Coach Freeman: Finding Work Life Blend, Faith & Restoring Notre Dame’s Championship Ways

FOLLOW THE PIVOT PODCAST: MERCH | https://pivotpodcast.com YOUTUBE | https://www.youtube.com/thepivotpodcast INSTAGRAM | https://instagram.com/thepivot TWITTER | https://twitter.com/thepivot TIKTOK | https://tiktok.com/@thepivot FACEBOOK | https://www.facebook.com/thepivotpodcast FOLLOW HAPPY DAD: https://www.instagram.com/happydad FIND HAPPY DAD: https://www.happydad.com/find The Pivot took a trip to South Bend, Indiana for a special visit to one of College Football’s most sacred programs and truly gained an entire fresh perspective on the Irish’s historical winning lineage. Yes that’s right, Ryan, Fred and Channing are sitting with Head Football Coach of the Fighting Irish, Marcus Freeman on his home turf, for an inside look at the football program, a special tour of campus highlighting the rich history and for an in-depth conversation covering Coach’s journey from young man to football player to father to husband to head coach. Being named as only the second black coach in Notre Dame history, Freeman embraces the challenge to get the Fighting Irish back to championship traditions and build off last season’s winning streak after a bumpy start as the head coach. Pulling from his roots and focused on family and faith, coaching was never something Freeman dreamed of doing but rather it became his calling after his playing career took a turn. As one of the most respected defensive players in college football and a NFL 5th round draft pick, Freeman’s professional career had a lot of promise until a few months in and results from a physical showed he had an enlarged heart valve and he would be unable to compete at the NFL level due to medical reasons. Leaning into his close relationship with former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, Freeman reached out immediately and the next day was mentoring as a college football coach, the start of a journey to becoming one of the most sought after defensive minds in football and now head coach of one of the most storied collegiate programs. Fred asks about the values instilled in players and focus as a leader for Coach Freeman while Channing asks about the pressure of getting it right at such a prestigious school and reestablishing winning ways. As a father of six children, Coach Freeman shares with Ryan the importance of a work life blend and how he uses same approach to unify his melting pot of children at home as he does to lead the locker room of young men and his coaches. Showing by example is far more impactful than just using words. Looking ahead to next season, Coach Freeman is ready to pick up where the team left off and continue to make an impact on and off the field. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 0:30Ryan Clark?

  This is crazy.

• 0:32Fred Taylor?

  Did you see, like, most stadiums you go in, you see the school name and the sponsors?

• 0:36Ryan Clark?

  Mmm.

• 0:37Fred Taylor?

  No sponsors, a few, just clean.

• 0:40Speaker 04

  There's nine lines, right? So nine in each end zone, pointing at 42-degree angle. So nine times two, 18, so 1842 this university was created. And so you realize, okay, why? They all point at the Golden Dome.

• 0:53Ryan Clark?

  Y'all sold out Ireland already, huh?

• 0:54Speaker 04

  Oh, it's done.

• 0:55Fred Taylor?

  That is insane.

• 0:55Ryan Clark?

  They're going to Ireland and they sold it out already.

• 0:58Speaker 04

  They said this will be the biggest travel party of Americans to go to Ireland at one point ever. And Jim Tressel was there.

• 1:04Fred Taylor?

  Uh huh.

• 1:04Speaker 04

  And I'm taking pictures and they kept saying, "Hey, Coach." I'm like, "There's one coach in this room."

• 1:08Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 1:09Speaker 04

  But he's always gonna be Coach.

• 1:10Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 1:10Speaker 04

  Always gonna be the man. And that's what Lou Holtz saw me, man. It's like, okay, this head coaching thing, if you do these kids the right way, man, it lasts forever.

• 1:18Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 1:18Speaker 04

  Saying, so how do we embrace tradition but become relevant now? This is it, right? Like, we can't beat no way different, but this? This helps you become relevant. So now in recruiting, they say, "Oh, man, you guys had the pivot there?"

• 1:31Ryan Clark?

  Yup.

• 1:32Speaker 04

  "You had the pivot?"

• 1:33Ryan Clark?

  Yup.

• 1:33Speaker 04

  Nah, that's real.

• 1:33Fred Taylor?

  This is the day.

• 1:34Ryan Clark?

  They gonna be, you know, that little on-three site, the recruit site?

• 1:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:37Ryan Clark?

  They gonna be, Ryan Clark must be getting recruited. Yes, I am. Yes, I am.

• 1:42Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:43Ryan Clark?

  I want to finish that guy. I'll have a touchdown. Jesus, play like a champion.

• 1:47Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, this is the original.

• 1:49Ryan Clark?

  It's the Rudy Room.

• 1:50Speaker 04

  This is original. Yeah.

• 1:52Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, I just, I just met him in Jacksonville. Three weeks ago.

• 1:56Speaker 04

  Really?

• 1:56Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 1:57Speaker 04

  The real one?

• 1:57Fred Taylor?

  Yes.

• 1:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:58Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, he is lively.

• 2:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:00Fred Taylor?

  Like lively.

• 2:02Ryan Clark?

  Always had this question, Coach. After the game, before the press, do you shower?

• 2:06Speaker 04

  I go and coaching uniform.

• 2:07Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 2:08Speaker 04

  After the game, I go and...

• 2:09Ryan Clark?

  Go straight to it?

• 2:10Speaker 04

  Yeah. They give me a, a list of some points, any stats, anything I need, and then I go out there.

• 2:17Ryan Clark?

  Do they get, do they let you kind of decompress first? Or you go straight to it?

• 2:20Speaker 04

  Kind of go. I go talk to the team, so I bring everybody up, right? Address the team. Get this stat sheet and go straight now.

• 2:28Ryan Clark?

  Coach Tomlin saying, bro, he's like, I always ask him. Cause like when you talk to Coach T away from ball, like when we sat down with him for the show, I was like, man, this the dude I know. But then he get in that press conference and you only gonna get out of him what he's willing to give you.

• 3:06Ryan Clark?

  Well, Coach, welcome to the Pivot. First of all, man, thank you so much for letting us come here to show us around and, you know, just the hospitality, we're really grateful. Freddie T, this is Chan. I'm RC. It is, for someone like me, it's a pleasure who has always respected the history of this school, but who also understands the difficulty in coaching. And how hard it is to get one of these jobs, let alone this job. To be the 30th head coach, second African American, not only the first of Asian descent here, but the second of Asian descent to ever coach Power Five football, along with Norm Chow.

• 3:47Speaker 04

  I didn't know that.

• 3:48Ryan Clark?

  I read a lot.

• 3:49Speaker 04

  I appreciate you.

• 3:49Ryan Clark?

  Along with Norm Chow, and so there are so many different barriers being broken, but you're doing it in a way where you stay authentically you. And I think that's why your players reacted the way they did when they were told, you know, you were gonna be the next head coach after Brian Kelly left. My question for you though, is this starts, obviously with your father, Michael, and your mother, Chong, but you were a big time football player, right? They said, they called you Wayne High School's favorite son.

• 4:21Speaker 04

  No, that's Will Allen.

• 4:23Ryan Clark?

  That's my dog, that's my dog. You know, you go to Ohio State, you get playing BCS playoff games, you are all conference your last year. You bounce around, I think it was Bills, Texans, but in February of that off season, you go to get a physical for the coach and they give you a diagnosis that ends your career. And you said at that young age, Football's not number one. It's my religion and my family. And you move on to coach under Jim Tressel as a grad assistant. It seemed from the outside looking in, Coach, that you totally understood it and you grasped it and you were so grateful for everything that you'd gotten up to that point. But it feels hard to me to let that dream go.

• 5:08Ryan Clark?

  How difficult was that for you to say, okay, now it's time to begin a new chapter of my life?

• 5:13Speaker 04

  I appreciate that, you know, spitting off those things, man. That's good. You know, I love the game, right? Just like we all did. You loved the competition. You loved the, actually, the unity of being a part of a team. I loved that, man. I loved the locker room. Again, neither of my parents went to college. And so, my dreams as a young person was, man, play at the highest level, right? In college and try to go to NFL. And sometimes those dreams stop when you, when you say NFL. And so, I was able to play in two national championship games, then win them. Lost one to Florida, you know? And then lost one to LSU. So, you know what I mean? You know, it is what it is. But, fifth round pick, went to the NFL and, you know, I got cut after training camp.

• 5:56Speaker 04

  And the first thing I would say is this, is that being in Chicago was the first time I was homesick. I grew up in Dayton, Ohio, which is about 50 minutes outside of Columbus, Ohio. Went to Ohio State and you had guys, as your former teammate Will Allen, and some of, some guys that I knew from high school that were there, you know? And, man, it was, I was never homesick, you know? And, and then all of a sudden, you go to the NFL. I got a fiance and a son, our oldest boy at the time. I'm like, man, I'm in Chicago with Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs and, and some of these guys, man. And I'm like, this is the first time that, you know, I miss being home. And end up getting cut and kind of was like, all right, man, we'll figure this thing out.

• 6:39Speaker 04

  Then I got picked up by the Bills, right? And I was on practice squad and they had somebody get hurt and I thought they, they gave me a call to say, Coach, hey, the GM wants to see you. I'm like, I'm getting moved up to the after. He said, we're gonna let you go. We gotta, we gotta bring in a vet. And then I went to Houston and that's when, I was in Houston for about eight or nine weeks and that's when I was like, okay, man, I love this. I know what it takes now. I can figure this thing out. All of a sudden, I remember being in Houston and my knee was, were hurting and I'm like, you know what? I don't know how long I'm gonna play this game. This is my third team in one year. And I called Coach Tress and said, If something happens where I can't play ball, I think I want to be a coach. He said, "Okay, play as long as you can, right?

• 7:23Speaker 04

  And if it, if it happens, you can come coach." So the Colts called me. And I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna go to Indianapolis and keep chasing this dream." And they find an enlarged heart valve. And I called Coach Tress that day. As soon as on my way back, and I said, "Hey, I can't play anymore. I want to get into coaching." And he said, "Be here the next day." But I never grew up wanting to be a coach. I really thought I wanted to be an athletic director. And I was like, "Man, them coaches work crazy hours." As we talked about, I ain't trying to do that. But I remember just being in Houston, saying, "I know I'm not playing right now, but I'm preparing like I'm gonna play, and I love this game." And that's where I started to develop this passion for actually coaching ball. Before I end up, I thought it was about ball, right?

• 8:04Speaker 04

  Man, I want to stay by the game, near the game, and, and, you know, win and be great on defense. And I was at GE at Ohio State, and I coached the drop-in position. And I remember making these tip sheets. And one of my guys made a sack in the first game. And he came over to us, and we're hugging, and we're just celebrating. And at that moment, I said, "That's what it's about." It's about seeing young people, helping young people have success. That's why you do it. It's not to be the head coach at Notre Dame, man. This is a great platform for me, but, man, those dudes, I love them. I love them and want to see them succeed. And so that's really what, what I gained a passion for.

• 8:44Channing Crowder?

  And Coach, with the medical condition, the enlarged valve, you was a high school everything, a college all everything, went to three different NFL teams.

• 8:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:52Channing Crowder?

  The fourth team found out about that?

• 8:55Speaker 04

  I had an MRI, everything at the, the Combine. So they did all these tests at the Combine, and high school and college never found it. And then the Indianapolis Colts, they, they, they did an EKG, and they said, "Hey, we need you to come back and do some more tests." And, and that's when he said, "Look, you got an enlarged left ventricle." And he said, "Right now, nobody's signing guys with this, because a couple guys had just died in the NFL, maybe conditioning or something." I can't remember exactly what it was. He was like, "Look, we're not signing you, nobody's gonna sign you." And I'm almost like, "Man, this is a sign from God, man." I just, I was just at the combine, what, seven, eight, nine months earlier. And they didn't find anything.

• 9:30Ryan Clark?

  Coach, around that time too, that was when Gaines Adams passed as well.

• 9:33Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 9:34Ryan Clark?

  Ironically, he was drafted by the Bears.

• 9:36Speaker 04

  Yep, that's exactly right.

• 9:37Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, that has to be playing as well that, you know, it is a blessing that I found out this way rather than the other way.

• 9:44Speaker 04

  Amen, amen.

• 9:46Fred Taylor?

  Coach, we're here at Notre Dame where a lot of those young men, you were just, you know, expressing the passion to be able to coach them and teach them life. A lot of them are going to aspire to go on to the next level. But you are a perfect example of, you gotta have your ducks in a row. I understand you, you got your master's degree in sports management, which explains not having the initial passion for coaching, but wanting to be athletic director, understand all the nuances. How much of your story do you share with these young men here about perseverance? You know, about not giving up, about having a plan B and making sure, you know, you continue to move forward in life?

• 10:25Speaker 04

  You know, every once in a while I do. I try not to all the time. I try to really just give them examples, and a lot of times it ain't me. But examples of, don't cheat football, right? That's why you choose Notre Dame, you want to be a first round pick, right? You aspire to be a national champion. So we don't want to cheat that, man. You gotta grind, you gotta work your tail off and all those things that we know it takes to have success. But understand you're at a place that you can truly tap into a network that is second to none. And I try to show them examples of really what this network is. It can be former players, it can be Notre Dame alums, people that just connected with Notre Dame and say, we're foolish if you don't tap into this network while you're chasing this dream.

• 11:05Speaker 04

  Because for me, I think even coming up, sometimes you, you always, you thought, if you thought about anything other than football, oh man, I'm, I'm cheating my chance of making the league, right? I'm cheating my chance of really reaching all my football goals, which is foolish, right? You can chase these dreams to be an NFL football player, to be the greatest football player you can be, but you can tap into your network and have some realization of what other passions you have. And so I try to create that while they're here to truly tap into this thing while we haven't.

• 11:36Channing Crowder?

  Coach, I got it, I got it, because you read the story and it was like, yeah, they took football away, I'm gonna go here. Let's lay it out how it was. You're unemployed now, you got a baby.

• 11:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:47Channing Crowder?

  And you ain't got nothing left. You're going to be a G A. And I know G A's gonna make a damn dime.

• 11:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, no doubt.

• 11:52Channing Crowder?

  Like, it was that easy. There was no downtime. There was no sitting by yourself. You never, you never had a mental lull after they told you football was gone.

• 12:00Speaker 04

  Got right into work. And that's how I've always been. Like, I don't have a lot of alone time. I don't have a lot of downtime. Like, I constantly want to be doing something. Maybe I learned that from my parents. You know, my mom worked three jobs. She's a Korean woman that had no clue about anything. And she just worked and worked and worked and worked. And my father was in the military for 26 years. And he ended up retiring from the military and kept working and working and working. And so, that's all I know. But, you know what? I don't, I don't know. It, there wasn't a moment where I was depressed and didn't know what my next steps were. I was kind of developing those thoughts as I was being cut in the NFL, you know? And also, to answer your question about this, like, my wife, we got married

• 12:43Speaker 04

  one month after they found an enlarged heart valve. And, uh, um, she had a job. She was making good money. She was a news reporter in Columbus, Ohio. And so, she was able to support kind of all of us when I was making G A money, which is no money. And, uh, you know, I gotta give her credit because the next year, I go to Kent State. All right, I'm hired as linebackers coach, a Division One program. You think, hey, we're gonna make good money, like, we're good. I remember I got my salary was 42,000.

• 13:12Channing Crowder?

  Ooh.

• 13:13Speaker 04

  And my wife would make almost double that. And I said, "Look, you stay in Columbus, I'm gonna go to Kent State," which is two hours away. She said, "No, ain't no way we're gonna do this thing apart." So she gave up her job, came and moved up, and we figured it out. And so, uh, so how many, however many years later, 10, 12, 15 years later, you know, she's still taking care of the house and the kids and, um...

• 13:34Channing Crowder?

  You got a little better salary.

• 13:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:35Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, a little bit, a little bit.

• 13:37Speaker 04

  Hey, hey, she can spend a little bit more money, you know?

• 13:40Ryan Clark?

  Hey, Coach, fast forward that. You know, you spoke about your parents and how that upbringing... Help develop you as a man and who you are now as a coach. Also, your wife supporting you, especially early on in your career. Not just by the fact that she was working, but with the love and support that we're gonna do this together.

• 13:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:00Ryan Clark?

  You're named the head coach of Notre Dame, which is a prestigious position in itself. Not just, it's not just the head coach at any other university in the country. And on the front row is your father.

• 14:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:14Ryan Clark?

  Is your mother, is your wife Joanna, is your six children. Right, that, that moment you got to share that with them, that is the culmination of all of our sacrifices, all of the hard work, all of the lessons, all of the adversities. What was that like for you?

• 14:30Speaker 04

  It is special, something you can't really, really describe at times. And I think as we get older, as men, you, you realize why you are the way you are, why you're in the position you're in. I wouldn't be in this position if it wasn't for my wife, really supporting me, taking care of the house and the kids. But I wouldn't be who I am as a person if it wasn't for the examples of my parents. And I don't think sometimes you realize that as you go through it. You know what I mean? I think sometimes you're in a position, you look back and you say, that's why I'm the way I am, you know? And the same thing goes. One of my greatest examples was my college coach, Jim Tressel. And a lot of the reasons I am the way I am is because of the example he set. And we often think it's, it's the things we say, right?

• 15:14Speaker 04

  Sometimes as men, as leaders, we're gonna say the right thing, I'm gonna be a great man. Man, that's what you see, that's what these kids see, right? Is what really, really sticks with them for the rest of their life. And that's how it was with Coach Tress.

• 15:26Fred Taylor?

  Speaking of Coach Tressel and where you are now, just looking at the journey, you know, just holistically backing things out. You know, you wanted to play in the NFL, that happened. It was maybe not as long as you want it, would have liked. But certain circumstances came about where you had to pivot. And you picked up the phone and you made that call. Some guys won't do that and a lot of players, they don't develop these relationships with their coaches. You know, maybe assistant coach because they spend a lot of time with them. But the head man, the head man is always moving.

• 15:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:58Fred Taylor?

  Have you ever thought that if Coach Trussell didn't answer that phone? Or maybe if he had said no, then you know what direction your life would have traveled?

• 16:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, it would have been totally different. And I probably would have called Gene Smith, who is the athletic director at Ohio State. I actually G A'd, so my fifth year at Ohio State, I was already graduate and so I G A'd for Gene Smith, who was our athletic director.

• 16:21Fred Taylor?

  Is Gene Smith the old Jags GM or a different?

• 16:25Speaker 04

  Nope, different Gene Smith.

• 16:26Fred Taylor?

  Okay.

• 16:27Speaker 04

  But that Gene Smith, he is Notre Dame grad. You know what I mean?

• 16:30Channing Crowder?

  Oh, here he goes.

• 16:31Speaker 04

  I had to put that, I had to.

• 16:32Fred Taylor?

  Sprinkle a little bit on it. I love Gene. I just didn't follow after he left Jags too much, but he was always solid.

• 16:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, I probably would have called, he would have been my second call and said, hey, I've already G A'd for you, I think I want to go into this sports management, sports administration, you know, side. But it is, we have to utilize, man, these connections that we have. And that's what I tell our players now is that I can talk all about this Notre Dame network and the people that we have and the connection. But if we're not tapping into it, really utilizing it, it's going to be a waste. And sometimes I think even, I think back to myself like, you don't want to, you don't want to seem vulnerable.

• 17:16Channing Crowder?

  Right.

• 17:17Speaker 04

  You want to act like I got all the answers, I'm good, I don't need help, I'm good. The minute you ask somebody, hey, can you teach me something? Can you tell me how I can prepare better? You feel like you're being vulnerable, like you're weak. You know, and I tell our players, that's foolish, man. Utilize these connections that are all around us, you know?

• 17:36Channing Crowder?

  It takes trust.

• 17:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:38Channing Crowder?

  And as a, I speak myself as a 18-year-old guy coming out of Atlanta, I didn't go to Florida, I'm not going to trust these old white dudes. You know what I'm saying? Charlie Strong was there luckily and that's kind of like, that's my ace to this day. I love Chuck. But how do you get kids to trust you because you're a disciplinarian? So now if I get in trouble, you yelling at me, you might take my scholarship, you got me running 6 a.m. But now trust me, come talk to me, if you need something, I'm here for you. How do you walk that line, especially as a young black coach? You look like I could trust you, but you're still the head coach of Notre Dame.

• 18:09Speaker 04

  Amen.

• 18:09Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 18:10Speaker 04

  Amen. Just like you said, if you don't hold these dudes accountable, or you don't hold them to a standard, you're failing them, right? And you gotta get them to understand it, man. We're gonna push you and hold you accountable and push you to places you can't imagine because we care about you, right? We care about you, and I don't want you to come back and say, "I wish you would've did more," you know? I don't want you to go to another school in the NFL and say, "Man, Coach, this guy's getting more out of me than you did." I don't want that, you know what I mean? I'd rather get everything out of you than just be your buddy, you know? But trust takes time, man, it's intentional, right? Trust is earned. And I tell our coaches all the time, like, one, it's through competence. Like, do you know what the hell you're talking about, right? If a player is... If you're coming to meetings, you don't know what you're talking about, and a player is telling you, you're making mistakes,

• 18:53Speaker 04

  like, you're gonna lose the competence that you're supposed to have. But it's about character. Do they see you? Do they see your actions? Are you a man of your word? Can they watch you and say, "Okay, he's living the life that he preaches about." But the third thing is the connection. It's like, do you do intentional actions to make sure you're building trust? Like, do I have kids intentionally coming to my office and say, "Hey, sit down with me, let's talk"? Like, you have to be intentional, it doesn't just happen. And so if we can do that, now you can continue to push. They'll trust you. You can push kids as far as they trust you, man. You know what I mean? If not, then they're just gonna do blind obedience, just like you said.

• 19:28Ryan Clark?

  Well, you know what? This has been fun, right? All this, let's be happy, we love Marcus Freeman, yay! Marcus got the job!

• 19:36Speaker 04

  Pivot, go ahead, pivot.

• 19:38Ryan Clark?

  You lost your first three.

• 19:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:39Ryan Clark?

  Oh, yeah. Right? Fiesta Bowl, Oklahoma State.

• 19:42Speaker 04

  Yo.

• 19:42Ryan Clark?

  Then, I mean, we fired up. We got Ohio State, we back at the crib.

• 19:48Speaker 04

  Yo.

• 19:48Ryan Clark?

  Right? We lose that one, and then it's Marshall. I remember, I didn't get to watch it, I remember just seeing the highlights. My dog took his, he took his headphones off, and I was like, "Yeah, he felt that one."

• 19:59Speaker 04

  It's hurt.

• 19:59Ryan Clark?

  Right?

• 20:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:00Ryan Clark?

  So I wanna ask you to explain to me a little bit about the bumpy road to better.

• 20:05Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 20:07Ryan Clark?

  Right, because that was something you used to stay steadfast and right this ship here. But I think all that goes to trust. It goes to confidence. It goes to belief in who you were. But someone sent you that sermon and you use that to go forward in a year.

• 20:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, so you talk about December 3rd, right? That's the video everybody sees, right? Your name head coach to cheering for you, the players going crazy. You're talking January 1st of the next year, so 20 something days later. You're giving your first post-game speech after a loss. Right, so the highest of highs, the lowest of lows in a 20 something day span, right? And so I still didn't figure it out, right? You're getting ready for Ohio State now. We're good, we're good, man. I say, hey, that was the bowl game. I didn't know what office I was in, man. We're getting ready for Ohio State. And, and we know it's gonna be a challenge. We're, we're up with about a minute left in the third, right? They end up opening it up the game. We lose 21 to 10. But you play well enough that you're kind of like, alright, we, we got a good team. We, we lost a tough one, but we're good. We know we're gonna be Marshall.

• 21:07Speaker 04

  We know this is gonna be my first win.

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• 21:40Speaker 04

  And you go and you lose the Marshall. And you talk about a low, a low moment. You know, I remember coming back here, sitting in my office and nobody's coming to your office. It's just you and you. And I got a couple texts. Coach Tomlin reached out to me. A lot of people reached out to you. But I got a text from Kevin Warren, who at that time was the Big Ten Commissioner. Now he's the president of the Chicago Bears. And he sent me a TD Jakes sermon. It was talking about the bumpy road. And... It was just, I used that thought process of the vision we have for where we're going is a smooth, straight road. This thing is bumpy, right? But we gotta make sure this is continuing to get the better, right?

• 22:23Speaker 04

  We can't just do a bumpy road and stay in the same place, you know? And, and that kinda really hit me and I explained it to the team that we gotta go through these bumps, man. Like, we have to. And you gotta believe this was intentional. Like, we have to go through these low moments to figure out what it takes to lead a program like this, to figure out what this team needs to be successful, right? And we should start winning. Go three games in a row, right? Three games in a row, we got it. We got it. We beat 200 feet of teams, North Carolina and BYU. Oh, we got it. Then we lose to Stanford, right? We lose to Stanford. And, and that's when I kinda said, you know what? You gotta stay right here in the middle. And what's that mean? Is that you can't let praise, or criticism, or victories, or defeats.

• 23:06Speaker 04

  You gotta stay right there in the middle. And that's hard. That's hard, man. That's hard for a head coach. That's hard for our players. Because there's so much noise, there's so much pressure on these dudes, man. From school, to being a starter, to being a backup, to their parents saying you should be the starter, to the coach not to be honest. I mean, there's so much stuff. And you just gotta stay right in the middle of that bumpy road and focus on improvement. And so, that's kinda been my thought process. We, we moved forward and we won the next five games and lost a tough one to USC. And then we come back and win the bowl game. And, man, the, the journey is never how we foresee it on the front end. It isn't. And you can't talk your way into winning a national championship. You can't talk your way into being a Hall of Famer in, in the NFL. You gotta work and you gotta constantly focus on improvement.

• 23:50Speaker 04

  And at some point, we'll look at the results and see where you're at. But that's kinda been, you know, my, my, my mindset as we move forward.

• 23:56Channing Crowder?

  It's what Coach Prime says. He says, "If I get excited when you're excited, now I'm gonna be down when you get upset with me." So, I'm not gonna buy into your excitement, because then I gotta buy into your, to your criticism. But you talk, especially at a place like Notre Dame.

• 24:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:10Channing Crowder?

  You talk about the, the bumpy road, but you gotta ride that with more than your coaching staff and the players.

• 24:15Speaker 04

  Amen.

• 24:15Channing Crowder?

  In a place like this, you got the alumni, you got the money, folks. We know how this goes. Do you, do you have meetings, like through that bumpy road? Do you justify that? Who, who are, who are those meetings when it's not just you and you?

• 24:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:26Channing Crowder?

  Who are those people? What's that, what's, what's that like being a new head coach of Notre Dame? And they see failure?

• 24:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:33Channing Crowder?

  And them people don't like failure, Coach?

• 24:34Speaker 04

  Ain't no doubt. The expectation whenever game you play here.

• 24:37Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 24:37Speaker 04

  And we haven't won, listen, we ain't won a national championship since 1988. You know, and they, they, hey, every, every year, hey, win this national championship. You know, and, and, and that's my goal too. You know, I want it, I want success for, for two groups, right? As one is our players. I want it for our players, right? Cause they deserve it, man. That's why they chose Notre Dame. And I want it for our athletic director and our president. They took a chance on me. There's, there's so much support around here. But listen, man, you gotta just love them dudes, right? And you gotta fix the process. Like the amount of people that text me after Marshall, trust the process, trust the process. Man, ain't no trusting, we're 0-3.

• 25:15Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 25:16Speaker 04

  Ain't no trusting, I'll fix it. And you gotta look, we gotta coach better. I gotta lead better first, right? And we gotta coach better. And then they gotta go do. We showed you guys that, that, the team room, right? We're gonna decide and we're gonna teach. So we gotta teach better. But then they, in return, have to do better, right? And so those are the things that we gotta get better at. And we gotta fix them with urgency. And that's what we were able to do and we gotta keep doing it, right? And we're gonna have to continue to keep doing it and, and continue to keep learning, man. And again, and pivot. You know, I was thinking about you guys when I, when I was walking this morning, like pivot. When I think about pivot, man, I almost thought about like a seesaw, right? Go uphill and at some point you're gonna pivot downhill, right? And, but it's hard going uphill.

• 26:01Speaker 04

  Like it's hard, man. It's hard to get that seesaw to the point it actually pivots. And that's, we gotta understand, man, this thing is hard. One of the greatest Catholic universities in the world. We can't pray this thing and it happening.

• 26:12Channing Crowder?

  That's real talk though.

• 26:13Speaker 04

  You can't just pray it to happen. You gotta work. You gotta pray and work.

• 26:16Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 26:16Speaker 04

  And you gotta work tirelessly and, and at some point, I think we'll pivot to where it needs to go.

• 26:20Fred Taylor?

  Coach, Channing brought up trust, which is building a rapport. But more so just than with the players, you mentioned, you know, everybody, the, the A.D., the president, you know, get on the same page, being creative all the time, building systems, having the systems in place. You know, but it all comes back down to, you know, coaching. But what does it really mean to you? And what are some of your greatest strengths and attributes as a coach?

• 26:46Speaker 04

  I think it's two different. Parts when you think about coaching, one is is the player. You coach the player. What does that mean? You gotta get that player to play above his God given ability. Right? And that's how we're evaluated. Can we get this dude somehow, some way to perform at a level that he can't even imagine? Right? And that takes intentionality, man. You gotta pour yourself into that dude. You gotta be crazy. You can't just look at a kid and say, look, he don't get it. Man, we, talent is talent. Right? We gotta figure out ways for him to get it. Right? We gotta teach it better. So I keep saying, how do we teach? We gotta look at how we teach because what we teach is a reflection of what they do. Right? And so we have to continue to teach better and pour into the player.

• 27:30Speaker 04

  But then there's a tactical side to it too now, right? And then you gotta strategically be at an elite level to try to win versus some elite. There's elite coaches in college football. And so we gotta make sure we are always enhancing. One of the things we talk about is just challenge everything. Right? It's one of the part of our culture, challenge everything. Find a better way to teach it, but also strategically to to perform. Right? We gotta out scheme some people too. You know, and that takes hard work. It can't be, we're doing it this way because we've always done it that way. Right? And so how do we get the player to perform at a higher level? How do we make sure we are always enhancing the way we schematically approach the game?

• 28:07Ryan Clark?

  You know, Coach, it's it's very, it's very easy. I can look at you and I can tell you're a brother. It's not, that's not, that's not hard. But you speak of your mom so often, just in watching everything you do. You know, I saw something in 2021 when we were dealing with the atrocities and tragedies that were happening to so many, especially Asian women being targeted. And you say, I talked to my mom about that. She doesn't, she's not really vocal about it. But you also mentioned having the utmost pride in both of your heritage. Right? And in who your father is and who your father's made you, also your mother. Now, you did say one thing, Coach, that you're gonna have to prove to me. You said you went to both churches and the Korean food was better after church.

• 28:49Speaker 04

  Hey, listen.

• 28:51Ryan Clark?

  Hey, Coach, I don't, I don't know about that now, Coach. But when you do take time to sit back and think about. Who you represent in that sense? In, you know, being the second black head coach here after Ty Willingham? And, you know, being one of only two Asian coaches to hold this position in Division One ball. How proud are you to be able to say that that's where my people come from? You know, my mom was in school in Seoul when she met my pops, right? Those sacrifices that got me here, how proud are you to represent that?

• 29:28Speaker 04

  So proud. I haven't always been this way. You know, I think as a young person, man, when you have something that might be different, you're kind of like, oh, man, you know, I don't want to, you know, be in front of everybody. I got this Korean mom that this might be different than black or white parents, you know? But as you get older, you realize, man, it's so special and I'm honored. I got a chance to go to the White House. And I was invited as the head coach of Notre Dame, but it was the only reason I was invited was because my mother was Korean, right? So President Biden was having a state dinner for the president of South Korea. And he invited me and a guest to go to the White House. And so I had to have a conversation with my wife, like, listen, I'm not invited unless,

• 30:10Speaker 04

  and my mom was Korean, so I got to take my mom. And it was amazing, man, and I had so much pride in my heritage, you know, and where my mom has come from. And so that's who I am, you know? And so to answer the second part of your question is, I remember growing up and aspiring to be like Heinz War, because he was half-black and half-Korean, and he was successful, right? And so I remind myself that there's some young people that look at a half-black and a half-Asian man and say, you know what, I want to be like him. So I want to have success because I want people that have grown up like me, that look like me, to realize, man, there's opportunities to do whatever the heck you want, man. Whatever you want.

• 30:54Speaker 04

  But I don't add that pressure to me, right? I don't say I gotta work harder because there's a young Johnny, you know, behind me that wants to be like, I gotta work as hard as I can for those players, man.

• 31:06Fred Taylor?

  Yep.

• 31:07Speaker 04

  Because those are the ones that have chose Notre Dame and chose me to be the leader, and I gotta work as hard as I can to push those guys to have success. And that's my everyday inspiration. But I don't, don't forget that, that, man, you got these young people behind you that need you to have success, you know, so they can understand there's a path and a way.

• 31:24Ryan Clark?

  I got to know Kyle pretty well.

• 31:27Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:27Ryan Clark?

  Kyle Hamilton, and amazing parents, but amazing young men.

• 31:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:32Ryan Clark?

  Right? Obviously, top-notch, elite-level player. But you said something, Coach, that, that really stuck out to me. You know, in the business I'm in, right? When things happen in the NFL with coaches I know and players I know, when there is a white coach who they feel passed on, passed up a black coach or something, I get the text messages, right?

• 31:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:53Ryan Clark?

  RC, and so I, I do my best from my position to advocate when advocacy is needed.

• 32:00Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 32:00Ryan Clark?

  You're in a different position because right now you get to do.

• 32:03Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:03Ryan Clark?

  And you said that you want to be a representation.

• 32:07Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 32:07Ryan Clark?

  But not only that, you want to be a demonstration. And I'll say to that, that is a large responsibility. And as I went on to read, you know, it was about the way you coached and the, the way you show that people like yourself from backgrounds and ethnicities like yourself are able to do the job at a high level. But I think it's more than that. When a coach, and, and a black coach or a black and Korean coach says he wants to be a demonstration, not only a representation, it's also in the way you live. It's also in the human that you are. It's the fact that you not only can show that you can do the job, but you show that you do exactly what we ask white coaches to do, which is to care about those young men.

• 32:52Ryan Clark?

  No matter their color, no matter their background, no matter their ethnicity, no matter their religion, but to care about them walking away from you a better human than when they met you.

• 33:02Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 33:03Ryan Clark?

  And by demonstrating that, now it's saying, we're not asking coaches, we're not asking white coaches to be something different than what we're aiming to be. But we're asking that all of them be held to that level. And so when you walk in to your introduction to the team, it wasn't just black players that got up and hugged you, it was all of them. It wasn't, the first guy you dapped off wasn't a black kid, it was a white kid. And your job is to take care of him too. And I think you've done a great job of that thus far in representing yourself, but also in taking care of this locker room, which is the biggest melting pot in the world, the way that it's supposed to be. So I really wanted to commend you on that.

• 33:45Ryan Clark?

  And aside from that, Coach, you called your, uh, I think you called your house like a melting pot or something.

• 33:50Speaker 04

  No doubt.

• 33:51Ryan Clark?

  What is it like in being the head coach of Notre Dame, right? You have this huge group of children, young men that you take care of every day. But you said it yourself when, after the Colts found the enlarged heart valve, my family and God and my religion are first.

• 34:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:09Ryan Clark?

  What is it like now, man, being the head coach of Notre Dame and trying to balance the need to win a championship here with the need to be championship level at home as well?

• 34:19Speaker 04

  You'll never be at a championship level at home. And that's, it, it, what is the evaluation of a championship level, right? And, but, but the demands of a college football coach are, are extremely high to have success. The hours that it takes to put in, it's, there are a lot of hours. I've always said this, like, it's not a balance, it's a blend. We have a work-life blend. So what's that mean? Is I'm fortunate, I live 10 minutes up the road, right? And if my wife can bring one kid, two kids, five kids, six kids, it doesn't matter. If she can bring them here for 10 minutes, she can bring them here for a practice, she can bring them here for a dinner, she tries to. And it's for two reasons. One, so I can see them. I mean, usually in the sea, for sure in the season, you leave, they're sleeping, you come home, they're sleeping, right? You can see your wife, but you're not seeing your kids during the week.

• 35:05Speaker 04

  I see them on Sunday when I leave, I don't see them again awake until Thursday. And so if they can come and see dad for a minute, um, we try to do that. But the second part is this, is that like, A lot of our players, I don't care if you have both parents at home or not, right? You still need the example modeled in front of you. You can be have the example for 18 years and 18 to 22, if you got a bad example, man, that can affect you. And so I want our players to see me and our other coaches as a husband, as a father, and not about what we say. Ah, you gotta, you gotta treat your wife with respect, you gotta love your kids. No, I wanna show it to you because that's what's gonna stick with them longer. And that's why we have this blend and that's what we gotta, that's how we make it work, man.

• 35:48Channing Crowder?

  And Coach, I gotta go back for one second because I actually asked Coach Tomlin this and you brought up Tomlin and I fell in love with Mike Tomlin. Oh my goodness, I just, I knew he was a great coach and I met him as a man and just fell in love with him. But I asked him about, like RC was saying, being a black coach, knowing that in the past those opportunities weren't there. If you look at the demographics of head coaches right now.

• 36:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:10Channing Crowder?

  It's just, you know, it's slowly blending. But your responsibility to hire black men. Because Tomlin said, he was like, I don't have nothing against hiring black, black men. I wanna hire the greatest coaches I can have on my staff. But you as a black coach, do you try to interview more black guys? You know, I would, if I was there and I would never be, I might go overboard trying to find them. But that, that's that balance that you have to have now as a head coach of a university like this.

• 36:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think there's a, a part that you have to search, right? You gotta make sure that there's, if, if there's a qualified black man or minority, search and find them. But at the end of the day, if you can't help us win.

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• 37:26Speaker 04

  I can have every coach on my staff be black. And if we lose, we're all gone.

• 37:30Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 37:30Speaker 04

  Right? And so my job is to make sure you're bringing in people that are gonna help us have success. Right? And success with our players, success on the football field. And so that's what goes my... But I think you've gotta be intentional about interviewing, finding. And I'm a part of... So Coach Mike Locksley and Mike Tomlin and all those coaches, we gotta... There's this minority coalition. And I'm a part of that. And so what can I do to help? Right? And maybe it's not just hiring every coach that's a black man. Right? But I try to get on some Zooms and I try to say, listen, if you reach out to me, I'll respond. And I have some coaches that could be a Juco, that could be Division One GAs, they reach out to me. And I try to respond when I can because that's what Mike Tomlin did to me.

• 38:14Speaker 04

  Right? I became the head coach. Mike Tomlin didn't. He knew of me. He didn't know me. He didn't have the person reach out. Mike Tomlin reached out to me. Tony Dungy reached out to me. If you ever need anything, I'm a resource. So when we lost to Marshall, Mike Tomlin, Tony Dungy, people reached out to me that didn't have to. And so I wanna make sure that I'm doing the same thing. You know, it's the same thing those guys are doing for me, I wanna do for the next one.

• 38:35Fred Taylor?

  Coach, in 2009, you signed a four-year, 1.9, $31,700 signing contract, four-year, with a $181,000 signing bonus, right? $400,000 there you made. 2010, you lost football due to the heart condition. Uh, but you grind your way through the ranks for years, well more than 10, 11 years, to get to where you are now. And now you're with the big boys. You get paid top 10 money. I ain't putting it out there, but... It's private anyway. You know, that's the beautiful thing about being here, you know? It's top 10 money, but what I wanna really get to is, uh, the journey itself. And being grateful for that journey.

• 39:20Fred Taylor?

  And I wanna know, is your wife, is she the real MVP along that ride?

• 39:25Speaker 04

  No doubt. No doubt. She's been the MVP. You know, again, you can't do this without... I told you guys, I was making $2,000 a month as a GA and she was making $60,000, $70,000 supporting our family. Then I go and take a $42,000 job and she says, "I'm gonna quit this job so we can raise this family together." And now she's taking care of six kids and being the head coach's wife at Notre Dame. And so... She's always been MVP. She takes care of everything and does more. What I've learned is I've gotten older. Listen, money, money's good. We all know that, you know what I mean? But it isn't always for me.

• 40:07Channing Crowder?

  Yep.

• 40:07Speaker 04

  Right? Is that you work your tail off to provide a great life for your family. I want my wife and kids to be able to enjoy the way they live. I can tell you, I live any differently than I did at Kent State. You know? But you can't chase it. Some of the greatest advice I give our coaches is that the best decisions I made was turning down more money in my career. Right? Is saying no to more money. And I always tell coaches, say yes to winning and no to money. Right? It's easier said than done. Easier said than done. But if you can associate yourself with a winning program,

• 40:52Speaker 04

  that's gonna take you longer than taking just a job that's gonna give you a little bit more money. All right? And that's what I've learned more than anything is that money will come. Money will come. You can provide for your, if you can provide for your family, that's what really matters.

• 41:04Fred Taylor?

  When was the last time you guys had some fun? Like just as a family? Like a big trip, vacation? Have you had time for it?

• 41:11Speaker 04

  Oh, no, they took spring break alone. Because we were practicing, they took spring break. They went down to Singer Island down there. Yeah, yeah, every year they go down to Singer Island. Yeah. Me and my wife took a three-day trip to Colorado, Aspen. I ain't never skied in my life, you know?

• 41:28Ryan Clark?

  You're out too, like?

• 41:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, I know. I know you, no, no, you ain't allowed up there, you know?

• 41:36Speaker 04

  But as a family, we haven't been able, they come to recruiting dinners, you know? Then we able to see each other as an entire family. We're gonna go to Hawaii. We got about three weeks off at the end of June to July. That's all coaches get. So we're gonna take 10 days and take the family to Hawaii, but...

• 41:54Ryan Clark?

  That's dope.

• 41:55Speaker 04

  It's supposed to be a vacation. We'll see.

• 41:57Ryan Clark?

  That's work. That's work for a parent.

• 41:58Speaker 04

  And a four-year-old?

• 41:59Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, that's work, Coach. I'm sure I got a problem with what you just said, though, man.

• 42:03Speaker 04

  What's that?

• 42:03Ryan Clark?

  I'm about to act like Ohio State fans when you first got the job. When you release your players' tribute thing. So here I am, Chan. We coming off a tough year. We getting a new DC.

• 42:15Speaker 04

  I already know.

• 42:15Ryan Clark?

  They tell me Marcus Freeman coming to Baton Rouge. You know what RC gonna do? What can I do to help? I want this man, I need him.

• 42:25Speaker 04

  I know what it is.

• 42:25Ryan Clark?

  To be at LSU. You know what they tell Ryan Clark? We got it. He coming to the school. So what you're telling me is I can go do my work. I can go to ESPN, I can go hang out with my family. Cause he's gonna be our new defense coordinator. Right? We gonna have us some Sauce Gartners running around here. I'm fired up. Next thing I know, he at Notre Dame. He didn't hit us with the Jimmy Butler level pump, man, though. Six of them. You know what I'm saying?

• 42:50Speaker 04

  He hit you with the pivot.

• 42:51Ryan Clark?

  He hit me with the pivot. But Coach, you found out like very early, like the scrutiny that head coaches come under and also the head coach of Notre Dame, Players Tribune article was beautiful. Heartfelt, reached out to your lineage. You looked forward, you were present. And he was like, you know what though? I went to LSU, you didn't really say LSU was great. I'm gonna talk to you about that afterwards. And you were like, and I couldn't, I came to Notre Dame because I couldn't make the same mistake two times. Folks in Ohio was like, but wait, wait, wait. Cause he was like, I was 16, 17 years old when I came to Notre Dame the first time. It's just beautiful, right? He forgot that people at Ohio State crazy.

• 43:35Ryan Clark?

  Coach, you had to come out, coach, say, nah, listen, I enjoyed my time there. How crazy was it like to right away realize, oh man, these people are really looking at everything you say?

• 43:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was an eye opening experience for me, you know? But I needed it. You need to learn, that's why you need those things, those lessons to learn. And, you know, I think about that article, that Players Tribune and, you know, you kind of do it where you're being interviewed, they write it for you, kind of like that. And so you're thinking, you're talking to Notre Dame fans, right? You're not thinking about anybody else other than Notre Dame fans. And they said, why did you choose Notre Dame? Aw, man, I made a mistake, you know? I don't wanna, I don't wanna say no to Notre Dame twice, you know? And, and poor choice of words because that's all the people at Ohio State read. It was like, oh, you regret your decision to choose Ohio? That's not, no.

• 44:27Speaker 04

  Man, I wouldn't be where I'm at without those years in Columbus, Ohio. And I value every part of it, you know? And so it was a great lesson that you gotta be careful of the things you say, right? The things you write, your interviews, because it's not just talking to a certain group. Everybody sees it and everybody can take it a different way. And so that was a learning lesson, but if I would've never done that, you know, I wouldn't have learned it. So everything happens for a reason.

• 44:55Channing Crowder?

  And speaking of the Notre Dame, I guess I call it lore.

• 44:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:59Channing Crowder?

  Cause what it is, cause we joked on, you know, we were walking around where Notre Dame sent me a letter and just me being like, I ain't made for Notre Dame. The religious stuff and all, and no name on the back of the jersey, like that ain't me.

• 45:10Speaker 04

  You want your name on the back?

• 45:11Channing Crowder?

  I'm the All-American. You wouldn't coach me, coach. I'm the All-American.

• 45:18Speaker 04

  I wanna give you a secret, dude.

• 45:19Channing Crowder?

  You know what I mean? I appreciate you, coach. But, but I don't wanna, like, is there, is it, is there a difference with how you have to coach here? Cause you seem like, I don't wanna say fall in the line, that seems disrespectful to me. But just knowing you're at Notre Dame, this is the way they've done it, this is the way this school is. I have to be that? Would you be a different coach if you were at a different school? Cause Florida's known, they used to call us, uh, what, NFL U and stuff, um, NFL vocational school. We come in there, we gonna be there two years, about to hit the league. Like, we didn't have, it was a different lore. That lore of being at Notre Dame, does that change you as a coach? Or it just kinda perpetuates what you already are?

• 45:55Speaker 04

  Well, I think you always adjust to your kids, to the players, alright? I spent, I was at Cincinnati for four years and, and not all those kids were just yes sir, no sir kids. But you have to adjust your coaching style to your kids, right? And okay, what do they need to make sure you get the outcome you want? So if you sit here and say, well, I'm gonna treat everybody the exact same, then you're not gonna get out of it what you need, right? There's different individuals. These kids, Notre Dame attracts a certain type of kid, right? There's certain requirements that it takes to get in here, you know? It's certain expectations. It, it takes a, sometimes a different person to choose this place, right? We got a sign, when you walk into our mudroom downstairs, it says, choose hard.

• 46:40Speaker 04

  Right, choose hard. I believe Notre Dame's hard. Right, there's some things that that you have to do here that's difficult, not just in football. You know what I mean, but you choose hard every single day and it's gonna become who you are. Right, and the result of that's gonna be, the reward of that is gonna be something you can't even imagine. And so, you always have to adapt and adjust to the people you are coaching to ultimately get the final product that you want. And so, yeah, maybe I have to adapt and adjust here differently than I had to do it at Purdue or Kent State or Cincinnati. You know, but it's all about being adaptable to make sure you get the desired result.

• 47:16Channing Crowder?

  And you're okay to miss out on a five-star future Heisman candidate that's not Notre Dame material?

• 47:24Speaker 04

  Okay. Yeah, okay, like, like I'm not gonna try?

• 47:27Channing Crowder?

  No, try. Like you say, you know the standard. This kid's not the standard, but this is the next Cam Newton.

• 47:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:35Channing Crowder?

  I want this dude on my team.

• 47:36Speaker 04

  Yep, yep, you gotta be able to say it no, because that kid won't have success here and you're doing him a disservice.

• 47:44Ryan Clark?

  Yep, correct.

• 47:45Speaker 04

  You're doing him a disservice. They don't bend here. You gotta go to class, you gotta study and they're gonna hold you to these high academic expectations. Right? And so, we have to understand that. We are jobs to go find maybe the next Cam Newton or that next kid that's gonna be a Heisman Trophy winner that might not think he's a Notre Dame kid and say, oh yeah, you are. You're a Notre Dame kid. That's my job. That's our job as a staff is go find the, you might not have been there. You said you wouldn't have chose this place no matter how hard?

• 48:21Channing Crowder?

  When you walk in the caf, like Ron Zook there from Florida, walk in the cafeteria, where it's crowded, he over there with the tank top on, the girl sitting around him. I just, I just stole somebody's lunch. That's my chicken tenders.

• 48:33Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, you wouldn't, you wouldn't even talk to him, because you would've turned around and left back out, got in the car and got on the plane. Hey, Coach, you, you right the ship. You finish nine and four, you beat South Carolina to end the season. And then, you get into the second offseason that's not this blur, right? You have a chance to. Put the Marcus Freeman way into place as your team continues to grow in your image. But then you become part of the reality of college football. Offensive coordinators leave.

• 49:05Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 49:06Ryan Clark?

  Sometimes quarterbacks get into the portal. You gotta replace coaches. But you know the expectation at this school. And I think Bob Davy struggled here early. Brian Kelly struggled here early. But here at Notre Dame, it is about high achievement.

• 49:25Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:25Ryan Clark?

  And going into your second year, the expectations will take a step up, especially with the way that you were able to finish and show some of that Notre Dame medal throughout your first year. What are your expectations going into this year in the way that you guys are approaching it?

• 49:41Speaker 04

  Like, what I learned, Ryan, is that like, I think last year, I almost tried to talk this thing into happening. We're gonna talk about national championships. We're gonna, every day, we're gonna talk about, everything we're doing is to win a national championship. Like, that's a result. That's a result of a lot of different things being executed, right? And so I have the blueprint year two, okay? I know what to expect. I know what the media expectation, I know what the practice expectations. How do we make it better, right? And that's what we're working and focusing on. How do we make this thing better? The perception of Notre Dame coaches are probably similar to Notre Dame players. Like, I had the Patriots Chief of Staff in here a couple of weeks ago. And he said, man, the perception of Notre Dame players and coaches are high character,

• 50:27Speaker 04

  high success, right, and high standards. And so we're gonna lose good college coaches to the NFL.

• 50:34Ryan Clark?

  Yep.

• 50:34Speaker 04

  And I'm not just talking about Notre Dame because of the requirements of a college coach, man. I told our president the other day, I said, we gotta try to protect. The life of a college coach right now because it's just getting crazier and crazier. So, coaches are saying, if I got a chance to go to NFL, I'm gone. You know, and they are. Instead of the great coaches saying, you know what, I'm going to continue to stay in college. Cause this is where I want to be. And so that's another reason why we're going to lose coaches. And so, but change happens, man. And what you have to do is it ain't no different than a loss. Like you gotta be able to replace with the right guys, with the guys that can execute what you want. But the right type of individuals and you gotta be able to do it and move forward because the ship's still going.

• 51:16Fred Taylor?

  Coach, how are you with forgiveness? Because around 2007, after Percy Harvin took the opening kickoff back. Troy, I'm sorry, Ted Ginn, Ted Ginn, same player in my head, like just different teams. What was your thought back then? And do you forgive, you know, us Gator alum? Like even though we didn't play, we were able to sit there and cheer and enjoy. And then the next year, y'all had a hiccup with LSU and these Tiger boys right here. No, seriously.

• 51:47Ryan Clark?

  He let us come to the campus though.

• 51:48Fred Taylor?

  Well, yeah, that's true, that's true, that's true. But man, some good times, some good football, I'm sure. Man, and Coach, sincerely from the bottom of my heart, I'm always rooting for everybody, but I'm certainly rooting for you. Because I know this is a big order here and the expectations are extremely high. Uh, but man, I know the Pivot Crew will be pushing for you each and every opportunity we get. Regardless of the universities you playing against.

• 52:13Ryan Clark?

  Hey Coach, you take care of my boys too now. Benjamin.

• 52:16Fred Taylor?

  Oh, yeah.

• 52:16Ryan Clark?

  Jaden.

• 52:17Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 52:18Ryan Clark?

  You know, like those are, it's so cool to see kids that I watched as babies. Now, let me shoot, live a dream I had to be here at Notre Dame. Uh, Ben's a dude.

• 52:29Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 52:30Ryan Clark?

  And he showed that very early. I've watched.

• 52:32Fred Taylor?

  How did you know Ben?

• 52:33Ryan Clark?

  Demo, his father, played for Washington. He was our chaplain.

• 52:37Fred Taylor?

  Gotcha.

• 52:37Ryan Clark?

  He was our chaplain at Washington. So, that's when we became close. We would host Bible studies at the house. So, that's how we became close and just continued to stay close. And now, you know, he's in Arizona.

• 52:47Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 52:48Ryan Clark?

  So, my son plays at Arizona State. My son goes to church.

• 52:50Fred Taylor?

  Gotcha.

• 52:51Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, out there. So, we're still close as families. Verge works LSU. He was my academic advisor. Saw another one of your players. We were like, yeah, he's a dude.

• 52:59Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, Javante.

• 53:00Ryan Clark?

  So, for you, Coach, in knowing that those are the type of players that you need and now having them on the team and understanding that when you look at this season.

• 53:12Ryan Clark?

  Are you entering different than you did last year? I think you said you put so much into that first game and going to win it. And you know, you even said yourself, one play, one life.

• 53:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:22Ryan Clark?

  Now, feeling like, we know you got to do that quarterback. Knowing you have the players all around. Do you have a different level of expectation of yourself this year?

• 53:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, I do. You know, I think you're going into this season with a guy that has proven to play quarterback at a high level. Last year, we had two guys that were great, good, great kids, man. But neither of them had proven to play quarterback at a high level for a consistency of a season. And so, you know, now you have a guy that has some experience. You know, you got a team. I think on defense, we turned nine guys that have started offensively, close to that number. And so, there's more experience, there's more really camaraderie amongst the coaching staff. We know what to expect. I've learned so much in a year. And I don't want to say it like I'm not continuing to learn. You're going to continue to learn, but to see where I was last year at this time to now,

• 54:16Speaker 04

  you have some experience and some expectations of what it takes to have success. And so, we got to continue to just focus on improvement every day. I don't want to give you, Coach, oh, focus on improvement every day. No, but that's the reality of it, right? Because if you continue to just start talking about week one and week two and week three and when we play Ohio State, like, you're wasting the valuable time that you got now.

• 54:36Ryan Clark?

  Wasting today.

• 54:37Speaker 04

  And so, that's the expectation, man, is get everything we can out of the day.

• 54:42Channing Crowder?

  Coach, every time we see you, the fade fresh. The hair, it was a gel, it was a mousse.

• 54:48Ryan Clark?

  Hey, first off, like, that's how you, you know, and this is an ethnic thing, culture thing. That's how we knew he wasn't all black. You know what I'm saying? Hey, like, he got the good hair though. He not either, Coach, you know?

• 54:59Channing Crowder?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:00Speaker 04

  Light skin brother, you know what I mean? We got to stick together.

• 55:02Ryan Clark?

  Coach, he is also mixed.

• 55:03Channing Crowder?

  I'm throwing him in there.

• 55:05Ryan Clark?

  Oh, so it's you?

• 55:06Channing Crowder?

  Barack, Drake, Steph Curry, Marcus Freeman, and myself.

• 55:12Ryan Clark?

  The 5'10".

• 55:13Channing Crowder?

  Oh, my God.

• 55:14Ryan Clark?

  He said light skin is taken over.

• 55:16Channing Crowder?

  Take that over the world.

• 55:19Channing Crowder?

  Oh, I need a coach. Who you showing out for, coach?

• 55:21Speaker 04

  Come on.

• 55:21Channing Crowder?

  You just trying to be the finest, coach? Coach, I don't even see when the tape messed up.

• 55:26Speaker 04

  I knew you three were gonna come in here, right? So, I had to call, we gotta give Julio, our barber, a shout out. He cuts the players, but Julio had to come up here real quick today. I said, Julio, I gotta be on the pen today.

• 55:35Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, you gotta take care of me now. I appreciate that, Coach. Hey, don't worry, Coach. I got mine cut at 2:30 a.m. in my hotel when I landed.

• 55:45Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah?

• 55:46Channing Crowder?

  Who's your barber?

• 55:47Ryan Clark?

  I just, I Google and I asked people. Ryan Monday, who I played with in Pittsburgh, lives in Chicago now. He played for the Bears. I texted him on Saturday. I said, hey, man, you got a barber for me? He was like, yeah, this is the price. This is Instagram. I went, check the page out. Make sure he was straight. I shot him a text. I said, man, I need a haircut in between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. Can you do it? He was like, I'll be there.

• 56:07Speaker 04

  You know what? You ain't hiding that guy. That's dedication, man. That's dedication, man.

• 56:10Channing Crowder?

  Dudes like him gotta work real hard.

• 56:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:14Fred Taylor?

  He's a capo, Coach. He does that everywhere we go.

• 56:17Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah?

• 56:18Fred Taylor?

  He's fresh every show.

• 56:19Speaker 04

  I think so.

• 56:20Fred Taylor?

  I mean, they call the barber like this.

• 56:22Speaker 04

  Freddie, he mad. Don't be mad. It's true.

• 56:25Ryan Clark?

  You're doing.

• 56:25Speaker 04

  You could've told me, man. We could've had Julio take care of you, man.

• 56:28Ryan Clark?

  Coach, I ain't know. I didn't, I didn't know, you know, like, we texted a little bit, but I ain't know how bougie you were gonna act with us coming here.

• 56:34Speaker 04

  Come on, man.

• 56:35Ryan Clark?

  You know what I mean? Be like, you know, I had to get on the phone with Katie in the mirror. We had to hash some things out. I ain't know if they was gonna make Brady Quinn pop out on me. You know what I'm saying? But nah, Coach, we appreciate you, man.

• 56:48Speaker 04

  Appreciate you, man.

• 56:49Channing Crowder?

  Appreciate you, man. Yes, sir.

• 56:51Speaker 04

  Appreciate you, Coach.

• 56:52Ryan Clark?

  Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

• 56:53Speaker 04

  You good?

• 56:54Ryan Clark?

  Yes, sir.

• 56:54Speaker 04

  Appreciate you, man.

• 57:29Speaker 06

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