Don’t count Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman among those who oppose the 24-team College Football Playoff field. Freeman appeared on a recent podcast episode with Josh Pate and talked in depth about why he thinks the biggest complaint about an expanded field isn’t accurate. While some coaches say such a big tournament would devalue the regular season, the Irish head coach thinks that way of thinking is overblown.
“I still think every Saturday matters,” Freeman told Pate before laying out how he’s trying to teach his entire team how to approach the season. “we approach it as every Saturday matters. What changes now is, okay, your mindset may be depending on the outcome of that previous Saturday. Whereas probably when I played, if you lost a game, for sure if you lost two, you knew that, okay, we got twelve games and a bowl game.”
“That's what we got,” the Notre Dame football coach went on to explain. “Well, well, now it's like, okay, guys, we might have lost a game, we still understand what lies ahead, what we can achieve, but this Saturday matters. Right?”
Freeman went on to say that he understands that every game still matters, even if a team can lose and still have hopes of a CFP bid. Why and how Saturdays matter changes ever so slightly, but he’s not buying into the idea that the regular season is somehow “less than” with the 24-team College Football Playoff field.
Freeman with the incredibly based opinion on the expanded playoff.
— John Massingale (@JohnMassingale4) May 25, 2026
“Every Saturday matters”
“Only 12 guaranteed opportunities”
“Everyone is taking about devaluing the regular season but…every Saturday still matters”
Freeman and I see eye to eye on this.
The stakes are… pic.twitter.com/exMVhUMRH7
Marcus Freeman explains why Notre Dame football still treats every Saturday like it matters
“I think the ability to have that hope for the postseason is important, but the only way to get to that point is to take care of this Saturday, right? And so, I know people talk about where devaluing every week with the playoffs and maybe an expanded playoffs, but every Saturday still matters, man.”
“Every Saturday matters in terms of finding a way to go out there and compete. We train probably three hundred days a year to really get an opportunity to go out there and compete twelve guaranteed Saturdays. Right?”
“And that's what sometimes people don't understand, like these guys want to go out there and play somebody else. They want an opportunity to go out there and play somebody else for the opportunity to win. They deserve it. And we're going to continue to cherish those Saturdays. And then we'll deal with the postseason when it gets here.”
Freeman certainly knows about Notre Dame not getting into the playoffs, even if it seems like they should have. He knows that had they posted one less loss in 2025, they would have been in. Because every Saturday matters, their second loss was the one that kept them out of the CFP field.
He also knows that while the Irish did get in the year prior with a loss, they had to win every single game after Northern Illinois. That made every Saturday a kind of playoff game. It might have also been what helped get them all the way to the national title game.
Freeman also knows Notre Dame doesn’t have a large margin for error this coming season. While he might have a bigger one if the field grows to 24 teams, for now, he’ll take it as it comes, and it’s clear he doesn’t believe a bigger bracket would mean a less valuable regular season.
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