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Steve Beuerlein: Marcus Freeman has been 'spectacular'

Brian Jones Profile Picby: Brian Jones06/02/26brianjones_93

Former Notre Dame quarterback Steve Beuerlein has been impressed with the job Marcus Freeman has done with the team. On3 recently spoke to Beuerlein, who shared his thoughts on the Notre Dame head football coach heading into the 2026 season.

“I think what Marcus Freeman has done there is spectacular,” Steve Beuerlein told On3. “He’s completely changed the way that Notre Dame operates and the way that they’re perceived in the recruiting world and the overall world of just taking a program seriously.

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“I think a lot of people, when Brian Kelly was a head coach there, didn’t really consider Notre Dame to be an elite team. When they played against the top-five teams or top-10 teams in the country, they never showed up under Brian Kelly. Well, now with Marcus Freeman, they’ve shown that they can not only go out and recruit in ways that Brian Kelly said they couldn’t, they’re also backing it up by just showing up and ready to play every single game.”

Notre Dame missed the College Football Playoff last year and elected not to play in the bowl game. However, that doesn’t take away what Freeman has done with the Fighting Irish in the last four seasons.

Can Marcus Freeman and Notre Dame win it all in 2026?

In 2022, Freeman led Notre Dame to a 9-4 record, and the team won the Gator Bowl. The following season, the Fighting Irish went 10-3 and won the Sun Bowl.

In 2024, Notre Dame went 11-1 in the regular season and clinched a spot in the College Football Playoff. The team went on to defeat Indiana, Georgia, and Penn State before losing to Ohio State in the national championship game.

Last year, Freeman and the Fighting Irish went 10-2 and just missed a playoff spot. That likely won’t be the case in 2026, as Athlon Sports has predicted Notre Dame to finish the regular season No. 4 in the country and reach the College Football Playoff semifinals.

Freeman became the head coach after spending the 2021 season as Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator. He was a linebacker at Ohio State from 2004 to 2008, and the Chicago Bears selected him in the fifth round of the 2009 NFL Draft.