Notre Dame is coming off of their first win in 2025 after beating the Purdue Boilermakers at home 56-30. They Irish are back on the road this week when they travel down to Fayetteville, Arkansas to take on head coach Sam Pittman and the Razorbacks. Today, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman broke down the win over Purdue, the challenges facing Arkansas' high powered offense and what his team will have to do to leave Arkansas with a win Saturday afternoon. This is a make or break game for the Fighting Irish and Freeman is already busy getting his team ready for this business trip.
You can watch Freeman's full press conference here:
Here are some of the main quotes from this afternoon's press conference:
Freeman On Preparing The Team For A Potential Shootout
"That's something we've always said, no matter how well the offense is doing and no matter how well the defense is doing, our offense has to score one more point and the defense has to hold them to one point less," Freeman explained. "We never go into a game with an objective to score 60 points and our defense gives up 50. No, that's not the objective. The objective is, no matter what it takes, we have to score one more point and no matter what it takes we have to keep them to one point less. There's different challenges to improve, right? But both groups have to continue to focus on how to get better.
Offensively, we have to be able to understand that we played really well, but how do we make this thing better and how do we handle success? I believe that our coaches and players do that. Defensively, how do we handle adversity? How are we going to find ways to correct this? The only way to do that is to point the finger at yourself. We have to say 'it's all of us'. It's not one person, not one call, it's about why we aren't executing. Why did this explosive play happen? It's on me and it's on every body. If we do that, we'll both get better at a faster rate."
Freeman On Dallas Golden
"I think his ceiling is extremely high," Freeman said about the true freshman corner. "He is an extremely athletic and talented player. He has a lot of play making ability. As you watch him in high school, he's probably as good on the offensive side as he is on the defensive side. He's an athletic, athletic player. He wants to be great; he wants to be coached. We moved him to nickel last Monday. For him to put himself in the position to play 60 to 70 plays, it's a testament to the work he's put into it, but also his ability. Like any freshman, in your first game, there was some ups and some downs but I'm very confident in where he's headed."
Freeman On Leonard Moore Matching Up Against A Team's Best Receiver
"He's as good as I've been around at that position," Freeman said about his standout sophomore cornerback. "We've had discussions on if we need to match him up with the best wide receiver no matter where he's at. You also have to be able to do a good job doing that and be able to play zone. We can't just tell the offense 'hey, we're playing man.' No defense is good enough to say 'hey, we're playing man' and stop them every play. We have considered that and we've talked about it. We need to get him available and ready to go before we do that. That might be this week, he's still questionable right now, but we'll see if that's what we decide to do."
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