Notre Dame football: Marcus Freeman ranked outside of top-25 head coaches
By Brad Weiss
The Notre Dame football team is going with a first-time head coach in 2022, as Marcus Freeman gets his first shot in the big chair.
The 2022 college football is nearly upon us, and for Notre Dame football, they will have a new man at the helm on the sidelines. Marcus Freeman went from being an elite defensive coordinator last season, to the interim head coach for the Fiesta Bowl, before being given the permanent head coaching job.
Now, he will be tasked with moving this program forward, which is a tall order considering they have been College Football Playoff contenders or participants in recent seasons. However, his job is to put them over the top, as they have yet to win a big game in quite some time as a program.
Notre Dame football HC left off the top-25 list
Recently, 247sports.com writer Brad Crawford put together his list of the top-25 head coaches in the country heading into the 2022 season, and Freeman was left off the list. That is not too shocking considering Freeman has never been a head coach before and will have to earn his spot on the sideline this season.
Freeman’s previous two bosses made the list and were ranked in the top-8, with Cincinnati’s Luke Fickell coming in at No. 8, and Brian Kelly, now with LSU, was ranked No. 7. In Week 1 of the 2022 college football season, Freeman will battle it out against the No. 6 head coach in Ryan Day, while then taking on the No. 4 ranked coach, Lincoln Riley, in the season finale.
Of course, Nick Saban was ranked No. 1.
Freeman’s impact has already been huge off the field, as his recruiting has given the Irish a top class in both 2023 and 2024 so far. He is one of the more gifted young coaches in the country, and if he can win this season, you can be sure he will be on everybody’s top-25 list at this time next year.