SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Marcus Freeman sat down with a small group of reporters Tuesday and said the kind of thing that used to get a man a parade in this town. He said he wants to stay.
“I’m all-in. I’ve been all-in,” Freeman said. “I don’t see myself being the head coach or coaching anywhere else.”
For Notre Dame’s fifth-year head coach, the declaration wasn’t out of nowhere. Freeman first floated the idea of retiring as the Irish’s coach earlier this month on the “Not Just Football” show, hosted by Cam Heyward, his former Ohio State teammate. That was a departure for a man who usually swats future-focused questions with some version of “being where his feet are.” This time he looked over the horizon and came back with an answer.
He didn’t pretend the NFL never tempted him. Freeman told Esquire this spring that jobs like the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers would have intrigued him. Heyward, conveniently, spent his entire career playing for Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh — and Tomlin’s exit opened the Steelers job at virtually the same moment Freeman posted “2026…run it back” with “Go Irish” on social media last winter, announcing his return to South Bend.
“There were times when I wanted to listen to some other people and I did,” Freeman said. “It confirmed that this is the place I want to be.”
Notre Dame has backed up the truck to make sure he keeps feeling that way. The university has reworked Freeman’s contract in each of the past two offseasons, and athletic director Pete Bevacqua described the deal in December as a “living, breathing document” — meaning it gets adjusted annually. According to sources briefed on the matter, last winter’s enhancement puts Freeman near the top of the sport’s pay scale among coaches who have not won a national title, at nearly $12 million annually.
“I make sure that he knows that he will be where he deserves to be, and that is at the top, top, top tier of college football coaches when it comes to compensation every year,” Bevacqua said. “I can say with 100 percent certainty he feels that way, and Notre Dame is totally aligned around the importance of college football for Notre Dame.”
The investment extends beyond the head coach’s bank account. Notre Dame’s name, image and likeness budget for football sits near the top of the sport. Shields Hall, the program’s new operations facility, is set to open soon. The school has also loosened long-standing restrictions on roster construction — accepting more undergraduate transfers from the portal last winter and now taking high school prospects who reclassify and skip their senior year entirely. For a place that used to treat the transfer portal like it was coated in asbestos, that’s a philosophical shift worth noting.
Freeman’s profile has only grown. The 40-year-old former linebacker appeals to players, fans, and management simultaneously — a rare trifecta — and the Peacock documentary “Here Come The Irish” turned his locker-room speech after Notre Dame’s 0-2 start into a season-long infomercial. Ironically, that speech made him more attractive to NFL circles than the actual game results did. Last week, while the ACC held its media days in Charlotte, ESPN hosted Freeman for Notre Dame’s own standalone preseason publicity circuit. The man gets the red-carpet treatment.
None of this guarantees the NFL stops calling, especially if Notre Dame delivers on its preseason hype as a national championship contender. The College Football Playoff run two years ago validated the program’s all-in approach, and almost every move since has reinforced Freeman’s belief that he doesn’t need to look elsewhere for professional fulfillment.
“I plan on being here as long as I can,” Freeman said. “If I do a good enough job and I’m able and wanted to be the head coach here, I want to stay the head coach here.”
Twelve million a year and a new building will do that to a man. But give Freeman this — he listened to the other side, kicked the tires, and still came home. In an era where every coach with a pulse and a winning record is one phone call from bolting, that counts for something.