
Marcus Freeman starred at Ohio State. Now, he's trying to take them down
Marcus Freeman knows a thing or 2 about Ohio State.
The third-year Notre Dame coach, who leads his Fighting Irish against the Buckeyes in the Jan. 20 College Football Playoff national championship game in Atlanta, hasn’t earned his knowledge from bingeing on game tape or all-night study sessions.
Instead, Freeman earned his Ohio State football education the old-fashioned way.
By living it. Literally.
A native Ohioan, Freeman proudly donned the scarlet and gray as a linebacker for Ohio State from 2004-08. Freeman started 37 games and played in 51 over his 4-year playing career in Columbus, and was solid enough a player to both earn 2 All-Big Ten second team nods and be named a captain in 2008 under coach Jim Tressel.
The 39-year-old Freeman was born at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Fairborn and became a top collegiate prospect during his career at Wayne High School in Dayton – racking up 279 tackles and 12 sacks in his final 2 seasons there en route to a Parade All-American honor. Freeman was a 4-star recruit ranked No. 66 nationally overall and the No. 5 linebacker in his class, and was offered by Florida, Miami, Notre Dame and Oklahoma … but his interest was clearly with Ohio State.
In all, Freeman spent 5 seasons as a Buckeye weak-side linebacker (redshirting in 2005 due to injury). But once he got his shot, Freeman shined – racking up 71 total tackles in 2006, 109 total tackles in 2007 and 84 total tackles in 2008. He also finished his collegiate career with 21.5 tackles for loss, 6 sacks, 2 forced fumbles and 2 interceptions and a fumble recovery.
The do-it-all linebacker helped Ohio State to 4 straight BCS bowl game appearances, going 1-1 in the Fiesta Bowl and 0-2 in the national championship (back-to-back losses to Florida and LSU in 2006 and 2007, respectively). Oh, by the way, the Buckeyes also won 5 straight against That Team Up North during Freeman’s tenure as a player.
The last time Marcus Freeman was in the national championship, it was #1 on the defense for Ohio State against #LSU.
Now 17 years later, he’ll have to face off against Ohio State for the national championship as the opposing coach. pic.twitter.com/6Z6QrU3HxX
— Preston Guy (@PGuy77) January 11, 2025
And all that talent meant the NFL called next, as Freeman was selected in the fifth round of the 2009 NFL Draft by the Chicago Bears. The Bears let him go before the season, and he later signed with the Buffalo Bills and Houston Texans before retiring in 2010 due to an enlarged heart condition.
That early retirement ended up being a blessing in disguise for Freeman, who immediately served as a graduate assistant back at Ohio State in 2010 under Tressel while also earning his master’s degree from tOSU. He continued his coaching journey with a 2-year stint as linebackers coach at Kent State, the co-defensive coordinator at Purdue from 2013-16, the defensive coordinator at Cincinnati from 2017-20 and then as Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator for a year under Brian Kelly in 2021.
Kelly departed for LSU at the end of the 2021 season, and Freeman was his top choice as a replacement – a desire that came true on Dec. 3, 2021 when Freeman was named the 32nd head coach in Notre Dame history.
Tressel was right there with counsel all along Freeman’s coaching journey, and Freeman made sure he modeled his leadership style from the person he still calls his coach.
“The best thing I’ve observed from him is the ability to make everybody in your organization feel important, but also make it so that they are important,” said Freeman about Tressel in a 2002 interview with The Athletic. “That’s what I want to make sure we reflect here is that everybody in our program has to understand that their role is just as valuable as mine as the head coach.”
Although Freeman has the Fighting Irish on the precipice of their first national championship since 1988, getting it done against Ohio State will be a first for the Notre Dame coach. Ohio State has owned Freeman in 2 previous meetings – as the Irish fell short 21-10 in Freeman’s rookie season in 2022 and 17-14 in South Bend in 2023. No doubt last season’s loss still stings, in part because Notre Dame only had 10 men on the field when Ohio State scored the game-winning TD.
On the other hand, Freeman is believed to be in line to become only the second coach in college football history to win a national championship against the team he played for – joining Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, who coached the Tigers to wins against Alabama in 2017 and 2019, in the uber-exclusive “beat your alma mater in a title game” club.
Prior to Friday’s Cotton Bowl, Freeman was coy about discussing which team he would prefer playing against for the Big Enchilada – knowing that anything he could possibly say would end up as bulletin board material in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.
Instead, Freeman said this to ESPN’s College GameDay crew: “You know what, in these 3 years of being a head coach, I’ve learned sometimes it’s good just to be quiet and to not give your opinion. There’s nothing good about saying what I think the result of today’s game is going to be. I’m just going to keep that quiet and I’m looking forward to enjoying this game here in a little bit.”
Freeman is way too smart not to cop to wanting another shot at Ohio State, but it isn’t a huge leap of faith to believe that the son of Ohio wants a full 60 minutes of affirmation against the Buckeyes – to get it done for a national championship against the program that helped make him.