Notre Dame football: Early takeaways from 2021 spring practice

Notre Dame football: Early takeaways from 2021 spring practice

Marcus Freeman’s Defense is Much More Open Than Clark Lea’s

Perhaps the most exciting storyline this season is about how the defense is going to change as it transitions from Clark Lea’s guidance to that of Marcus Freeman. Two things keep coming out from Spring practice. The first is that Freeman’s defense is much more open than Lea’s, and the second was that the players seem to love Freeman’s defense.

What does it actually mean to be more open as a defense, though? In truth, we don’t really know yet. Again, this is what happens when there is limited access to practice and everything we know is coming from players and coaches who aren’t giving away everything all at once.

Still, based on Freeman’s time at Cincinnati, he’s probably going to bring more man coverage to Notre Dame, who played a lot of zone under Lea. Furthermore, if you dive into the two coordinator’s defenses last season, it seems like Lea liked to call very structured plays where everyone had a specific assignment.

Freeman’s defenses are more about letting defensive players use their athleticism and instincts to make plays. That is to say, instead of giving them a specific job, they are given the freedom to make plays when they see them. It might let up larger plays from time to time than Lea did, but it also creates more havoc.

For the player’s part, they seem to love this new system. When you consider that, along with how well Freeman is already recruiting, it has to make you excited about the rest of the Marcus Freeman era at Notre Dame.