Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman knows what failure looks like at this level, and he doesn’t have to go back far to remember the lessons that failure taught him.
Notre Dame is 11-1 and is about to take on Indiana in the first round of the College Football Playoff. That one loss to Northern Illinois, however, may have been detrimental to the Fighting Irish’s playoff seeding. They’re No. 7 in the CFP while Indiana is No. 10. If they beat the Hoosiers they’ll take on No. 2 Georgia in the quarterfinals.
Notre Dame has to take care of the Hoosiers first, though, and this is no guarantee, even at home. Again, Freeman found that out the hard way earlier this season when NIU — a MAC team — came into South Bend and knocked the Irish off, 16-14, in September.
That was a failure, and Freeman recently admitted to the media that he is motivated by not having to go through that again.
“Fear is a motivator. It is what it is,” Freeman said (h/t On3). “A lot of people are motivated by fear agree, and there’s times that I have to remind myself, what’s the result of not preparing the right way? But sometimes it takes the performance that we have versus NIU to go back and say, okay, hold on. What lessons do we have to learn? If you knew exactly what it took, the perfect formula, you would correct it right? When it’s not right. But sometimes it takes going back and saying, okay, where didn’t we prepare the right way? And that’s after a win too.”
Failure can be a motivator but it can also be a teacher. Any good coach knows that you can’t let the opportunity to learn from failure pass you by, and Freeman obviously knows that. The proof of that is the fact that the Irish went 10-0 the rest of the way with wins over No. 15 Louisville, No. 24 Navy and No. 19 Army.
The Fighting Irish are battle-tested and they’re also well aware that Indiana isn’t going to roll over just because the game is in South Bend. At the end of the day, though, Freeman says it all comes down to preparation. The team that prepares the best is likely to come out on top.
“I still believe in preparation. I choose to believe that is the number one indicator that gives your program a chance to have success on Saturday. And I won’t stray from that,” Freeman said. “And that’s what we’re going to focus on right now as we prepare for this upcoming game.”
