Rakes Report #184: I was half dead, then I got born again - I got lost in all the lights but it was okay in the end
~optional musical accompaniment~
If you were forwarded this email and would like to sign up to receive future editions, you can do so here.
Donate to Christmas Giving 2021 here.
When we gathered here last Monday morning, the Notre Dame football program seemed like a stable beacon amid the chaos of a churning carousel. Within a few hours, that peace wobbled, as word started to leak that Brian Kelly was maybe considering the open LSU job. A few hours after that, it was blown completely to hell, deal already done, a swift and shocking change to a 12-year tenure that would make me feel a lot dumber about having not seen it coming if anyone — people who had covered the program for decades, the players on the team, assistants, boosters, seriously anyone — had sniffed out that it was happening. In a moment it felt as if everything we’ve been able to enjoy in recent years was on the brink of potentially collapsing. And then, almost as fast as things became imperiled, the program found itself in potentially an even better position.
Brian Kelly was a good football coach who said the right things and won a lot of games and then left his team five days before they had a chance to make the playoff. It was a bizarre, out-of-nowhere move that took everyone at Notre Dame and across the college football world by surprise. I know that my brain is going to struggle mightily next fall when I turn on a game and attempt to process LSU’s new head coach decked out in purple and gold on the sideline. It is still just a very strange new reality to attempt to understand, but let’s briefly try before we move onto the far more important and exciting news.
It’s dangerous behavior to try and put on your Will Graham hat to get into the minds of college football coaches, but there are a few reasons Kelly might have made the jump. If the reported $7 million per year he was making at Notre Dame was accurate, with three years remaining he was offered a quintupling of his total compensation, which is always good motivation for any sort of move. Additionally, a dozen years at one head coaching stop is a rarity across sports, particularly in college football, and perhaps there were sticking points with facilities or general frustrations that grow with that much time in one spot. We also cannot underestimate what the Mel Tucker and James Franklin contract extensions did to a job market that was already deeply diseased.
I think it probably matters that the last three coaches in Baton Rouge have all won national titles, and two of them were Les Miles and Ed Orgeron. There has to be a matter of coaching ego to say “Well if those guys can win one there, I absolutely can.” Yes, it’s important to note that both of them were subsequently fired despite the rings, but Kelly has 90 percent of his deal guaranteed* so the whole generational wealth thing is there even if it doesn’t work out.
* Unless he is fired with cause, which could lead to the fun parlor game of “If this goes really badly in short fashion, what violation is LSU going to try to pin on Kelly to get out of the deal?”
Following Kelly’s departure, the groundswell of support from all corners for Marcus Freeman as the replacement was immediate and overwhelming. The impact Freeman had not just on the current roster but also the upcoming recruiting classes gave him quite a bit of leverage, almost a benevolent extortion won by building bonds and earning the respect of so many. Sure, the university could have gone elsewhere for the coach and perhaps landed on a perfectly suitable replacement (poor Luke Fickell became the most unintentional of antagonists simply by being Not Marcus Freeman crossed with the soft deadline of early signing day), but doing so would have cost them critical players all across the depth charts of today and tomorrow.
The joy of Wednesday night will be with us for a while, as coach after coach announced their intentions to stay, starting with Tommy Rees, whose Notre Dame journey has been so improbable the “Friday Night Lights” writers’ room has some questions about stretching the bounds of disbelief. But it’s not just the big names, as Freeman’s retention means that so many of the wonderful people associated with Notre Dame football who’ve put such hard work into the recent run of success get to remain in place, attempting to balance the best of our immediate past with the promise of a new era. The current roster and coaching staff have put so much into building the team we cheer for, and I’m so glad that despite the abruptness of Kelly’s departure it remains mostly intact.
The hiring of Freeman certainly solved some short-term issues — keeping the 2022 recruiting class together, likely influencing some upcoming NFL decisions — but it’s the long-term gambit we’ve been talking about here for years, as we get to see what this program can look like being helmed by someone who lives and breathes recruiting while also serving as a top-level tactician and developer of talent. If we can combine upgrades on signing day while maintaining as many of this program’s very successful bones as possible, we’re talking about potentially being able to take the final, most difficult steps to the top. It’s a swing for the moon taken from a well-earned position of strength.
There are risks with any hire, but there has been plenty of recent success for guys who had no head coaching experience taking jobs and guiding their teams to the playoffs, including Dabo Swinney, Ryan Day, Lincoln Riley and Kirby Smart, with the first three all in their 30s when they got the big promotion. The failures of Gerry Faust, Bob Davie and Charlie Weis have no bearing on Freeman and serve more as scary stories to tell in the dark versus useful data points. Yes, there will be growing pains, but I don’t believe they will be fatal.
I do want to spend a brief amount of time being a wet blanket or throwing cold water or whatever liquid-based reference you would like to use. As fun as all those videos were on Friday, Freeman is not the first head coach to be hired after an outpouring of support from a wounded locker room. The example that first rattled into my head is that of Bill Stewart. In 2007, West Virginia barely missed out on a chance to play for the national championship in heartbreaking fashion. Shortly thereafter, Rich Rodriguez left the home-state program he had built into a power to take over at Michigan, leaving Stewart, a long-time assistant, to coach a gutted team in the Fiesta Bowl. The Mountaineers ran roughshod over No. 3 Oklahoma, blowing them out, with star quarterback Pat White calling on Stewart to have the interim tag removed following the game. The Mountaineer leadership acquiesced and while Stewart was solid in Morgantown, he never reached the heights of Rodriguez and saw his tenure end three years later in an acrimonious transition to Dana Holgorsen.
As a more recent example that should be near and dear to the hearts of everyone reading this, the Trojan locker room pushed for the interim tag to be removed from our old friend Clay Helton after he guided them to the 2015 Pac-12 South division title in the aftermath of Steve Sarkisian’s departure. (I do not have to tell you how that ended up.) But these also qualify as simple campfire spooks, with the major thing that makes Freeman different from those two examples being that he was already tagged as The Next Big Thing and it was only a question of when exactly he would ascend. There’s also the fact that it wasn’t just the locker room calling for his promotion, as stakeholders across the administration and donor class also pushed for Freeman. If this is the wrong move, it’s one nearly everyone supported, not just the players and recruits. If Freeman would have been a perfect hire in two years, it’s a damn good hire now.
While much of this has been forgotten in the blissful hype of the last few days, I do think it will help expectations that Freeman has already shown himself to be mortal. The fourth quarter meltdown against Florida State, the litany of big plays by Toledo and the yardage given up against the Trojans and Tar Heels are all nice reminders that he is a flesh-and-blood man who will make mistakes at times. Marcus Freeman is going to lose football games, he’s going to make decisions that frustrate you and at some point he may also leave for another job. He’s a football coach, and those are things that football coaches do. Work to find the balance of opening your heart fully to the potential while also staying clear-eyed.
Because of the intrigue surrounding the aforementioned potential, Notre Dame is going to win this offseason barring some sort of surprise catastrophe. (Like that could happen.) They can deploy an extremely charismatic and handsome 35-year-old wunderkind head coach with some easy built-in story beats (Six kids! Turned to coaching after an NFL career cut short because of a heart condition!) to get friendly profile after friendly profile. Because college football is so silly, this actually matters, as being the It Team with good vibes can gain you an extra recruit or two who can in turn win you an extra game or two. But we’ve catalogued so many Offseason Champions here (I think Butch Jones was the first, Mack Brown and Matt Campbell the most recent) and at some point you have to translate the ephemeral to winning games on Saturday. Kelly’s awkward arrival in Baton Rouge will be quickly forgotten by the Tiger faithful if they’re competing for SEC titles, just as the warm feelings toward Freeman will dissipate as soon as the number in the loss column gets crooked.
There are plenty of reasons to think Freeman will be able to translate all of this excitement into successful results on the field. One way to make it easier to win college football games is to have better players than your opponent, and the Irish are in a great position to leverage that advantage even more going forward. Another way to win games is to limit the amount of points scored against you, and Freeman has a track record of doing that. (He will obviously have far more responsibilities now and won’t be able to devote all his attention to that side of the ball like before, but I think we can expect the defense to remain a strength.) Additionally, if you score a bunch of points in addition to not giving up that many and have better players, it’s hard to lose, and with Rees in place — a guy who fielded consecutive quality offenses with very different depth chart strengths — the floor and ceiling for the offense also remain high.
Brian Kelly did a lot of good for Notre Dame. Who knows how many of the additions to the program would have happened over the last decade-plus regardless of the coach but the stadium expansion, the beefing up of the recruiting staff, the work of Dr. Amber Selking and the indoor practice field are just a few of the huge steps forward that dragged the Irish out of the doldrums of the aughts. There is also the reputation adjustment since he walked in the door, as the program went from “Losing consecutive Senior Days to Syracuse and UConn” to the primary criticism being struggles in the playoffs after completing undefeated regular seasons. We’ve come a long, long way.
Kelly’s final two gifts came this year. The first was recruiting Freeman to take over as defensive coordinator in January when the top prospect on the market had plenty of opportunities to choose from for his next step. The second, frankly, was leaving when he did instead of finishing out his contract in South Bend, because who knows where Freeman would have been by that point and whether he would have been in a position to return with this level of fanfare and momentum. We got the guy we wanted as head coach and while this may be a little early and there may be some short-term downsides associated with that fact*, Freeman is now in place and it’s on Jack Swarbrick (who did a masterful job last week) and the rest of the athletic department to make sure he is put in the best position to succeed.
* I am going to be extremely sad if Freeman turns out to be a big “Kick short field goals and punt a lot” guy. Please hand him whatever chart Dave Aranda started using between his first and second seasons at Baylor.
Considering the initial shock of Monday, the past week could have gone so many ways, making it an absolute wonder and a testament to everyone involved that what seemed like a dark moment for the program was molded into a massive success by Friday. The one thing the Irish needed to do — put a head coach in place who could amp up recruiting to whatever the absolute maximum is at a small Catholic university in northern Indiana where you have to play some school — is done, and now we get to enjoy the ride of seeing how high this can go while maintaining the fundamentals that have kept the floor and win totals well above sea level. There is so much work still to do and so many things we will learn about how Marcus Freeman runs a football program and handles the unique pressures of a dozen autumn Saturdays but we’ll figure that out together in time. For now, be happy.
As we (finally) wind down here, I wanted to offer brief words of caution. The Irish now have a very likable head coach and there have already been so many kind things said from national pundits and other fans but the rules remain the same: We do not get our validation for being Irish partisans from outside sources. If you want to enjoy it while it lasts, don’t deny yourself the joy, but it would be unwise to tie your happiness to outside praise because just as it comes it will almost certainly go. We are all we got and we are all we need and as the patriarch of patriarchs said, the most important thing in life will always be the people in this room, right here, right now.
To close: I appreciate that a hire so much about dreaming of the future was immediately grounded by Freeman in his first comments to the team as their new head coach. It would be easy for him to not give full focus to the conclusion to this season as he has so much work awaiting him in 2022 but he was very clear about the desire to finish things out strong with this senior class. 12-1 Fiesta Bowl champions is a helluva campaign and a fun goal to shoot for as the Irish work to make it a 45-6 record over the last four years and 1-0 under Freeman. What a wonderfully large stage on which to send out this team with a bang while debuting a new era of Fighting Irish football at the same dang time.
Go Irish, Beat Cowboys. After a season that sped by and a past week has felt like a year, we’re not done just yet.
Thanks for reading and apologies for not getting anything out in written form last week during the frenzy, but between travel and prior plans there wasn’t really time to gather coherent thoughts as things moved so quickly. I think our trilogy of podcasts form a solid emotional rollercoaster and believe the December 3rd edition after the Freeman hire was made official is worth your time if you haven’t checked it out yet.
Please consider donating to the Center for the Homeless here, and a reminder that all the TeePublic money for December will go toward Christmas Giving if you are rounding out your gift purchases for the month.
If you were forwarded this email and would like to sign up to receive future editions, you can do so here.