Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman just won’t stop making all the right moves

Did anyone else have Marshall on the brain as Notre Dame’s biggest victory under Marcus Freeman was getting closer and closer to becoming official Thursday night?

Or is that a thought that would have occurred only to someone who spends far too much time ruminating on college football?

It was merely two seasons ago, early September in 2022, when Notre Dame was beaten by Marshall 26-21 in Freeman’s first home game as coach of the Fighting Irish. He walked off the field that day with a vacant expression in his eyes and on his face, and it was impossible not to wonder if a man off to an 0-3 start in one of the highest-profile jobs in college sports was simply in over his head.

Freeman, 36 at the time, questioned his own preparation after that debacle and vowed to redouble his efforts. It was easier to scoff at that than it was to believe him.

But check him out now — the hottest coach in college football, and it isn’t even close.

The star of the College Football Playoff has been Freeman, who’s on one hell of a victory tour and has had key, unmistakable “gotcha” moments against each of the last two coaches he has faced.

Leading into the playoff opener against Indiana, Notre Dame was thought by some to be vulnerable because of the next-level coaching of the upstart Hoosiers’ Curt Cignetti.

“I win — Google me,” Cignetti had famously said.

In a mild trolling of Cignetti, Freeman said in a press conference days before the game that he had, in fact, done just that. Then the game came, and the Irish were the better-prepared team from the outset. And on a fourth-and-8 from the 10-yard line, the Irish lined up for a field goal before splitting into a crazy formation with every lineman other than the snapper positioned outside the left hashmark. A frustrated Cignetti had to burn a timeout, which left Freeman grinning like a Cheshire cat on his own sideline, caught by the television cameras.

Against Georgia and Kirby Smart — who’d top most lists of the best college coaches in the business — Freeman had his finest moment with the Irish. With under eight minutes in the game and the Irish leading 23-10, he sent out his punt team — the obvious move — on a fourth-and-1 from the Irish 18-yard line. But then, just as the Bulldogs had a chance to seize momentum, Freeman’s punt team ran off and his offense sprinted back on the field and into formation. Georgia’s players and sideline were frantic as its punt team scrambled off the field and its defense ran back on, some players still grabbing at their chin straps. There was no need to hurry — defenses can and do take their sweet time with substitutions nowadays after offensive subs are made — but Georgia was rattled. And then the Bulldogs’ best player, Jalon Walker, was drawn offside by Irish quarterback Riley Leonard’s hard count.

Nearly six minutes later, the Irish still possessed the football. It was game over, college football’s biggest bully having fallen into surrender mode. A stroke of brilliance by Freeman had come at exactly the perfect time.

Asked about it after the Sugar Bowl, Freeman veered into a bland answer about his team. Leonard, sharing the dais, butted in.

“Real quick, he’s being humble,” Leonard said, smiling big. “That was completely his play — and we were going to do it a different way, like, two days ago, and then he flipped it and we executed it that way and it worked. … I’ll say it for him: Great call, great execution.”

Things worked against Georgia in a manner they hadn’t for Notre Dame against a blue-blood postseason opponent in a very long time. The Irish rushed and blitzed inexperienced Bulldogs quarterback Gunner Stockton to great effect. Their run blitzes hit home, too. Leonard’s designed runs were timely and successful. Freeman’s team took full advantage of the Bulldogs, outplaying and out-executing them while preying on their vulnerabilities.

The football world surely noticed that level of preparation. Leonard said all the Irish players consider preparation to be the team’s “superpower.” Imagine how good a coach has to be for his players to believe they step on the field with an inherent edge in that department.

It’s no small thing they were as ready to play as they were after the game’s postponement due to a mass killing on Bourbon Street in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

“They handle everything that’s thrown at them in an unbelievable way,” Freeman said.

Notre Dame was the last of four lower-seeded teams to win in the quarterfinals, another way of saying all four conference champions — the teams seeded 1-4 — lost after having first-round byes. Was there an edge to having played Indiana as opposed to going three-plus weeks without a game?

“No, I don’t [think so],” Freeman said. “I think whatever circumstances you’re given, you make the most of them. If we would’ve had a first-round bye, I would’ve been the first one to say, ‘This is great for us.’ We didn’t. It’s great for us. We are always a glass-half-full group.”

The seventh-seeded Irish have sixth-seeded Penn State up next in the Orange Bowl on Thursday. The Nittany Lions played their quarterfinal game on New Year’s Eve. They’ll have a two-day edge on the Irish in the recovery and preparation departments.

Advantage, PSU? It’s possible. But there will be no complaints heard from the other side, and no entertaining of negative thoughts. The star of the playoff wouldn’t allow it.