The entire fanbase seems extremely energized about new Notre Dame Fighting Irish defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman — and why shouldn’t we be? Notre Dame went out and did what they almost never do, and signed THE hottest assistant coach on the market, and just based off of what’s going on with the Irish recruiting effort (spoiler: it’s been good so far).
While recruiting is very important to the job, what happens on the field matters more. Notre Dame is moving on from a successful run by Clark Lea, and over the past 3 years we have grown accustomed to the terminology, tendencies, and philosophy. With Freeman, the Irish are getting something different, but HOW different remains to be seen.
Enter this Make Defense Great Again podcast. This is the first time that I have ever listened to this particular podcast. The host is a little much and does talk quite a bit, but it still provides a lot of information from Freeman about his brand of defense. If you close your eyes and listen, you can picture the way he will use Kyle Hamilton on the back end and see what Drew White and [insert LB] will do in the new scheme.
It’s definitely worth a listen — especially if you are craving more X and O insight into what’s to come next year. It’s also a bit of a rarity as Notre Dame assistants aren’t generally guests on some random podcast that isn’t ran by ESPN or whatever.