For the first time in his career, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman is 5-0. This past weekend, they traveled to Chapel Hill to take on the North Carolina Tar Heels and walked away with a 37-26 victory. It was sloppy, at times, in all three phases, but they battled through some self-inflicted wounds and got their 15th consecutive double-digit victory. Today, the Fighting Irish head coach broke down their 11-point victory over North Carolina and their preparation for Stanford who they host this weekend inside of Notre Dame Stadium in a battle for the Legends Trophy. 

You can watch the entire press conference here: 

Here are some of Freeman's comments from today's press conference: 

"I remember as a player, we beat Ohio University 10-3," Freeman shared. "Coach Jim [Tressel] would say he wanted that." I think, for us, at some point when you're in a tough, one-score game, your guys have been there before. They understand that there's no need to panic. We've been down, we've been in close ball games and it's going to come down to execution. I think there's a mental side of that, that being able to go through and point to different times throughout the season where we've had adversity and over came it. It's important. There's nothing that humbles you like failure and failure within the game." 

"It's the speed in which he runs his routes, the precision of when he makes his cuts and the timing with the quarterback getting him the ball," Freeman explained. "I think he can attack you in many different ways through quickness or straight-line speed. All of those things contribute to him finding ways to get open and the confidence that CJ Carr has in him to throw him the ball." 

"I think that was the most complete game, from start to finish, that those five guys have played," Freeman stated. "There's a couple of things that stick out to me. One is the ability to play on their side of the line of scrimmage. When you're running the ball, and at the point of contact, and plant on the defensive side of the ball, now you have a chance to have success. The other thing I loved, our guards with Sullivan Absher and Anthonie Knapp, those guys were pulling and kicking guys out. We did that over and over and over and over.

"Towards the end of the game, our guys were running into the fire and finding a way to physically move those guys out of the way," Freeman continued about the offensive line. "It's a choice and it doesn't feel good. I've been there, I know it and I see it every day in practice. But they still made the choice to play with that violence that we demand. I was really, really pleased with the way they played and in protection. They protected CJ and did a really good job in pass protection, too." 

------ 

Become a premium Irish Breakdown member, which grants you access to all of our premium content and our premium message board! Click on the link below for more.

BECOME A MEMBER 

Be sure to stay locked into Irish Breakdown all the time!

Join the Irish Breakdown community!
Subscribe to the Irish Breakdown YouTube channel
Subscribe to the Irish Breakdown podcast on iTunes
Follow me on Twitter: @TTrow5
Like and follow Irish Breakdown on Facebook