Notre Dame enters the 2024 season as a preseason Top 10 team, and expectations are sky high for the Irish in year of the Marcus Freeman tenure. It's certainly a big year for Freeman and Notre Dame. Bryan and Vince discuss why it's so important for Freeman to show progress, and they discuss what progress looks like in 2024.
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Just go to indeed.com/bluewire right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast, that's indeed.com/bluewire, terms and conditions applied. Need to hire? You need Indeed. This episode is brought to you by our good friends at NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. I'm sure by now you've all got back into your Sunday routines, but they could be even better. With NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get the most live NFL games all in one place every game every Sunday, and you can even watch up to four different games at once with Multi-View, one of my favorite inventions of this decade. It's exactly what you need to catch all the action. Make your Sundays more magical, and also, YouTube TV is great. I got it this year. It's awesome. Sign up now at youtube.com/bsdevice and content restriction supply, local and national games on YouTube TV, and NFL Sunday Ticket for Out of Market Games excludes digital-only games. Welcome everyone to another edition of the Irish Breakdown Podcast. Welcome, welcome, welcome. It is Monday, and according to the chat, we are 19 days away from game number one for Notre Dame to getting on the road to college station to take on Texas A&M. It's so nice that every day we do these shows, somebody has the countdown over there because that's math, and I don't want to do it, and they just do it for me, and so I'm just going to trust that that number is accurate, Brian, and we've got, I said this to you earlier on the phone. I don't know if it comes off the right way, but these are the fun shows to do. We get to talk about our predictions, and today we are going to obviously focus on Notre Dame. We're going to talk big picture, we're going to talk, we're going to give out our superlatives like a yearbook, most likely to succeed, you just couple, stuff like that. We're going to do that one. We're not going to do that. Pretty sure that one's not in there. That one's not in there. That's you since Maris isn't on the team anymore, so we can't talk about him and Sonya because that's the only couple that I know him. That's a good point. That's a good point. No, we're just going to take that one off the list. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Then we're going to talk about our overall season predictions, what the postseason might look like for Notre Dame and that kind of stuff, and so we're going to have a lot of fun with that, and then tomorrow we're going to do more of a national view. We're going to talk about our college football playoff picks, what that's going to look like. We'll go back over our conference match-ups and the championship, who wins, all of that, and we'll try to put together our brackets and what we think that's going to look like and who's going to be the national champion, and just going to have a lot of fun with this thing. It's for sure. For sure. These are my favorite types of shows to do, and one of the reasons that we're doing these two favorite shows in a row is because these are my last two afternoon shows before I go back to work. Yeah. We were thinking about doing them over the next couple of Saturdays, but I was like, you know, we've previewed everything, we've got plenty to talk about in the solo shows. What a better way to end your summer appearances, which just flew by. Seriously. Seriously. Seriously. Than to do our prediction shows. And again, this is meant to be fun. This isn't something where you should take what we say and go bet on this season and, you know, we're going to give you our honest opinions, right? So it's not meant to be like a lighthearted, don't take us seriously kind of show. These are our honest, genuine opinions, but just a reminder that like, you know, look, these are not meant to be, you know, things where you look at put the mortgage on, you know, Notre Dame. Please don't do that. Whatever we predict. So please don't do that. Mention has to follow. And then also what we are requesting from you guys in the chat is obviously, hopefully you guys are paying attention to the show, I think that you will be. But as we talk about different things, we want to hear your guys's opinions, guys and gals opinions, right? So, you know, we'll do sort of the record, the actual record at the end of the show. So we're going to kind of build into that. We'll do record. We'll talk about how deep we both think they're going to go, but we're going to have some things in the middle too. So some predictions about, you know, individual players, you know, like who, top role player, top newcomers, best lineman, best skilled player, most outstanding, you know, MVP, things like that. So when we get to those different things and we are talking about it, I would love to see some feedback from you guys on what you think about. So when one section we're going to talk about part one is going to be, you know, what is the, what is the minimum record needed this year for you to look back on this team and really kind of twofold. Number one is to say, okay, what's the minimum record to say, okay, this team took a step. But what's the minimum record also, which is a little different to say, okay, Freeman's the guy, right? Like, obviously, if they go to the championship game and win it or play in a close game, okay, yeah. But like, what's the minimum thing that we need to see? So we'll get to that too, don't answer that yet when we get there. But I would love to see some interaction from you all in the chat about these different topics. And what do you guys think, because I know what Vince and I think we've been talking about it all summer. I want to know what you guys think and what the vibe is from you guys, Vince. And that's going to be part of the fun of, of, of really what we're doing today. 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I'm excited to jump into it and you know the first part of this entire thing is we want to kind of talk about big picture and you know this is Notre Dame obviously and one of the you know historic whether it's good, whether it's bad you know hanging on the head of a new coach is the year three thing right. And this is year three for Marcus Freeman and we've talked about it and beyond the fact that this is year three in Notre Dame and you know the historic great coaches have done amazing things in year three right they've either you know won a national championship even Brian Kelly went to a national championship game in year three and so you know what does that look like for Marcus Freeman but then in addition to that this year three is really shaping up to be his team and so we're going to talk about that as well because there are some circumstances that could be different in that regard too so we're going to break that down and we're going to talk about you know is Marcus Freeman the right guy and what do they have to do in year three to really solidify that and make everybody feel like okay Notre Dame's on the right track I mean this is a this is a legit conversation here for Marcus Freeman we've talked about like Joe Rudolph and how this is a big year for him this is a big year for Marcus Freeman too and a lot of it has to do with the makeup of the roster I mean look Vince you're year three obviously as you say did big picture always mean something for Notre Dame but for Freeman I like how you're going with it specifically for Freeman because it's not just about well Holt's did this and so did this because everybody walks into different situations this is a different era of football there's all types of different things that are going on you know but for Marcus Freeman it's one of those things where there's some things he inherited when he stepped in that we're kind of working against him some things he had to fix some culture fixes that needed to be made some roster fixes that needed to be made and you now are in year three that's enough time to start to fix those things and he took over at a time when the portal opened up in a way that it made it a little bit easier to go out there and and and address some of those holes right and they've done that and and so when you talk about what we're going to learn about Marcus Freeman in year three Vince it's it's this is a very telling season it's not the end all be all in my opinion barring him winning a championship I mean that would be kind of like well okay yeah he's legit like that's the only definitive or on the flip side they just utterly collapse those are the only two things that could be like okay no brainer like you know this is where we're at but you're in year three now you're in a situation where this needs to be your team this team needs to have your DNA on it and we're gonna find out if he knows how to build a team in a culture over the course of an entire off season into a season to maximize the potential of your football team I don't know really what the maximum potential of this team is yet there's things we have to learn however I do think you can kind of have an idea of what the floor needs to be when you look at a team like this Vince and and and look at it for saying like okay like you got to be at least this you got at least to be able to take this step you've got to be able to continue what he did in year two which is maybe look at some of the mistakes in year one correct them and improve in year two okay he did that I felt last year now you go into year three there's there's more things to learn from last season will he be able to address those and push those right buttons you last year had a lot of new coaches on your staff a lot of coaching turnover after year one now you're in a situation where those guys are almost all going into year two you only have really two new coaches on staff really that weren't here last year in Mike Denbruck and Mike Brown who were two of your top should be two of your top coaches on the staff based on their past performance and so we're gonna find out all those things are going to go into how good this team is which tells us a lot about who Marcus Freeman is you know can meaning can he make the right hires on a coaching staff because look you're going to lose guys if you're a good coach you're going to lose guys you know you lost Tommy Reese Alabama that was an upgrade in a lot of ways for Tommy I'm talking about for Tommy you know Jared Parker got the head coaching job at Troy which that's a great situation for him to walk into too it wasn't yes that wasn't you that wasn't the UMass coaching job right or Brian Kelly got Charlie Molnar that job Diakos was legit it was different but Charlie Molnar's was yeah yes Charlie Molnar's was was we don't want you here anymore so let's go find you a job it's kind of like what Urban Meyer did with Everett Withers back in you know 2013 when he got rid of him and he got the James Madison head coaching job this is before James Madison really blew up you know because it was more about well you know I don't want you I don't want to fire you but I also you can't be here so yeah right and and you know but you're going to have coaches leave yeah can you replace them you lost Harry he stand after your first year did you make the right hire that's going to impact the season in a lot of ways you have a super chat about that here Vincent okay when we get to our season predictions there was one that that I thought was very interesting you know look you you you moved on from Jared Parker and hired Mike Denmark is that going to pay off you fired a coach that needed to be let go and Chansey Sucky how did you replace that you fought hard to keep out golden and Mike Mickens here how's that going to pay off for you you know you promoted Max Bullah instead of hiring a more established position coach how's that going to pay off for you now personally I think all of those moves are great including the Max Bullah one but what I what I'm saying is you did take a risk he is a young not established coach I think it was the right move flat out was the right move but sure we're gonna find that out yeah right and so all those things factor in to what we're going to learn about him you know we all think that your talent acquisition at Notre Dame has been pretty good you know that you're good at identifying top players and recruiting top players and you we a lot of us believe that he's rebuilt the roster okay well now we're really going to find out because now that talent should take over for example Vince you know offensively we're still really on in in through two years of recruiting under Marcus Freeman but defensively we're three years in under Marcus Freeman because he he had that year in 2021 where he was the coordinator and was able to recruit so just all those things go together to where now you need to find out who you are and and we're going to learn a lot about him this year one of the things I talked with you about prior to the show and how you know it really does kind of line up for Marcus Freeman this with this being his team and those kinds of things and you know you and I talked about you know the recruiting and how just the makeup of this team and the guys that they're going to be counting on they're Freeman guys like the most of the Brian Kelly guys have either graduated or moved on or whatever the case may be and while that some of that is concerning to some fans like you know for for example the you know the two backup tackles right now are both true freshmen right and so you've got it's a it's a youth movement well this youth movement was all brought into Notre Dame by Marcus Freeman especially defensively because they're one year ahead because he was the defensive coordinator for a year these are his guys right so when you talk about I think I saw a tweet yesterday about all of the snaps that the Notre Dame's secondary has and how you know they've got so many guys and all this stuff these different things well that's true but two of those guys are transfers right and the other two guys Benjamin Morrison he started as a freshman under Marcus Freeman as the defensive coordinator I believe and then the next he was head coach only okay see I get my years he was he was initially recruited by Freeman when he was still the defensive coordinator so there you go first year 2022 which was Freeman's first year gotcha so his entire tenure has been under Marcus Freeman and then Xavier Watts his entire defensive tenure has been under Marcus Freeman because he didn't become a defensive player till Marcus Freeman was the defensive coordinator to your point correct exactly and so 2022 2023 was his first year of just being only a defensive player right right and then you know the other guys that are going to help out you know Mickey and Gray and then the two folks recruited by Marcus Freeman they're all Marcus Freeman guys right and so and then you look at the line backing core and outside of Jack Kaiser who's you know has I think he's working on his second or third master's only the only guy he's the only guy higher roster that wasn't recruited by Marcus Freeman and in year three that is not always the case is the point that is my long-winded way of saying year three under Marcus Freeman is different than year three under some other coaches because sometimes they're still dealing with guys that were brought up through the previous coaches regime and that is not really the case for Notre Dame the roster with like 95 percent of the roster that they're counting on are Marcus Freeman guys and so that's another reason why this year is so important because you can't you made a really good point on the phone Brian you said the first two years if they are successful some of that credit has to go to Brian Kelly because those are his guys you know etc etc it's at whatever fine now they've moved on to year three that's not really there and there's the flip side to that too you can't blame him anymore either you know there there's so if you're going to give him credit then you can also give him blame yeah I don't really think you can get away with that in year three with this particular roster and the way things are made up it's Marcus Freeman like yeah positively negatively this is Marcus Freeman's team well I mean in in the other unique part about it too Vince when you look at it is I mean it's it's you can't blame Brian Kelly anymore if your roster is not where you need to be exactly you also you know you you also well I should I wanted to reverse that you you're going to get the credit if you win whereas we talked about in the past if you win in your first two years Brian Kelly deserves a lot of the credit because he would have done a lot of things to build that team but in year three you know look you're getting most of the credit but you're also don't have that escape of well you know hey we we were inherited this now here's the nice thing about it like Vince I mean you know who my contacts are Notre Dame right and you know you know their connections they have not once in all the conversations that I've ever had with anybody at Notre Dame have I ever had anyone there basically say as it was well BK did this or we're trying to overcome this from Brian Kelly or we've got to do this to you know because he did this or any though never not once never used it as a bill excuse never once right and and you know so you never heard up my guys versus his guys nonsense like we heard from Brian Kelly back and you know back back in the day but when I look at it it's it's but that kind of puts more pressure and or I should say leaves more unknowns because I'm actually looking at at the 2021 team for example or 2012 team Brian Kelly's 13 and you look at his roster and there was a lot more of a Charlie Weiss influence on that roster than you're going to have of Brian Kelly influence on this roster and I was actually going through that and it was actually kind of interesting when you compare that to the current team it makes it makes it very interesting to kind of compare those those two things Vince because it like I'm actually kind of I'm actually doing the thing now so like if you look at the starting offense in 2012 for Notre Dame eight of the eleven starters were Charlie Weiss recruits okay the only exceptions were Everett Golson, Devars Daniels and Christian Lombard everybody else was recruited by Charlie Weiss defensively you had five Charlie Weiss recruits five Brian Kelly recruits and one Tony Alfred recruit because if you remember correctly Tony Alfred recruited Lewis Nix who committed to Notre Dame when they didn't have a head coach but he only ever played for Brian Kelly right okay so over half your starters are guys that were recruited by and most of them played a year under Charlie Weiss so like your running back room in 2012 was all guys that were recruited by and played for Charlie Weiss in '09 Sierra Wood their field riddick TJ Jones was recruited by Brian Kelly or I mean recruited by Charlie Weiss but he played for Brian Kelly so I count him actually as a Brian Kelly recruit because you could actually actually TJ yeah so yeah so although I yeah so you could kind of act you could call him a Brian Kelly guy and then say okay it's four Brian Kelly guys Robbie Tomas the other and then obviously Devars Daniels is a Kelly guy your tight end was played a whole season under Charlie Weiss Tyler Eifert was recruited by Charlie Weiss and four of your starting offensive lineman were Charlie Weiss recruits as well Zach Martin Chris Watt Braxton Cave Mike Gullet Jr all played at least one full season some two Gullet 2 under him same thing on defense whereas you look at this year's team Riley Leonard is a Freeman only guy the running back rooms Freeman only guys your starters are Freeman only guy you look at receiver it's transfer Freeman Freeman Freeman tight end is Kelly Mitchell Evans is a is a Kelly guy you look at your offensive line you know Tosh Baker is a Kelly guy although he would have it would have been a Freeman only guy your left guard is a Kelly guy your center right guard right tackle all Freeman guys your defensive line is really where you have the most Kelly influence and that's Patello Mills Cross only was recruited by Kelly for a year never has only ever played for Freeman on defense but he was recruited while you know the year before Marcus Freeman got there and then of course the rest of your D line is Kelly or his Freeman guys line backer there's only one Kelly on the entire roster you can count Xavier Watts as a Kelly guy because he was recruited under Kelly but his entire defensive 10 years under Freeman your cornerback room is entirely under Freeman your nickels are under Freeman and then at safety uh Don Xavier Watts is the only guy you can even remotely give credit to Brian Kelly for the entire depth chart after that is all Freeman guys and that's one big difference between what Brian Kelly could and this isn't to say Freeman's better or worse than Kelly it's just touch on the difference and how things have changed a big part of the reason for that is the portal you have that ability now to go into the portal and find those guys that you know Brian Kelly couldn't after 2011 go into the portal and find a replacement for Michael Floyd that wasn't a thing you could find a guy but you know maybe you find a graduate guy but a graduate guy whose a receiver is not going to have the impact that you'd like him to maybe you could have found a Chris Mitchell back then it just the game has changed a lot Vince and there's now less I would argue patience not just because of the times but just because of the resources there there's there's more patience now or less patience now than there was then because you also have the ability to do the portal you can use NIL now so it's a completely different world but I also think in some ways that it can make it more challenging for for Marcus Freeman because it's harder to hold your team together so the fact that this is a far deeper team than Brian Kelly ever had in an era of the transfer portal no one would everyone assumed that one of Steve Anjali or Kenny Menchie was going to go in the portal after this offseason everybody assumed it neither of them did everybody assumed that one of the running backs is going to jump in the portal when the depth chart shaped out nobody did no lineman jumped in the portal that they didn't kind of nudge out right you lost those receivers right after the season you didn't lose anybody else you didn't lose I mean Jason Onyay could have been like hey man I played less I want to go somewhere and start for a couple years nope Gare Rubio former top hunter recruit could have been like I'm not sitting behind Howard Cross and Riley Mills for another year I want to go somewhere and be the guy didn't do it Donamahaj could have said man I don't second 13 D tackles a junior screw that I'm going back to pit I'm going to start this year didn't do it he's right so it's actually kind of impressive that Notre Dame is is kind of at a point where like I still think they're actually one over the scholarship limit think about that the ability to also hold that team together so again just another example of there really aren't any excuses this season you know how it sucks to lose Charles Jack so everyone's going to lose somebody at some point in time this year the good teams can overcome it so somebody and chat yeah Devin Ford even stayed a great point so there's clearly a culture being established here that is a positive and I think that was that plus depth or the two biggest big picture issues that Marcus Freeman had to address so when I mean I'm not talking like quarterback or this position I mean big picture depth in a culture that just lacked sort of the fire to be great now we know there's a culture here of unity that's great but as he built the culture in a way where they're willing to do whatever it takes to go out and win that we don't know and that we're going to find out here this season Vince well and it's kind of yeah it's going to be fascinating dude well on the culture of winning the culture of you know the week to week and and being ready to play no matter who the opponent is and you know you've talked about this before right Brian Kelly seems we're always right here right and and that was good enough to beat the majority of the people on your schedule but it was never good enough to beat and rarely I should say rarely was a good enough to beat the teams that were better than you right and so I think Marcus Freeman has I mean he has learned like a master's a doctorate in getting your team prepared getting them ready for each individual game and and things like that because look there's going to be emotional roller coasters in this season I mean the schedule just shapes out that way right you've got pretty darn good opponent followed by and not so good opponent and then you know and it kind of goes up and down and so how you navigate that is a big piece of this in my opinion because in Freeman's first year he didn't navigate that very well I mean he didn't right yeah and it got better not last year it did it got better part yeah but it needs to continue to get better and the proofs and how they play in those games I felt in year one Marcus Freeman did a much better job of getting his team ready for the big games that he did in year two that's actually an area where I felt his team took a little bit of a step back in in year two part of it is because you had so many in a row I mean it was Ohio State and they were all at night Louisville USC I mean it just and he didn't do a great job of handling that that's part of the lessons learned for a young coach is okay yeah but you don't have that this year so you don't have that same right that same issue this year you know year one he had a hard time getting his team up for the games that weren't as it didn't matter as much and they only the only game they lost that they just like to a really bad opponent was Stanford they lost to Marshall who they should not have lost to that's two teams that you lost to that were inferior to you but one was good one was bad but they didn't play very well against UNLV in mind but they didn't play a lot of emotion they just out pounded UNLV they did not play well against Navy they jumped out that big early lead and could find no answers for Navy in the second half I mean if there was three more minutes left on the clock of that game that would have been very concerning because the offense could do nothing right and the defense had no answers for them so this year in 2023 this past year you certainly did better in where you handled the teams that were beneath you there were no playing port against Navy no playing port against UNLV no playing poorly against Stanford like the equivalent of Stanford in 2023 the equivalent of the 22 Stanford team is Pitt 3 and 19 not real good shouldn't scare you quarterbacks not that great and Notre Dame beat them by 51 right beat the brakes on right I'm you know maybe you could point to Wake Forest is being a team like them and they beat them 45 to 7 right what you didn't do was good of a job this year was being up for the big games they you know I think they had a hangover after house date again against Duke they were not mentally ready against against Louisville I some people have said they weren't ready for the Clemson game I don't actually agree with that looking back I don't think the issue was being mentally ready emotionally ready I think the issue was they weren't they didn't execute very well they executed poorly they didn't have answers for certain things I think there were some coaching woes in that game that hurt them like the whole you know you can't run play action against a team that plays man coverage right like wasn't that what you're which makes no sense zero sense so now year three you've had some ups and downs as far as preparation week to week this is a different type of schedule than he faced in past years but there's also some similarities that we're going to find out how he learned from him look you you learned you hopefully learned from losing to house date in the opener how does your team handle you and then you got to lose to Ohio State again in year two are you going to be better prepared for having your team ready to mentally bounce back from a loss like that that that's we're going to find that out right you know are you're not going to have that stretch of of tough games this year like yeah last year we don't think but what if some teams are better than you think they are and you end up having a tougher schedule than maybe you anticipated so that's all part of the lessons learned about Marcus Freeman is we're all excited about what this team can be but there's a lot of things we still have to learn we're projecting that he's going to learn those lessons and apply them to this team but now we need to see it sure and that's going to be the big question mark well and the one thing that I I do feel comfortable with as far as projecting what Marcus Freeman has learned and applying that and all of that from from the moment he stepped on campus I feel like he has been very transparent and very knowledgeable about his mistakes and very clear about fixing those mistakes right and you can go all the way back to the Florida State game I mean believe that was his first game as a defensive coordinator he made a call that he thought was a bad call you know Florida State does what they did and he then apologized to the team for making that call right like guys don't go just don't do that Brian I'm sorry like people in leadership positions generally don't do that and the ones that do are really good leaders I think that that that's the that's the point that I want to make because remember you know if guys weren't on his side at that point at least in the defensive room right then they were on board at that point because you can respect a guy who says you made a mistake and it's not going to happen again like that to me that meant something at the time and then he went through an entire season and by then he had shown himself to the degree that of course they all wanted him as their head coach right and so that that so that's all part of it and we have continued to see in my opinion as a head coach you know it I mean it's his it's his mantra for goodness sakes it's the challenge everything right that is part of that is being vulnerable to the mistakes that you've made and the mistakes that your program has made and being able to analyze them and change it you challenge everything and I and I know it sounds cliche and I get that but I don't think it's cliche for him I really do think that's who he is and that's what makes me comfortable predicting kind of what he's going to be able to do as a head coach from a culture standpoint from a team preparation standpoint you know he's made some mistakes nobody is debating that he has made some mistakes we might debate what was or was a mistake with people but then there's been there's been a lot of lessons learned the first two years and I do feel like he is somebody that looks at his mistakes and actively tries to learn from them and change which that has not always been the case with a lot of leadership out there it's not lip service like you go back to you talking about like in 2021 we use a decordinator and I don't remember if he said it publicly but I know for a fact he said it privately to the defense he was like this is on me coaches say things but Brian kelly's all the time say things publicly like all this is on us but that's not what the message that was related to him in the locker room I think the players are the ones that told us that he did that but I was told that before they had the press conference by parents were calling me telling me this and one of the parents actually didn't like it and I was like no they were reading this wrong yeah his thing was like you shouldn't make mistakes like everybody has mistakes right you're reading this wrong like coaches don't normally own that and then he went and fixed it I think to you know I think to after the Clemson loss last year that's a bad loss that's I mean you went off in the first game show like you got out top physicaled you got out executed you kind of choked away in some key moments and you just lost an inferior opponent that had eight starters missing like there's no excuse for that loss all it's Clemson they're really I don't don't care but to watch how pissed off he was the next month of the season is their steam rolling people I mean you think about right after the Clemson game they won 45 to 7 56 to 23 and 40 to 8 that's what how Notre Amen did last season correct and you'd have thought Marcus Freeman went 0 and 2 in the last two games and rigor season it scored like I've said this before like if you don't watch him in the book on the sidelines and that's all you were looking at you'd have been like dude did are they losing 45 to 7 right you know just things like that so that's good there's a recognition and acknowledgement of hey this isn't good enough sure that's why he spent the offseason he went to like five or six different NFL teams he spent some time on a on a battleship earned it was uh was it a battleship some kind of navy navy vessel stayed in the like he was there 24 hours actually stayed in the living areas you know what I mean like million dollar you know paid a year lives in a big old house like you know living in court all of that to say where am I lacking in leadership to take us to the next level and so you know there's a willingness to make the changes however a willingness to change doesn't mean you're always going to push the right buttons and that's what the 2024 season is going to tell us it was an aircraft carrier that's correct okay I somebody in the chat just said that so I completely forgot for battleship that's because I was watching a youtube video yesterday on the sinking of the of the uh the bismarck which was a German battleship so that that's that's why it's on my mind but can you push the right buttons right Vince yeah something in the chat said it's a sign of a great coach agree sign of a of a of a of a smart coach I'll say that I don't know if it's not a great coach it's a sign of a good of a smart coach right the sign of a great coach is that you learn from those things acknowledge those things and then you know what buttons to push to fix them correct that's important correct and and so that's what we're gonna learn about Marcus Freeman now let's let's finish up this section with this sense I'm gonna pose both scenarios that you and I talked about okay and we'll answer those because we talked about doing one then we said hey let's do the other I actually want to talk about them both okay and we'll just kind of the first one we'll just kind of briefly mention and then we'll we'll get into the second one a little bit maybe a little bit more detail but number one what is the minimum success this season for you to say Notre Dame took any kind of step forward as a program what's the minimum requirement where you say yeah even it can even be a little disappointing but you say they at least took a positive step this is tough for me because we've never had a 12 team playoff before and so this this conversation is a little bit different if we have the four team playoff okay and so I almost feel like I'm lowering the bar a little bit when I say what I'm about to say because I don't think it would have been good enough in the fine in the in the 14 playoff but I do think it's good enough in the four in the 12 team playoff so the absolute absolute minimum and this is would be a disappointment for me making the playoff not winning but making the playoff at least tells me that they're headed in the right direction that that's where I'm at and again want to be very clear that is a disappointing season for me agree but that's the absolute minimum because I do think that that's still better than last year just because of the nature of the way college football is going to consider making the playoff quote unquote and like you know it's just different making the playoff now is going to be kind of like making under your six ball in the past yes not the end all be all but it's a very good season I agree and and it's still like my logical brain tells me you've got a win well we'll get into that we'll get into more more of that but to me the answer this part of the question it's make a playoff like that that shows me progress not enough yeah but it does show me progress here here's my view because I think someone the chat are looking at it from the standpoint of what's a big step and and what and I'm saying like any kind of improvement at all right minimum any for just any kind of minimal baby step of a baby step improvement right is to me 10 and 2 plus a post-season win okay and here's why I say that 10 and 2 is a better record than you had last year or record season you went from 8 and 4 to 9 and 3 to 10 and 2 that's progress your schedule this year on paper is tougher than the one you had last year now a lot of learning fans don't want to admit that or don't agree with that because they view Ohio State and then nobody else's quote unquote on Ohio State's level you know that's fine but one game doesn't define your record your opponent you've got a your your opponents in 2024 had a better overall record than your opponents in 2023 during the 2023 season 10 and 2 plus a post-season win now that could mean the playoff offense right because because you've won your first your post-season game your first two years so going 10 and 3 with a post-season loss doesn't really move the needle for me okay and if you say well what if they're a 12-seat and they're on the road against a 5-seat well you shouldn't have been a 12-seat you know what I mean like that's kind of where I look at it so if you're going to be if you're going to disappoint in the regular season and go 10 and 2 then you need to overachieve in the post-season does that make sense it does you can't underachieve in both wait let me let me pose this scenario to you I am on the fence about you know to end up a lot of it's going to be out of Notre Dame's control but like where does the 10 and 2 Notre Dame team get sent are they in the playoff or are they in like a bowl game right and so if it is a non playoff game and it's just a a bowl game does that count for you yeah that's why I said post-season win okay all right I just want to playoff win I just want to play off because again this is a baby step sure it's not one I'm happy about I'll be disappointed if this team goes 10 and 2 and doesn't make the playoff and wins I mean but you can't take step back steps I agreed 10 and 2 with a post-season loss means you have the exact same record as you did last year sure that's not a positive step for me no I agree here now here's the thing though if they're 10 and 2 and they sneak into the playoff I use the word sneak because I just think it's gonna be tough at 10 and 2 so at 10 and 2 you're gonna be on the road the first game you're going you're not gonna be hosting at 10 and 2 okay I think we can all agree on that and so if they win that game I see that as a huge step because you just went on the road and probably beat an Ole Miss or I don't know some SEC team or something along those lines in the first round of the playoff and so I think that win would even be more you're seeing me having being a 12 seed and then winning that five yeah that would be a huge it would depend on what you do the next round because then I go into okay cool because here's why I look at that to your point yeah 10 and 2 making the playoff as a 12 seed you underachieved in one capacity you overachieved for one game okay and won that but then you go on and you play Oklahoma State in the next round and get beat is that really overall yes that but here's that that's a step oh 100 percent like what you that's why I said it's a step there's no debating it's a step what I still consider the season a bit of a disappointment maybe it would depend on what they did then in the quarters okay I can what a disappointing regular season can be overcome with with success in the postseason okay that's where I'm coming from okay yeah yeah and and and just would depend on how much but all of those scenarios you just presented to me Vince are steps yes agree because now you'd be 11 and 3 compared to 10 and 3 even if you lost the quarters to Utah okay that's disappointing mm-hmm it's a disappointing season but it's still a step so again you guys here I'm saying like I'm trying to set the basement yeah very bottom right scenario of people jumping off I got the chat closed for a reason right guessing people are like that's unacceptable no no not at all okay no not at all okay chat's been good okay there's some things I disagree but the chat's been good I'm just simply making sure people understand what we're talking about here this isn't lowering the bar this is what is the minimum expectation for okay they took a baby step right right now the second part of the question is this and this goes into more of the the successful view what do you need to see from this team again this isn't our prediction but what do you need to see or if it is your prediction Vince you can simply say that my prediction is true that and then don't give the record we'll talk about that we get the prediction show but if it's different than your prediction is there anything that this like the next question is okay that's fine you took a baby step but a baby step doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy like no doubt they've got the right people in place here they're going to go win it all next year I don't know that it does that of course we would need this see the specifics of how the season went like maybe they lost two games because there was like this rash of major injuries yeah yeah unfortunate there's always those asterisks that you can you can add to it and we do that we cannot predict I mean that's just not it's not possible you know if Riley Leonard goes down you know what does that look like right if if you know name your player name your players plural I mean there's no way that you can you can obviously predict that yeah yep so I look at it Vince and I say that is where I'm at with it when I look at Marcus Freeman what would my standard be I it's it's got my season prediction is better than what I said the minimum is me too because there's a difference between acknowledging progress and being happy yeah or feeling like it was a success oh two different things one is an emotional response one is a practical response sure sure the thing we talked about as far as the minimum that is a practical answer right right practically speaking you can't deny that this wasn't a step in the right direction now it was a small step and I'm tired of small steps correct and that's why I say more is needed that's that level of minimum okay they took a step leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth and makes me say you better make a big jump in 2025 or I may be like I'm not sure if this is gonna work out the way we hoped it would work out there's nothing that could happen this year outside of just an absolute collapse of this team eight and four and worse for me to say he's not the guy yeah like like it's fair but I do think some some okay I have some concerns now now 2025 becomes a big year for you that's that's kind of where I'm at because of some of the things that are working in his favor yeah maybe some some other coaches don't have it noted had had it noted aim so that's kind of where I'm out yeah so there so it's like it's like it's like it's almost two different questions right for me to get off board with Marcus Freeman it would just have to be an absolute disaster this year because I do like Marcus Freeman and I do think he's laying a very positive foundation for the program I think the recruiting overall is good I think he's assembled a very good staff I I think a lot of the there's a lot of positives to go along with Marcus Freeman I think he represents the university well like all of the all of the boxes are checked off the field in my opinion now he's there's a couple on the field that he still is working on and still needs to check but I feel like a lot of those are headed in the right direction and and here's the other thing even if they have a disastrous season I'm not saying fire oh or anything like that you're absolutely right if it is a disaster then okay we have to take a step back and we have to kind of analyze and and decide okay why did these things happen is it because of Marcus Freeman did they have a bunch of injuries that you just but come back from like what type of injuries are they like okay those are very clearly strength conditioning issues right you hired the strength coach with with this new that's on you but if it's another thing where like a guy gets you know one guy gets his leg rolled up on another guy in a road game has his you know Achilles like those are not right conditioning issues right maybe a kid gets speared in the head and he has to be out for three weeks right questions and he misses the big floor say game in this week I mean those are all the outside of something like that right I'm you know and again I think the one the one area events in the chat where I think fans are still maybe having a different conversation than what we're having okay is the difference between your emotional satisfaction and what we're talking about practically speaking being considered an improvement and I get that it is hard right like like there's there's a discussion going on like well this year's schedule is hard in the last year's but that's fine we can agree to disagree on that that's a that's a fair conversation to have because in one instance we know what last year's teams were because we can look back and look I can't sit there and say well 13 in one Florida states but this year's better than Ohio State was last year because I don't know how this year's version of Florida State's going to I know last year's version of Florida State was better than Ohio State I don't know what that means this year's so there's some projection going on there but there's not a difference in either direction for me to say well 10 and 2 is progress again I'm not happy about it I'm not satisfied by it but it's progress depending on what you do in the postseason exactly so those are the interesting aspects of this fence and then also like what kind of losses because one thing that Notre Dame is avoided under Marcus Freeman I'm trying to think about this they lost Ohio State Marshall USC Stanford Louisville Ohio State Clemson outside of last year's Louisville game none of those games were butt weapons like only one of them was they've largely avoided the embarrassing bad losses like that under Freeman that has to continue this year was well if they lose sure so competitive though the thing is like and then the final thing is there's no individual game that's going to define this season agreed like what somebody asked well how will my opinion change if they lose to an M no because if they lose to an M and when their next 14 games I'm not going to give a rip that they lost it right in M just like if you're a Clemson fan in 2016 you're probably not in your you know feelings about I still can't believe they lost a pit because you don't care because they went on the national championship I don't give a rip about pit maybe that's the game you needed to galvanize the team and go out and win a championship the end results what matters right then you can look back and be like okay what did that game tell you about what's coming up and and so those are going to be the interesting aspects of what this is going to be events but if we're talking about that confirmation of yes he's the guy then our predictions to me are the minimum of what he's going to do to show this year we'll get into that so that's why I wanted to do the both because as I thought about the second topic it's like dude I kind of think our predictions are going to be the answer to that question which means we kind of have to give away our predictions in that second that's why I wanted to kind of change it up a little bit and talk about that minimum because regular season success needs to be improved but the post-season success needs to be much better for me to sit back and say okay this is but you need a modicum of moderate success in the regular season in order to even have an opportunity right correct season success but like if they go 12 and 0 get the 5-seat and then lose to the 12-seat that's that's a step yeah but i'm just as disappointed as if they go 10 and 2 and they're the 12-seat and they win that game up right okay you're 11 and 2 versus 12 and 1 which one's better the 11 and 2 is better because you won the games that truly mattered the most and there's nothing that's going to matter more than the post-season games so that's why I say it's like there's got that's why I tied in the post-season success into I didn't just say 10 and 2 is the minimum of success because 10 and 2 and a post-season loss means you're no better than you were last year right that's not progress yeah but you had a better regular season yeah but you had your first post-season loss so it's not better you did better in one area worse than another that is a disappointment because stepping back stagnating or regressing are the two things that I would consider failures about this season you can't have either one of those and that's that's that's where I'm coming from with this conversation is minimum of positive step has to entail both regular and post-season success just because go let's say the schedule is as soft as some people think that it is let's just say that it is does 12 and 0 with a with a loss to a 12-seat really give you the warm and fuzzies about or is it just like well same well same well this is exactly exactly good right beat up on soft schedules and then go get your butts kicked in the post-season exactly that's not progress that's not progress that's not progress it's not progress yeah so yeah maybe progress compared to last season only but even then I still have my doubts about that and but of course that would also be you know but what if Florida states what if Florida goes 14 and 1 and their only losses in their name what if Texas A&M goes 11 and 1 and I mean so there's always the caveats but by and large 12 and 0 and a regular in a post-season loss in your first round just does not scream this is the their their their sending championship here we come it's just okay maybe he's Brian Kelly Brian Kelly did that a couple times you know 12 and 0 regular season 10 and 0 regular season but then when it played a game that mattered it was you don't belong here it was same old same old you don't belong here yeah that's what every thing that's what the Bama game in 2012 told us that's what the Clemson ACC title game in 2020 told us that's what the Bama game in 2020 told us and that's what the Clemson game in 2018 told us you don't belong here your program is not where these programs are right and ultimately that's the thing that I want to see different that's gonna do it for part one of today's discussion Brian and a good one that it was but there's plenty more where that came from so make sure you guys stick around in the meantime hit the like button the subscribe button that notification bell share with your family and friends and of course jump on the boards boards that i was break down dot com all kinds of intel and good stuff hanging out over there you'll never know unless you are a member so make sure you hit it up boards dot i was breakdown dot com so so so so [BLANK_AUDIO]
