Marcus Freeman Pushes Notre Dame to Tune Out Title Hype and Trust Its Coaches

Marcus Freeman closed fall camp Friday with a scrimmage he estimated at close to 100 plays, the final practice before school starts Monday and Notre Dame shifts into an in-school schedule with afternoon work. Then came the question that has trailed this team all August: what does a head coach tell a veteran roster about being the trendy national championship pick?

“I think you got to be aware of the noise you allow into your head. And if we’re too obsessed with listening to the good noise, then we’re probably not obsessed with listening to the noise that’s going to help us improve,” Freeman said. “And that’s what your coaches are there for, and that’s what the messaging has to be, is the noise that their coaches put in their head has to be louder than maybe something to read on social media. … You can’t be that thing by listening to what somebody else says about your program.”

Freeman’s Message Throughout August

Notre Dame opens the 2026 season ranked No. 4 in the AP poll, its highest starting position since the 2006 team began at No. 2. That season ended with two disappointing regular season losses and a blowout at the hands of LSU in the Sugar Bowl. The Irish went 10-2 a year ago and finished No. 10 in the final AP poll, and this roster returns enough that the national conversation has moved past whether Notre Dame belongs in the playoff and on to whether this is the team that finally ends the title drought.

The praise was inevitable with the star power and depth the Irish brought back. Coaches can wave it off. A roster of 18-to-22-year-olds living on the same phones as everyone else cannot, which is why managing it became a staff job in August.

“You be that thing by going to work every day, right? Every day to be this team that you desire to be,” Freeman said. “And so we can waste it by listening to social media or what other people say about us, or we can go to work and really be obsessed with improving.”

Ignore the Hype, Focus on Execution

A question earlier had put him on the practice clips Notre Dame’s social team pushes out during camp, the ones fans and media alike pick apart frame by frame. He has no problem with the clips existing.

“We have an FM team that does a great job with really staying connected with our fans. We want them to feel like they’re a part of our program, and they do a tremendous job,” Freeman said, referring to Fighting Irish Media. “As far as our players, I hope they’re obsessed with improvement and not getting a Twitter follower or an Instagram like because they’re in a video.”

“I told them this today after practice, it feels good, right? It feels good when somebody tells you you did a good job. But we got to be more obsessed with execution,” Freeman said. “We got to be more obsessed with, did I get my job done on this play, and less concerned with did coach tell me I did a good job or did coach call sack or did coach spot the ball in the right place.”

CJ Carr and the Weight of Expectations

CJ Carr enters the season on essentially every Heisman watch list and with a real path to becoming Notre Dame’s first winner since Tim Brown in 1987. Carr threw for 2,741 yards as a redshirt freshman, with 24 touchdowns against six interceptions. He completed 195 of 293 attempts across a 12-game body of work in which only one outing came in under 100 yards, and games like the 354 yards at Arkansas and 342 against NC State are why the national attention is there.

Asked how Carr came through the scrimmage and camp, Freeman started with the locker room.

“He’s the leader. He’s the leader,” Freeman said confidently. “And as I told him, that’s his greatest responsibility, is to be the best teammate he can be. And that means to make those around you better. Like he’s in a position where these dudes that are 6’8″, 6’7″, they look at him and what he says, ‘Yes, sir,’ and we go. And he can’t forget that because they’re all following him.”

“But I don’t want him thinking about trying to win the Heisman or trying to be this first-round pick,” Freeman insisted. “I want him to just continue to focus on being the best version of CJ, but also being the best leader he can be. He has to lead because that’s what everybody’s expecting from him, and he’s done a tremendous job doing that.”

What Still Has to Be Decided

While Freeman and his staff have to coach against the external hype, they also still have several questions to answer before the season if they want this team to reach the heights of the expectations now squarely on its shoulders. The interior offensive line, QB2, and field corner all still have to be sorted before the Wisconsin opener, and the clock on those calls is shorter than it looks, with classes starting Monday and practices sliding to the afternoon.

The line in front of Carr could ultimately dictate whether the Heisman talk survives September and whether the Irish can run the regular season table the way many are predicting. Freeman has spent August telling this roster to be obsessed with the next rep. Wisconsin week is when he has to start naming who takes them.