Notre Dame HC Marcus Freeman lays out what CFB needs to fix to avoid coaches leaving for NFL

Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman provided his take on what he believes college football needs to improve to retain coaches. He is set to enter his fifth year leading the team for the 2025 season. On Monday's episode of "The Joel Klatt Show," the analyst pointed out that Freeman has garnered interest from NFL teams.

Klatt decided not to ask whether Freeman wanted to leave Notre Dame, but rather what could be done to prevent coaches from joining the NFL. Freeman responded that he believes other head coaches can be too demanding of their staff. Freeman said (Timestamp: 26:32):

"I always think about our staff and how do I, as the head coach, do the best job possible to make sure our staff enjoys coming to work here. Right, and part of that is, you know, trying to not to overwork them and I think sometimes coaches can overwork their staff."

Freeman said that he intends to push his staff to work hard in Notre Dame's pursuit of success. However, he is mindful that he needs to make sure his assistant coaches aren't overwhelmed by their schedule.

"I'm not saying it's going to be easy," Freeman said. "Nothing great in life is easy, but, you know, how do we look at the calendar and make it in a way that there's some type of balance for the assistant coaches.

"They're the ones that are on the road 24/7, constantly. Like, we got to create some type of balance for those coaches, and I think we are."

Marcus Freeman shares why structure is important to retain Notre Dame Fighting Irish players

Freeman also discussed the importance of creating a structure at Notre Dame to help players become self-sufficient and avoid transferring to a new team. He highlighted that he had to wait two years to get an opportunity to be a key linebacker for the Ohio State Buckeyes.

The two years playing behind other experienced players taught him how to improve and make the most of the moments he had. Freeman believes his experience of staying with Ohio State until he graduated can inspire his players to do the same (28:22):

"You overcome challenges, and there was no thought for me to get up and go somewhere else, and that's the greatest thing that I had to learn to do.

"Stay there, overcome some adversities, take advantage of the opportunities that I got, graduate and get a degree. I just don't want a structure that is created when things get hard, it's just so easy to pick up things and go somewhere else."

On3 reported that Notre Dame lost 14 players who transferred out of the roster from last year. Freeman will try to retain more stars from the 2025 roster to remain one of the best teams in the nation. He'll begin his fifth year as the Fighting Irish head coach against the Miami Hurricanes on Aug. 31.