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SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Ten practices into his first fall camp at Notre Dame, Marcus Freeman made a statement to Irish players past and present.

He had been here all of seven months. He had made just one in-person media appearance. Short of the evergreen hype machine that is a recruiting message board, Freeman was largely out of sight, his impact at Notre Dame to be determined by the upcoming season.

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Then came Aug. 17, 2021, when Notre Dame’s new defensive coordinator walked out of the Guglielmino Athletics Complex and toward the Irish practice fields sporting a white T-shirt that read: “WOPU vs. Everybody,” with the green-and-orange color combination a nod to the infamous “Catholics vs. Convicts” shirts that had dominated discussion of the Irish’s old rivalry with Miami.

WOPU, for the uninitiated, is Notre Dame’s walk-on players union, a prideful group that has developed something of a cult status over the years. It has produced its fair share of scholarship standouts, from Joe Schmidt to Chris Finke — “industry,” their fellow nationers would affectionately dub them for going big-time — but this has remained a largely anonymous circle to the rest of the college football public.

That a first-year defensive coordinator who had no previous ties to the school would choose to highlight them? Well, that was the first sign that the marriage between Notre Dame and Freeman might become something more than that of simply a school and a new assistant coach.

“We were extremely pumped,” former Irish walk-on running back Mick Assaf says. “It made us feel like he cares about every guy on the team. For WOPU, little things like that go a long way. We might not get a crazy amount of spotlight, so that meant a lot to us to have a coach repping the WOPU gear proudly.

“Lou Holtz had three rules for life. One of them was to show people that you care, and I think that shirt definitely made us believe he cared.”

The WOPU groupchat, still solid to this day, was ablaze with excitement.

“Wild,” says Schmidt, who couldn’t believe that a coach was repping them like that.

More than a year later, Freeman is a known commodity, much as a first-year head coach can be. The 36-year-old who was a Group of 5 coordinator only 20 months ago is now the leader of one of college football’s most iconic programs.

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The coaching acumen has gotten him here, of course, as he coordinated a pair of top-15 defenses in four years at Cincinnati, which saw six defensive players get drafted this past spring. But if Notre Dame had been in search of only a defensive genius to replace Brian Kelly, it probably would not have promoted a guy whose unit ranked No. 43 nationally during his one year in charge of it.

No, Freeman will be the guy leading the No. 5 Irish into Saturday’s tilt at No. 2 Ohio State because no relationship, task or segment of this school has been too small for him.

He traveled across the country and back to speak to more than a dozen Notre Dame alumni clubs. He sat down for panel discussions with everyone on campus from the school’s institute for Asian studies to the alumni association’s leadership conference. When the football program wished to show recruits Notre Dame Stadium on the same day that the daughter of an important university constituent was using it for her wedding reception, Freeman sent over a signed football thanking the newlyweds for allowing the Irish to be a part of their special day — not only diffusing the potentially hairy situation but inadvertently also becoming a highlight of the night.

“He’s probably seen more prospective student-athletes from our other sports in his time as head coach than most head coaches do in a career,” Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick says. “His willingness to engage and his ability to find the time to do it is amazing.”

Swarbrick says he evaluates coaches around their practice habits more than what they do on game day. He particularly keeps an eye on how they act during dead periods. What he saw with Freeman throughout last season was engagement with players across offense, defense and special teams, with no window too narrow to build or refine a relationship.

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That sounds familiar to Mark Snyder. The longtime defensive guru coached more than 30 years of college ball before recently joining the staff of the USFL’s Houston Gamblers. For a four-year period two decades ago, Snyder coached Ohio State linebackers, which means he’ll be at the Horseshoe this weekend as the Buckeyes celebrate the 20th anniversary of their 2002 national title team.

It also means that Snyder will have the chance to see one of his most prized pupils: Freeman, a guy he recruited out of Wayne (Ohio) High. Freeman was the third-ranked player in the state at the time (per Rivals.com), so his skill set was never in question, but Snyder had wanted to at least observe Freeman on game day.

“I always like to see the kid’s demeanor on the sidelines,” Snyder says of recruits. “It wasn’t about playing. It was more about his character, how he warmed up, all that kind of stuff.”

Snyder left at halftime.

“He passed with flying colors,” the coach says of Freeman.

It has been written that Freeman retired from playing football because of a heart condition, and that is technically true. It also oversimplifies matters; Freeman had been on three practice squads during his rookie year of 2009, he had not seen a single snap of NFL game action, and he had already taken some physical lumps.

“It wasn’t as dramatic as some people that it might stop when they think they’re going to continue to play,” Freeman says, clapping his hands for emphasis. “I guess why I say that is, for me, probably the later part of my rookie year, I was on the practice squad in Houston, and I remember having some knee issues and knowing that I wasn’t going to play. And I started to think, Man. This is where I made that decision that I want to stay around the game of football. I know I’m not going to play, because I was on the practice squad. I enjoyed practicing, I enjoyed film, I enjoyed being around the game of football and I knew I wasn’t going to play, so I kind of started putting it in my head that maybe I want to be a coach.”

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Then the Colts called, re-routing his dream back toward the NFL. Come February of 2010, though, he was diagnosed with an enlarged heart valve during a physical.

“The scary part is the element of the unknown,” Freeman says. “OK, you have an enlarged heart valve that’s going to disqualify you from playing football; what does that mean? You look at that, that’s probably (12) years ago and it hasn’t really stopped me from doing anything else. It hasn’t stopped me from working out and running and pushing myself. But the element of the unknown is like, OK, you have an enlarged heart valve, does that mean I’m going to die? I’ve seen other people that have had enlarged heart valves that have died in conditioning. So that was the one scary part about it. But it’s been fine.”

He already had thought of dipping into coaching. Then the decision was made for him.

The episode, and career change, have helped guide Freeman’s philosophy as the head coach of the only school that ranks in the top 20 of both the U.S. News and World Report’s best colleges and the AP football poll.

When freshman offensive lineman Joey Tanona was forced to medically retire after the effects of a winter car accident, Freeman drove the message home.

“This is why you chose Notre Dame, for situations like this,” Freeman told him. “And although it looks like you’re not going to be able to play football right now, you continue to work hard and get your degree and your life still has a very positive outlook in front of you.”

Freeman has done his part to take advantage of the platform, counting Tony Dungy, Jim Caldwell, Mike Tomlin and Mike Vrabel among the non-Notre Dame minds he has tapped into since becoming a head coach. (The quartet boasts four Super Bowl appearances and two coach of the year awards among it.) When he joined broadcaster Chris Fowler — who will call Saturday’s game for ABC — for a podcast hit this summer, he spent time after the interview peppering the lead play-by-play man with questions about the biggest coaches he has been around as the lead voice of the College Football Playoff. When Freeman was promoted in December, one of his first calls was a practice invite to Ed Orgeron, the former LSU coach whom he had turned down 11 months earlier in favor of Notre Dame, so strong was the impression each had left on the other despite an outcome that went the other way.

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It sounds simple enough, and for all of the dynamism that has accompanied Notre Dame’s new head coach, for all of that energy in his seemingly bottomless reservoir of fuel, Freeman insists he is just that: Simple.

Take his shoe of choice, Vans, an affection that led to his support staff giving him a literal birthday cake with a white Vans shoe on it. That obsession was born of affordability and comfort while working at Purdue for the buttoned-up Darrell Hazell, whose dress-shoe requirement eventually grated on Freeman’s feet.

Those new-age Under Armour shirts and hoodies that Freeman has constantly worn to practice, sparking discussion and demand among the online section of Notre Dame’s fan base? Those, too, are by design, though Freeman defers to equipment manager Chris Bacsik here.

“Listen,” Freeman says, laughing, “I’m not a picky guy, and so whatever he throws in there, I’ll make sure I wear. I think this is more about him than me.”

Notre Dame places its order with Under Armour every October, well in advance of the following season. That becomes the gear that is often found in retail spaces. But Bacsik can also order blank Under Armour gear at any time, and he works with an embellisher in Mississippi to come up with different ideas that the head coach may be interested in.

“Coach Freeman likes a more clean style, such as an all-white or all-black hoody with an ‘ND’ on it,” Bacsik says. “He likes basic colors and a clean look, whereas sometimes the stuff we order in October is a little more dressed up.”

Yes, the expectation is that some of these items will be available for the public to purchase later this fall. 

For 33 years, Notre Dame has unveiled its annual student section T-shirt ahead of the spring game, with proceeds of “The Shirt” going to charity. Freeman ironically teased the shirt in April, tweeting a photo of himself wearing a shirt that read: “This is the shirt to promote The Shirt.”

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Sure enough, the shirt to promote the shirt became a shirt of its own, yet another reminder that there is no such thing as a small detail when you sit on the throne that Freeman currently occupies.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” Freeman says of his attire, “and now I guess as a head coach, every little thing you do is a big deal.”

Just ask the walk-ons.

(Top photo: Robin Alam / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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