Notre Dame Football: New Irish DC Marcus Freeman says goodbye to Cincinnati

The Notre Dame football team scored a big hire with defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman, and on Sunday, he said goodbye to Cincinnati.

Early in the offseason, the Notre Dame football program shored up one of the bigger holes on their roster, adding a new defensive coordinator. The defensive coordinator spot in South Bend became available when Clark Lea went to Vanderbilt to take over as head coach and left a void of extreme proportions.

Luckily for the folks in South Bend, the Irish were able to get the top defensive coordinator prospect on their radar, as they signed Marcus Freeman away from Cincinnati. Freeman was coveted by many schools, including LSU, but in the end, he joins Brian Kelly and the Notre Dame football program for the upcoming 2021 college football season.

Freeman is not only an incredible coach but also an elite recruiter, which means the future should be very bright for the defensive side of the ball at Notre Dame for years to come.

Freeman took to Twitter to say goodbye to his Bearcats family:

In the post, Freeman thanks Coach Luke Fickell, who he said was a leader and mentor since he was a teenager. He also said thanks to the fans, administration, and coaching staff, as well as the current group of players. Freeman is a class act, there is no doubt about it, and while he will be missed terribly in Cincinnati, the Notre Dame football program is getting one of the better young assistant coaches in college football.

With his time in Cincinnati in the rearview mirror, Freeman must now turn to a Notre Dame roster that is losing a ton of talent, including on the defensive side of the ball. He will have to find a way to replace an All-American at linebacker in Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, and players like Daelin Hayes, Nick McCloud, and Shaun Crawford, but there is a solid recruiting class coming in, and with the way, he recruits, more elite talent arriving in the 2022 class.