Marcus Freeman named to a national Coach of the Year watchlist

While Notre Dame football doesn’t have an unblemished record this fall, that doesn’t mean that head coach Marcus Freeman isn’t doing a great job.

Yes, the loss to Northern Illinois hurts, but in this new age of the College Football Playoff having 12-teams, one loss doesn’t eliminate anyone. The Irish have turned it around since that loss, defeating a ranked at that moment Louisville team, while blowing out Purdue and Stanford with an average win over Miami, Ohio in there as well.

The improvements that Notre Dame has made over the recent weeks caught the eyes of the Bear Bryant Coach of the Year Award, as they named Freeman to its watchlist on Wednesday morning.

Since the inception of this award in 1986, only one Irish head coach has won, Lou Holtz in 1988, which makes plenty of sense as that was Notre Dame’s last championship winning team. Freeman has some work to do to join him, but he’s got a good start being named to the watchlist.

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