streets of South Bend.
“I kept the routine the same,” Freeman said. “I got up at about 5:30 or 6, went on a run. Kind of by where we stayed. The police officer doesn’t like me doing that (running on campus), so I won’t tell you exactly where but by where we are staying. Came back and took a shower, we had morning meetings, a special teams meeting, O and D walk-through, another quick break and then we had final meetings, pre-game meal. We came here to the stadium after Mass, met with some recruits and got ready for the game.”
Sticking to his compass points has become so ingrained in Freeman that he ticks off these moments throughout a historic Saturday as if it’s simply any other day.
This day ends in Notre Dame 24, California 17, delighting a sold-out Notre Dame Stadium crowd that saw the Irish don their dazzling green jerseys to help Freeman put his first indelible impression in the school’s rich annals.
Nothing about the path was happenstance.
As Freeman and his Irish players exit Mass, a few hundred yards from their north end zone locker room, they pause in front of ‘Touchdown Jesus’ to let both Freeman and revered former star and perpetual energy-generator Manti Te’o address the assembled fans.
“This is about the whole family,” Te’o bellowed to the crowd at precisely 12:23 p.m. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go forward, go together.
“This team needs all of us. … This is an all-ages-rager.”
One minute later, Freeman made his comments brief.
“The time for talking is over,” the coach told the crowd. “It’s time to go to work, and there’s no better place to go to work than Notre Dame Stadium.”
Meanwhile, the head coach at the Freeman household, wife Joanna, has worked to get their entourage ready for the game.
“This is what it looks like; we have six children,” Joanna Freeman, the couple together since their days as college sweethearts in Ohio, said. “He always stays with his teams on Friday nights, that’s been a tradition of his for a long time. We have a lot of nerves in the house, but because there are six children, there’s a lot of moving parts. So just by the time we get everybody dressed and ready and in the car, we don’t really have a lot of time to feel it.
“Once kickoff gets closer, our oldest (Vinny) is 15, he’s getting to the point where he really understands more of what’s going on. They all have a good time, but as they get older they realize, this is Daddy’s job and it means a lot to him and means a lot to our family.”
And home dates, such as this one, end up with extra guests lodged at the Freeman house.
“We have family and friends who come. There are a lot more children, so all of our kids with a couple extras and my parents, coaches’ families,” Joanna added. “We like to surround ourselves with a lot of support; we need it.
“We need people to lean on, the kids need people to lean on. It’s hard, we’re so invested with these kids and we love these kids (on the team) and we love this coaching staff. So you just want it for these kids, these players, this place.”
At 12:45, Marcus Freeman has walked onto the field as Irish players trickle out for pregame warmups and Chad Bowden, Notre Dame’s Sonic the Hedgehog recruiting director, has ushered in the latest batch of recruits.
Notre Dame, under Freeman, has reasserted itself nationally in recruiting with an enhanced visibility impossible not to notice.
Mindful of this and ever-pressed on the program’s course, Freeman went to work.
“Talent is the most important piece to having success, and what we do with that talent is probably just as much or next-most-important, but it’s talent, man,” said Freeman, who again split time on-field in pre-game to visit with current players and prospective ones. “It’s relationship-driven. And if I’ve got a chance to spend some time with those guys that can be program-changing type of players, I’m doing to do that because I know they’re going to directly impact the success of our program.”
The afternoon sun perched overhead and temperatures unseasonably warm in the lower-80s, Freeman imparts a final message to his team just before the 2:39 p.m. kickoff.
“We’re going to attack on offense, attack on defense and attack on special teams,” Freeman said.
Early in this game, attack is a relative word on both sidelines. Not until a turnover and subsequent short field does Cal break the scoreless drought with the first of its two touchdowns in the game; it is only the third first-half touchdown the Irish have allowed this season.
By 3:37 p.m., less than six game minutes after the Bears’ salvo, Drew Pyne finds Chris Tyree lonesome in the heart of the Cal defense for a 21-yard scoring strike.
Though the Bears eventually would take an 10-7 edge into the break, Notre Dame’s defense has sent a clear message as it relentlessly harangues Cal quarterback Jack Plummer – the former Purdue signal-caller who throughout the course of this game will undoubtedly be hammered into remembering the eight quarterback hurries and three sacks he absorbed from Freeman’s defense a year ago.
Less than an hour later, at 4:33, Audric Estimè has lunged across the goal line from a yard away and again lifted the Irish to just their second fourth-quarter lead this season; it’s the finisher to a nine-play, 60-yard march that elapsed four minutes and showcased, for perhaps the first sustained march this season, the potential for the Irish O-line to assert itself.
Still, the Bears remain undaunted. They get their final points minutes later, Plummer’s plunge ultimately their final score of the afternoon.
At 4:49, Notre Dame trailed 17-14; by 5:03, Blake Grupe had knotted the score at 17-all – and buoyed the Irish to own the final stanza.
Even with a TV timeout and change of possession, the Irish retained possession at 5:08, and as Freeman paced the sideline, they began the decisive march for their head coach’s milestone first-ever victory.
Tyree catches a first-down pass, Lorenzo Styles the same; when Pyne connects in stride with Estimè out of the backfield the rolling fire hydrant creases the Cal defense for 36 yards.
It’s first-and-goal from the 6, and Tommy Rees has dialed up a winner.
At 5:15, Notre Dame All-America tight end Michael Mayer is fettuccini-noodling the ankles of Cal defender Daniel Scott and scoring what proves to be the game-winning touchdown of Freeman’s first-ever winning game.
Not that the ensuing 43 minutes are devoid of drama.
Twice inside the final two minutes on the scoreboard, it appears Notre Dame is cinching the triumph with a pair of plays that initially result in the first takeaway through 12 quarters for the Irish.
Clarence Lewis’s pick is wiped off by a teammate’s penalty; TaRiq Bracy’s roar-inducing scoop-and-score fumble frenzy is abolished by instant replay that determines Plummer’s knee hit turf before Bracy gobbled up the fumble and dashed to pay dirt.
So at 5:57, there is one last snap. Plummer heaves the ball five yards into the end zone, and it bounces off multiple Cal receivers – including into and through the hands for what would have set up a game-tying extra-point attempt or game-winning two-point conversion try.
No matter. Everyone, and it’s everyone because leaving early isn’t an option on this day and might not be for any Irish win this season, seems collectively to exhale.
Two minutes later, Irish coaches and players gather in the northwest corner of the end zone to sing “Notre Dame, Our Mother.”
The Freeman family finds a brief moment on-field to embrace.
“I saw her on the field after the game; just she’s happy for me, but more importantly just happy for this program,” Marcus Freeman said of his embrace with Joanna. “She’s a supportive woman, a supportive wife and I couldn’t do this thing without her.”
Perhaps 30 minutes later, in the tunnel between the Irish locker room and the stadium’s media room, Joanna Freeman has found the moment beginning to resonate a bit more while simultaneously seeking to wrangle a family that sees each of its members rushing and screaming for hugs with “Daddy!”.
“The first one, I will remember this forever,” she said. “Obviously the first one, this is something that we’ve had dreams about.
“I’m proud of him, I’m excited for the team and I think this is going to be the momentum we need.”
Marcus Freeman vows to follow the same advice he’s been dispensing to his players since the win.
“Enjoy this. Enjoy it. You’ve earned it. We’ll go back to work (Sunday),” Freeman said of his locker-room missive. “This is a reflection of our preparation, but just proud of them. A lot of people make a lot about my first win, but this is for our players and this for our university that took a chance on a first-time head coach.
“It was great to have Manti here, some of those former players that have really paved the way. It’s for all of us, this university, and this is going to be one I remember personally but hopefully it’s the start of many more to come.”
Thus, any modest celebration and even more limited exhalation isn’t going to last long. Freeman is assessing the rest of his first evening as a winning head coach.
“I want to enjoy this with my family,” Marcus Freeman said. “I will probably go back to the office and watch it. I want to enjoy it for a little bit, and then I’ll probably go back to the office and watch it. That’s my routine to get some things fixed.”
If needed, Joanna Freeman stands ready to assist in any film review; it’s the fabric of their lives together after all these years of marriage.
“This was in him, and he’s hungry for it. We believe in him, we’re behind him, we’re his biggest cheerleaders,” said Joanna Freeman, alternately lifting up her youngest daughter, Capri, and then seeing her jubilantly run scattershot in the bowels of Notre Dame Stadium. “I’ve said it in the past, and I’m sure Marcus has said it, too; we’re not each other’s bobbleheads. So we challenge each other.
“There have been plenty of times after games when he is watching film and I’m nudging him saying, ‘What happened on this play? What happened here?’ Sometimes I think he might need me to just give him a hug and tell him great job, but that’s what we do. He challenges me, and I challenge him. I think that’s kind of what makes us work the way that we do. It’s not perfect, he works a lot of hours, we have a lot of kids and anybody who’s around us for five minutes knows that this is a very real, normal family. It’s chaotic and we have highs and lows, but we just always tell the kids to work hard and be kind.”
This day, hard work and an entire family ecosystem sees the sacrifices pay off. Notre Dame 24, Cal 17.