Notre Dame got little brother’d

A beautiful act of kindness in college football can also be perceived in a completely different way. Following Notre Dame’s 16-14 unimaginable upset at the hands of Northern Illinois, the aftermath has made the mighty Fighting Irish appear very much like little brother.

Notre Dame has mystique, they are as blue blood as blue blood gets. And yet a MAC team, from a conference that has never beaten a top five national program until Saturday, pushed them around. NIU was more physical, more experienced despite the circumstances of playing a top five program on the road and, most importantly, better prepared and coached. The result? An improbable 16-14 win leaving many questions about Marcus Freeman and his ability to coach the storied Irish.

And when we learned that NIU head coach Thomas Hammock reached out to Freeman to discuss the weaknesses he saw that led to the monumental upset, it was perceived as a kind gesture. And it was. Hammock is devoid of ego and there’s little doubt he wants to see Freeman succeed moving forward. He mentioned “obvious reasons” for wanting that and it can’t be ignored that these are two amazing African-American coaches in a college football world that isn’t as diverse as we’d want.

And to Freeman’s credit, he didn’t allow his fractured ego to stand in the way and allow him to scoff at the idea as many would. Can you imagine Hugh Freeze offering advice to Nick Saban after Ole Miss beat Alabama years ago? Or Dan Mullen dialing up Kirby Smart back in 2020 after beating the Bulldogs to tell him what he did wrong? Of course these schools are rivals and Notre Dame and NIU won’t be playing again anytime soon or if ever but you get the point. After all, NIU is little brother to Notre Dame right? Maybe not.

Critics of Freeman and Notre Dame won’t like this exchange with Hammock. Not only is it embarrassing to experience arguably the worst loss in Notre Dame history it’s even more embarrassing to have their head coach, who makes $677,00 a year, pretty much tell $7 million Freeman how easy it was the scheme against his team. Why not just hire Hammock who has a 26-33 overall record compared to Freeman’s 20-9? I mean the man just out coached Freeman and did so easily.

It’s a bad look for Notre Dame no matter what and will come back to haunt Freeman despite the meaning of the gesture. A conversation between Hammock and Freeman should have been kept private at the very least. But now that it’s public, Notre Dame fans not only need to worry that their coach is over his head but also deal with opposing fan bases trolling them that their coach needs advice from a MAC program. The little brother vibes are strong.