Speaker 1: You got to enter your five I mean you knew.
Speaker 1: I guess you had some kind of idea. All right,
Speaker 1: here's what I think this whole thing is going to
Speaker 1: be like five years from now. Well, now we're five
Speaker 1: years from them. So how comparable is it to what
Speaker 1: you thought it may be like.
Speaker 2: Probably there's some similarities, but a lot different than you
Speaker 2: would imagine. And you never really understand. You always have
Speaker 2: this envision of what it's like to do something else,
Speaker 2: what it's like to be a coordinator, what it's like
Speaker 2: to be a head coach, what it's like to be Mary,
Speaker 2: what it's like to be a father, and then you
Speaker 2: get into that phase and you realize there's a lot
Speaker 2: more to it than you think. But it's been one
Speaker 2: of the greatest joys of my life and it's because
Speaker 2: of the people, the players, the people you get to
Speaker 2: work work with every day, this university. That makes it special.
Speaker 2: But uh, it's a lot different than you you probably thought.
Speaker 2: On the front end. I think most people when they undertake.
Speaker 1: A really high profile job, feel some level of imposter syndrome. Now,
Speaker 1: some people lie about it and say they don't feel it,
Speaker 1: and then other people are more honest than say they do.
Speaker 2: I know I've.
Speaker 1: Felt it before, getting to do like what I love
Speaker 1: to do for a living. When you became a head coach,
Speaker 1: like early on, where ever moment you're driving home, you're
Speaker 1: just looking in the rearview mirror. There are mornings in
Speaker 1: the bathroom you're saying, man, am I really ready for this?
Speaker 1: Like I'm the head coach at Notre Dame.
Speaker 2: There's still moments. So I spoke in the past that
Speaker 2: I laugh and one I go, I'm the head coach
Speaker 2: at Notre Dame. But there are times I go, I
Speaker 2: can't believe they hired me to be a good coach
Speaker 2: at Notre Dame. I say that all the time. I
Speaker 2: laugh and uh, you know, because you as you look
Speaker 2: at yourself, you probably you have I have this perception
Speaker 2: of what a college head coach is and what the
Speaker 2: head coach at Notre Dame is, and you probably don't
Speaker 2: think that way of yourself. And I just laugh and go, man,
Speaker 2: I can't believe they hired me to be the head coach.
Speaker 2: Here and perception reality are two different things. But I
Speaker 2: think that human element is important. I mean, it keeps
Speaker 2: you grounded, it keeps you grateful for the opportunity that
Speaker 2: you do have, because I think if you're not grateful
Speaker 2: for it, you'll lose it. Well, here's what's crazy about it.
Speaker 1: So like when you're coming up, it could be in
Speaker 1: any walk of life, it could be in any industry,
Speaker 1: but in coaching, when you're coming up, normally you're going
Speaker 1: maybe a ga For some people, eventually they get their
Speaker 1: own room, Eventually they get their own side of the ball.
Speaker 1: Eventually they become a head coach. But like the public
Speaker 1: looks at your Wikipedia page, it says he became a
Speaker 1: head coach this year. You think, in your mind, do
Speaker 1: I'm still the guy who was like ga ing a
Speaker 1: long time ago. I'm still a position coach, and now
Speaker 1: you're saying they're paying me more money, Like I'm much
Speaker 1: more high profile, But there's a part of me that
Speaker 1: still feels like I'm the same dude I always was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you are, Yeah, you are, you are. You
Speaker 2: don't feel different. I always say, this perception of you
Speaker 2: is different. Right as you continue to rise, people perceive
Speaker 2: you differently, but who you are on the inside never changes.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing that I often laugh about, is
Speaker 2: that I'm still the same person that was a GA
Speaker 2: or play ball and was a linebacker's coach. But I
Speaker 2: understand responsibilities are different. I understand that perception may be different.
Speaker 2: But what I've learned is you still to accomplish the
Speaker 2: task at hand that you have. It still goes down
Speaker 2: to those same things that made you a successful GA
Speaker 2: and that's hard work, that's working with people, that's gratitude
Speaker 2: for what you have, and it's the same thing that's
Speaker 2: going to make you a successful head coach.
Speaker 1: Are these talks you ever have to have with either
Speaker 1: a player or a staffer? You know, if I'm being
Speaker 1: recruit by Notre Dame, I play here, That's the most
Speaker 1: high profile thing I've ever done in my life. If
Speaker 1: I'm coaching here, it's probably the most high profile job
Speaker 1: I've ever had in my life. But yet I'm playing
Speaker 1: and or coaching here because I'm good enough to be here.
Speaker 1: How often do you have to tell guys, stop trying
Speaker 1: to reinvent yourself, stop trying to be one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty percent of yourself. We want you to develop, but like,
Speaker 1: you're here because we thought you were already good enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an everyday reminder right as to how do
Speaker 2: we chase being the best version of ourselves. We all
Speaker 2: have individual goals and I think I always say the
Speaker 2: thing we can control is trying to reach our full
Speaker 2: potential as a football team, as an individual. And let's
Speaker 2: see what the reward of reaching your full potential is.
Speaker 2: But that's what you're chasing every day. And you don't
Speaker 2: have to be somebody or not, but you do have
Speaker 2: to struggle with what you have if you truly want
Speaker 2: to elevate and reach your full potential.
Speaker 1: You were talking about perception and expectation and reality. So
Speaker 1: you guys, from the moment you were done with last
Speaker 1: year's season, you knew this is going to be a
Speaker 1: high expectation.
Speaker 2: Year coming up. Publicly, you always have it for yourself.
Speaker 1: We're going to be ranked really high, You're gonna be
Speaker 1: on the cover of magazines, like a lot's going to
Speaker 1: be expected of us. And you know, ten years from now,
Speaker 1: you'll look back on the season and it'll just you.
Speaker 2: Know, it's like a line item.
Speaker 1: But when you're living it in the moment, there are
Speaker 1: seven months between the way last season ended and then
Speaker 1: leading up to this year that people.
Speaker 2: Hear noise and there's chatter and there's.
Speaker 1: Expectation, I don't know if that changes your preparation at
Speaker 1: all individually, but how much does it maybe change the
Speaker 1: way that you try and wire this building to understand guys,
Speaker 1: just because it's expected of you. There were three teams
Speaker 1: last year that were preseason top ten that finished on
Speaker 1: rank like, nothing's guaranteed. How much do you have to
Speaker 1: kind of caution against that or is it just baked
Speaker 1: into the DNA of the building?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think more than anything, it's that this place
Speaker 2: is full of high achievers that want to be the best,
Speaker 2: and they want those things that probably everybody else expect
Speaker 2: from you and your group, and I remind them to
Speaker 2: struggle with what we have, right, we have to. Truly
Speaker 2: we say choose hard, which is another phrase of struggle
Speaker 2: with what we have, and the understanding that there's times
Speaker 2: we can go and pull from the past. We can
Speaker 2: use the different moments from the past to motivate us. Right.
Speaker 2: We all need that. We all sometimes default to just
Speaker 2: doing what's average, to choosing easy, and so there's times
Speaker 2: I'll go to the past and pull from now. So
Speaker 2: I always say, keep the pain, I'll pull from the past.
Speaker 2: But you can't do it every day. You got to
Speaker 2: wake up on most days and make the decision. Am
Speaker 2: I going to choose hard or not? And if we
Speaker 2: do that, then we got a chance to accomplish those
Speaker 2: goals and those expectations that everybody has. But us daydreaming
Speaker 2: about that, us thinking about that and not really taking
Speaker 2: advantage of what we have in this moment, is going
Speaker 2: to waste the opportunity that we have right in front
Speaker 2: of us. I remember back when I played Little league baseball.
Speaker 2: My dad was the head coach.
Speaker 1: And he'd always get mad at us when we complained
Speaker 1: about a call third strike, because you know, his message.
Speaker 2: Would always be never leaving in another's hand. And I'm
Speaker 2: probably breaking.
Speaker 1: Cart and I just I try and envision you walking
Speaker 1: around this building at the end of last year.
Speaker 2: You're mad because you didn't make it to the.
Speaker 1: Playoff externally, internally, like you can tell me how far
Speaker 1: off I am. I picture you walking around saying, that's
Speaker 1: what you get when you leave it in the committee's hands. Right,
Speaker 1: you can't leave it in their hands. You got to
Speaker 1: leave no doubt. How close am I to basically being
Speaker 1: in the staff.
Speaker 2: Room or being in team meetings. You're spot on in
Speaker 2: my head, you know, I think At first, my default
Speaker 2: was the same as many other people, as you blame
Speaker 2: somebody else. That's what default is, is you're just gonna
Speaker 2: blame It's not my fault, it is it's the committee's faulted,
Speaker 2: somebody else's fault. We should have been in the playoffs.
Speaker 2: And but if you continue to have that mindset, you
Speaker 2: can't use that nigga of experience right. And I always
Speaker 2: say you learn outside lessons when you have success. When
Speaker 2: you win a game, there's tactical things we have to
Speaker 2: do better. We did well, But I believe in failure
Speaker 2: you learn the greatest lessons because they're inside lessons. And
Speaker 2: in order to learn from those inside lessons and improve
Speaker 2: and be better, you have to own it. You have
Speaker 2: to own the fails, You have to own the situations.
Speaker 2: You have to own that you sleep in the bed
Speaker 2: you make and that's how you learn from that. If
Speaker 2: you blame somebody else, you lose it. And so my
Speaker 2: job is every day is remind everybody and myself that
Speaker 2: everything that happens to you in life, you have to
Speaker 2: own it so we can use it to improve from it.
Speaker 2: I always often say, like the pain of a loss is,
Speaker 2: it's tough, it's hard, but it's there to help you grow.
Speaker 2: It's no different than the pain from a physical wound.
Speaker 2: Right you scape you have pain, you want to make
Speaker 2: the pain go away. Well, the inside pain from a
Speaker 2: loss or a failure. It's there so you can grow
Speaker 2: from it. You want to make it go away. The
Speaker 2: only way to make it go away is continue to
Speaker 2: learn from and grow from it and use it. And
Speaker 2: so I don't want to lose some of those negative experiences. Yes,
Speaker 2: not making a playoffs. There's one, but there's plenty of
Speaker 2: them in our past. There's ones that we all have
Speaker 2: as individuals, and some of these that we have as
Speaker 2: a team in a program. But I want to use
Speaker 2: them to make us better.
Speaker 1: I can loosely explain how this is applied to me,
Speaker 1: but I want to see how it applies to you.
Speaker 2: Like as a leader of a big organization, you.
Speaker 1: Don't know what the negative experiences are that are going
Speaker 1: to come, but you know they will come, so like
Speaker 1: you want to proactively say, I know those times are.
Speaker 2: Going to be valuable.
Speaker 1: I know it's going to test us. I know our
Speaker 1: response is going to define our characters. So I gotta
Speaker 1: be ready before they have Like before the martial loss happens,
Speaker 1: or the Northern Illinois laws happens. I hope they don't happen,
Speaker 1: but when they do, I've got to be able to
Speaker 1: leverage that to be a growth pill for our place.
Speaker 1: How immediately after a negative experience does that like kick
Speaker 1: in for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah? It takes time. It's so funny with the things
Speaker 2: you say. Is the things often remind myself and our
Speaker 2: program is the future's uncertain, right, we never envision the
Speaker 2: future with the negative things that are going to happen. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just up man, it is. It's just perfect upward trend.
Speaker 2: But life is a bumpy rope, and you know you
Speaker 2: have to embrace that. And it takes time, different amounts
Speaker 2: of time to figure out what you need to learn
Speaker 2: from the previous failure. But you can learn something if
Speaker 2: you spend enough time and really reflection and valuation and
Speaker 2: those type of things. And you know, I could study
Speaker 2: Miami from last year and say, Okay, here's the things
Speaker 2: I wish we would have done differently, right, and what
Speaker 2: less we need to learn from that? Or A and
Speaker 2: M the many lessons we learned from there. But it
Speaker 2: sometimes takes time, different amounts of time to figure out
Speaker 2: what you need to learn from each failure.
Speaker 1: I know your goal was to be a head coach.
Speaker 1: Like when you were an assistant, you looked the one
Speaker 1: day and.
Speaker 2: Said, I want to be a head coach. Correct? Correct?
Speaker 1: Okay, So like I've never been able to talk to
Speaker 1: you about this. The moment when that happens, the opportunity
Speaker 1: is presented to you. Brian Kelly's leaving here, he's going
Speaker 1: to LSU. That entire time, that entire moment in time
Speaker 1: of your life. What was that like to experience? Because
Speaker 1: everyone says whirlwind, and I imagine it was a whirlwind
Speaker 1: for you. There's no, there's no we're gonna let you
Speaker 1: be the head coach. Okay, go get ready for two
Speaker 1: years it's you're the head coach. Go coach again.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. I usually use the word whirlwind, but I'll
Speaker 2: use tornado. I mean, I'll use something different. It's it's
Speaker 2: it's just go go go go, go, go, go, go,
Speaker 2: go go do this, do that, which you don't know.
Speaker 2: It went from late night telephone conversations with different members
Speaker 2: of our board r AD president to an interview in
Speaker 2: person with our athletic director, Jack Swarbrick at the time
Speaker 2: to Okay, we're gonna name you head coach. To Hey,
Speaker 2: you're in front of the entire staff, you're the head coach,
Speaker 2: say something, shoot, hey, what do I say? You know?
Speaker 2: Then all of a sudden, Hey, we're gonna introduce you
Speaker 2: as the head coach of the team. To next thing,
Speaker 2: you know, I was taking photos with my family, and
Speaker 2: my family doesn't know what's going on. Hey, you got
Speaker 2: to be here at nine in the morning. We're taking
Speaker 2: pictures on the field. It's freezing cold. My kids are like,
Speaker 2: what's going on? My wife is, oh, I got to
Speaker 2: get closed for him to You're on college game day.
Speaker 2: And I remember, actually that was probably the first interview
Speaker 2: I did. We were on college game day. I was
Speaker 2: sitting in a room and I was speaking to them
Speaker 2: really looking just into a camera, but you couldn't see them,
Speaker 2: but you could hear them. And I remember for moment
Speaker 2: going like holy cow, like this is a lie. You know.
Speaker 2: The next you know, you had a press conference, You're
Speaker 2: on the road recruiting for a week straight. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: and we gotta get ready for a bowlgain and it
Speaker 2: was just go, go, go, go go, And you didn't know.
Speaker 2: It's almost like you were just kind of just in
Speaker 2: a moment, and then you get time to reflect, right,
Speaker 2: you learn, and you know you're you're grateful for that moment.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you wish you can go back and redo it,
Speaker 2: but you can't. But it is a lot just throwing
Speaker 2: at you right away. But over time you figure it out.
Speaker 2: You start to figure it. I don't know if you
Speaker 2: ever truly get it all figured out. If somebody did,
Speaker 2: then they would win every game they played. But you
Speaker 2: start to figure out, okay, this is what being a
Speaker 2: head coach in tails. What I had to do, probably
Speaker 2: at first is kind of push away and say, okay,
Speaker 2: what who do I need to meet with? What's the priority?
Speaker 2: Exactly right? And and then over time and the experience,
Speaker 2: you start to say, okay, I'm starting to understand what
Speaker 2: it takes our process to have success.
Speaker 1: If I were to have been hired at Florida instead
Speaker 1: of some whole, if I got hired at Auburn instead
Speaker 1: of Alex Golish and I called you and I said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: you've been through this. I know you pretty well. Give
Speaker 1: me one or two biggest piece of advice, like what
Speaker 1: am I about to experience? What should I prioritize. What
Speaker 1: were the trial and error results that you went through.
Speaker 2: What would you say You're going to lose. That's the
Speaker 2: first thing I'm gonna tell you. And cause you never
Speaker 2: think about that, you're gonna lose and it's gonna be okay,
Speaker 2: and use the lessons from losing to help you improve
Speaker 2: and be better. Like you're going to have failures. You
Speaker 2: can't do this thing alone. It's about people. Get the
Speaker 2: right people in your building. Spend time with your players
Speaker 2: because they're the most important people to have a success.
Speaker 2: Recruit your tail off, but understand that that you're going
Speaker 2: to have failure, you're gonna lose. Just know it's about
Speaker 2: the people. Get the right people. You can't do everything.
Speaker 2: You can't do everything. You don't know everything. Surround yourself
Speaker 2: with people that have answers where maybe you don't have
Speaker 2: all the answers, because if you have all the answers,
Speaker 2: then it's hard to grow. I always say that be
Speaker 2: cautious of people that have all the answers because they
Speaker 2: don't feel that they have the capacity to grow. They
Speaker 2: don't need to gain wisdom. I love to surround myself
Speaker 2: with people that have way more answers than I do.
Speaker 2: And it's okay, you're still a head coach. Don't worry about,
Speaker 2: you know, bringing in people that have strengths where you
Speaker 2: have weaknesses. It's just gonna make you and your.
Speaker 1: Program better when you're hiring someone, especially someone who's expertise
Speaker 1: is way out of your wheelhouse. Sometimes for some guys
Speaker 1: that strength and conditioning or nutrition or sports science or
Speaker 1: something like that, and yet it is up to you
Speaker 1: to decide whether they're going to work for you or not.
Speaker 1: What's the interview process like and how much of it
Speaker 1: is you saying, Look, I don't know hiring someone who
Speaker 1: knows way more than I know about this specific thing
Speaker 1: I got.
Speaker 2: I got a loose understanding of it. But explain it
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 1: Explain something I don't know a lot about thoroughly enough
Speaker 1: to where I'm gonna hire you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's those key positions that you mentioned that
Speaker 2: really the head coach has to make the decision. It's
Speaker 2: important for me that your interview, more than anything's gonna
Speaker 2: be as many people as I call that know you,
Speaker 2: that I can trust what they'll tell me. Somebody's going
Speaker 2: to tell you the truth. I mean, somebody's going to
Speaker 2: tell you the honest truth, and I want to know
Speaker 2: who you are in a tough time. I'm gonna call
Speaker 2: everybody that you've just had a touch point with and say,
Speaker 2: who's Josh Pate When it gets really tough, who is
Speaker 2: he as a person? And a lot of times, for me,
Speaker 2: that's the interview. Anybody can come in here and wow
Speaker 2: me and say, hey, I know these x's and o's
Speaker 2: on offense or defense, or this is the greatest thing
Speaker 2: in the weight room, But what type of person are you?
Speaker 2: Show me the experience that you've had, the success that
Speaker 2: you've had. I always say that that Notre Dame probably
Speaker 2: isn't the place to figure out if somebody's qualified to
Speaker 2: be in that position. You know, I want to see
Speaker 2: some of the success you've had in previous previous places.
Speaker 2: But the other thing is maybe we're hiring somebody that
Speaker 2: is in your expertise or your field house, the assistance
Speaker 2: rint coach or the next intern. Well, now I'm going
Speaker 2: to empower you. Right, you bring the right guy in. Right,
Speaker 2: You've got to bring the right guy in because my
Speaker 2: expectation is for us to be the best. Right and
Speaker 2: you have to now be able to hire somebody you
Speaker 2: believe is going to help this department be the best,
Speaker 2: and we're going to hold each other accountable to those expectations.
Speaker 1: How big would you say your circle is appears the
Speaker 1: ones you call on regularly, text regularly, know that you
Speaker 1: could bounce something off of in confidence. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are not a lot of head coaches out there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it may be like a CEO of a company
Speaker 1: who's never coached a day in his life.
Speaker 2: But how big or compact is that circle for you?
Speaker 2: It's as big as you can think as an accessibility, right,
Speaker 2: I got the ability to connect with a lot of
Speaker 2: different people in all different fields just because of who
Speaker 2: you know that knows somebody. But you know, the people
Speaker 2: you talk to regularly, there's not that many because you're
Speaker 2: just so busy and they're busy, and but you know,
Speaker 2: in important times you're able. You can always reach out
Speaker 2: to them. There's people to reach out to me. If
Speaker 2: you need to find an answer, there's somebody in that
Speaker 2: network or in your wheelhouse that can give you that
Speaker 2: answer or you can gain some of that wisdom. But
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what like people are are generous, people
Speaker 2: are available, but you've got to go seek out the answers.
Speaker 2: You can't. They're not gonna call you every right if
Speaker 2: you want an answer, there's somebody or actually multiple people
Speaker 2: that really have great info, but you gotta go seek it.
Speaker 1: How much has that paradigm started to shift a little
Speaker 1: bit for you now that you're several years into being
Speaker 1: a head coach where you know it starts out you're
Speaker 1: the one reaching out.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you don't still reach out, but now
Speaker 1: you may be a guy who people are reaching out too.
Speaker 2: More and more. Yeah, there's been quite a few first
Speaker 2: time head coaches or or guys that have actually coached
Speaker 2: longer to meet it reach out and say, hey, if
Speaker 2: you're open, how do I want to know how you
Speaker 2: handle this or your mind if I come and spend
Speaker 2: a day or two with your program, And I'm always
Speaker 2: open to that, Like, I don't feel like we have
Speaker 2: some secret formula that we don't want anybody to see
Speaker 2: what we're doing or come in spend some time here,
Speaker 2: because I'm going to gain something from the time we
Speaker 2: spend together. And I think it's important. I think it's
Speaker 2: an important to help the profession to continue to and
Speaker 2: I'm not really talkingctical idea as much as is big
Speaker 2: picture ideas with other coaches, and is there a better
Speaker 2: way to do it? How are we handling the changes
Speaker 2: that are happening in college football? And you know, I'm
Speaker 2: accessible and other people have been very accessible to mean.
Speaker 1: Man, you're the head coach at Notre Dame, which means
Speaker 1: you've got a really big voice. You just talked about
Speaker 1: all the changes happening in college football. It's my job
Speaker 1: to cover the stuff day to day. And I look
Speaker 1: at some of it and say, I've got no interest
Speaker 1: in talking about this, or I don't even understand this.
Speaker 1: And sometimes those two meet and I don't understand it
Speaker 1: and I don't want.
Speaker 2: To talk about it.
Speaker 1: But like people come to you inevitably and say, Marcus
Speaker 1: Freeman's thought on this, what is it?
Speaker 2: Or they just look to you and expect you to speak.
Speaker 1: Out on everything. How do you know when the right
Speaker 1: time is to use your voice? And I got a
Speaker 1: lot of equity built up, I'm gonna throw it behind
Speaker 1: this or that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's times where it is important because
Speaker 2: of the position you hold. I have to have a
Speaker 2: strong passion about it. I have to be well educated
Speaker 2: about it. Before I just go out and say something
Speaker 2: that's a novel concept. Yeah that's interesting. Not everybody goes
Speaker 2: with that theory. But I want to know every side.
Speaker 2: I want to know why this group is saying sixteen teams,
Speaker 2: this group is saying twenty fourteen to all the I
Speaker 2: mean all the different things with nil, you know, transfer
Speaker 2: port all these different areas. I want to be well
Speaker 2: educated before I develop my own opinion. I'll have an
Speaker 2: opinion and sometimes I'll share it, sometimes I won't. But
Speaker 2: if I'm not well educated in the topic, I probably
Speaker 2: stay away from it until I learned enough. And then
Speaker 2: I have to have a passion to want to learn
Speaker 2: about it too. Because you're busy. You're busy with everyday
Speaker 2: task of being a head coach at Notre Dame. Our
Speaker 2: administration does a great job of informing me on topics
Speaker 2: that they feel like I need to know. But they
Speaker 2: also do a great job of don't worry about it,
Speaker 2: don't waste time, not wasting my time until they feel
Speaker 2: like I need to know. But then there's certain times
Speaker 2: that I'll hear something I said, I want to know more.
Speaker 2: Let me talk, let me talk to our ad let
Speaker 2: me talk to other people into profession and get their
Speaker 2: thoughts on this topic, and then I have to develop
Speaker 2: my own in terms of what I think is best
Speaker 2: for our program.
Speaker 1: The whole playoff debate, notwithstanding you as a player, former player,
Speaker 1: you as a current head coach, when you think about
Speaker 1: being a college football player college football head coach, I
Speaker 1: want to ask you what comes to your mind, because
Speaker 1: I know, as an observer slash passionate fan of the
Speaker 1: sport my whole life, I never used to think postseason.
Speaker 2: I thought regular season.
Speaker 1: I thought Saturdays in the fall, and that's the center
Speaker 1: of my college football world and anything that surrounds it
Speaker 1: is whatever surrounds it. But I've always wanted to crystallize that.
Speaker 1: That's why last year, for example, like it's such you
Speaker 1: don't make the playoff, But at the same time, I
Speaker 1: love there's so much urgency placed on things. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: you got room to lose one game, You could maybe
Speaker 1: even lose a couple of games, and if everything falls right,
Speaker 1: then you get in.
Speaker 2: But it's not you.
Speaker 1: Can't lose the third, you can't lose a fourth and
Speaker 1: still get in. Cause that that just crystallizes those saturdays.
Speaker 2: To me.
Speaker 1: When you're a player, when you're a coach, I say
Speaker 1: college football, Like, what is the thing that pops in
Speaker 1: your mind?
Speaker 2: I still think every Saturday matters and we approach its.
Speaker 2: Every Saturday matters. What changes now is Okay, your mindset
Speaker 2: maybe depending on the outcome of that previous Saturday, Whereas
Speaker 2: probably when I played, if you lost a game, for sure,
Speaker 2: if you lost two, you knew that, Okay, we've got
Speaker 2: twelve games in a bowl game and that's what we got. Well,
Speaker 2: well now it's like, okay, guys, we might've lost a game.
Speaker 2: We still understand what lies ahead, what we can achieve,
Speaker 2: but this Saturday matters, right, And so I think the
Speaker 2: ability to have that hope for the postseason is important.
Speaker 2: But the only way to get to that point is
Speaker 2: to take care of this Saturday, right. And so I
Speaker 2: know people talk about we're devaluing every week with the
Speaker 2: playoffs and maybe expanding the playoffs, but every Saturday still matters, man,
Speaker 2: Every Saturday matters in terms of finding a way to
Speaker 2: go out there and compete. We train probably three hundred
Speaker 2: days a year to really get an opportunity to go
Speaker 2: out there and compete. Twelve guarantees Saturdays, right, and that's
Speaker 2: what sometimes you would understand, like these guys want to
Speaker 2: go out there and play somebody else. They want an
Speaker 2: opportune to go out there and play somebody else for
Speaker 2: the opportunity to win, and they deserve it. They deserve it,
Speaker 2: and we're going to continue to cherish those saturdays, and
Speaker 2: then we'll deal with the postseason when it gets here.
Speaker 1: From the time your a long clock goes off the
Speaker 1: morning of a game day to the time toe meets
Speaker 1: leather game is kicked off, what is it like upstairs
Speaker 1: for you? What is your mind like, what your demeanor like,
Speaker 1: get super st like, how do you carry yourself on
Speaker 1: a game day?
Speaker 2: You really try to get a feel for your team
Speaker 2: the tactical aspect. Like we always say that Hayes never
Speaker 2: in the barn, but by the time you wake up
Speaker 2: on Saturday, it's it's almost as close to being in
Speaker 2: the barn as you can. Now. We'll still have some
Speaker 2: walk through, some last minute meetings to really fine tune things,
Speaker 2: but I'm always looking at the mindset. I'm looking at
Speaker 2: there as this team ready or we focus on the
Speaker 2: things that matter. But then sometimes I can't let how
Speaker 2: I feel personally affect the room. Right affect the greater
Speaker 2: good of the room. I gotta believe this. I got
Speaker 2: to always say trust beyond knowing that they're ready to go,
Speaker 2: they're in the right mind frame. But I don't want
Speaker 2: them to be on edge. I don't. I don't want
Speaker 2: them to feel like they're the robots and they have
Speaker 2: to walk this way, look this way, act like I
Speaker 2: want them to. Each individual is different how they approach
Speaker 2: a game. I'm different than maybe you or the guy.
Speaker 2: But if we have our process in terms of what
Speaker 2: we do on game day, I have my own personal process.
Speaker 2: It's important we have home games. We always have masks
Speaker 2: right after that final team meeting, which I love it
Speaker 2: because it kind of brings you, it centers you. And
Speaker 2: right we go from having a team meeting, highlight film,
Speaker 2: we get on the bus and now let's get centered
Speaker 2: and get our minds right and understand how fortunate we
Speaker 2: are to be on this earth. And again the faith element,
Speaker 2: and that's never another subject we could talk about, but
Speaker 2: I think it's so important to be able to center yourself.
Speaker 2: Then you walk out of that basilica and there's fans,
Speaker 2: there's crowd, and it's a rush. It's adrenaline rush, then
Speaker 2: you go into the stadium, and then you go in
Speaker 2: locker room. You gotta get centered again, right, okay, here,
Speaker 2: calm down, go through our process and then get ready
Speaker 2: for the game. But you know, you just got to
Speaker 2: trust beyond knowing that they're ready, that you're ready, that
Speaker 2: your team's ready, then you go play.
Speaker 1: I always thought what would overwhelm a normal person most
Speaker 1: if they were to walk in a coach or a
Speaker 1: player's shoes, is you don't even have to draw up
Speaker 1: the plays, don't even worry about that, don't even go
Speaker 1: to practice and knockheads every day. But I just want
Speaker 1: you to hang alongside someone who does. So you're gonna
Speaker 1: get all the hours in, you're gonna get all the obligations.
Speaker 2: In, or you're at least gonna observe that person.
Speaker 1: But then Saturdays like game days, applying everything that's happened
Speaker 1: those three hundred odd other days a year to that
Speaker 1: Saturday for sixty minutes and watching how big a sensory
Speaker 1: overload a Saturday is. To me, an outsider would look
Speaker 1: at that and say, I can't believe this person maintains composure,
Speaker 1: Like I can't believe this person amidst all this can
Speaker 1: even focus now.
Speaker 2: Once you do it a long time, you get used
Speaker 2: to it. But that's the beauty.
Speaker 1: To me, whether you're even just there as a guy
Speaker 1: covering the game, a spectator, or especially someone who's between
Speaker 1: the lines or on the sideline coaching the game, is
Speaker 1: amidst all that craziness, pageantry, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: that makes college football great. You got someone many someonees
Speaker 1: who hopefully are doing a job at an extremely high level,
Speaker 1: and they're able to just like block it all out,
Speaker 1: which is pretty atypical. It's like a starting pitcher in
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball like saying, I didn't even notice crowd noise.
Speaker 1: I didn't even notice this or that because you're so
Speaker 1: locked in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to practice that, and it's never going
Speaker 2: to truly replicate the game and the emotions that a
Speaker 2: game presents, but you got to practice being able to
Speaker 2: focus on the moment when we talk about we have
Speaker 2: to win a moment, but to win a moment, you
Speaker 2: have to be in the moment, and so you try
Speaker 2: to do it with crowd noise and practice, you try
Speaker 2: to do it with surprise we call them chaos periods
Speaker 2: and practice where they're not ready and take them in
Speaker 2: a different places to practice. But it's still about the
Speaker 2: ability to once the foot hits the ball, can you
Speaker 2: exit cute on this play? And the only way to
Speaker 2: do it is to be in the moment, be present
Speaker 2: where you're at. And so pregame I always say take
Speaker 2: it in. I mean some coaches might say, no, I
Speaker 2: don't want you to look in the crowd. Take it in, man.
Speaker 2: That's what makes college that's what makes college football special.
Speaker 2: When you run out of tunnel every Saturday, no matter
Speaker 2: if I'm a player or I'm coach, it's in adrenaline,
Speaker 2: rush and excitement, a gratitude, emotional moment every single time
Speaker 2: you do it. But then after everything and all the
Speaker 2: pregame festivities are done, you got to get locked in
Speaker 2: into the moment in the most challenging times once the
Speaker 2: game starts. Is those crucial crucial moments two minute situations,
Speaker 2: fourth down play, third downplay. It's still about being in
Speaker 2: the moment to execute. It's hard enough to execute and
Speaker 2: do your job, but you have to be in the
Speaker 2: moment to do that right. And if you're not in
Speaker 2: a moment, in your mind's elsewhere, there's no way you
Speaker 2: can get you your job done on that play and
Speaker 2: the minute that plays over, no matter what happened in
Speaker 2: the past, refocus when this play. And that's just something
Speaker 2: you got to train, you got to talk about. There's
Speaker 2: really there's tools you can use and you can practice
Speaker 2: in meditation. It can be doing stuff with our sports
Speaker 2: site guy doing it out on a practice field, but
Speaker 2: you got to practice that you can it's easy to
Speaker 2: say that, it's really difficult to do, but you got
Speaker 2: to practice.
Speaker 1: I know, like I don't know anything about figure skating,
Speaker 1: but it was always fascinating to me that a figure
Speaker 1: skater can twirl.
Speaker 2: And speed up and speed up and speed up, and you.
Speaker 1: Think about how much precision has to go into creating that.
Speaker 1: And it's the same thing when you're building and when
Speaker 1: your team is in the right place and when it's clicking,
Speaker 1: you understand the least little grain of sand in the
Speaker 1: machine here could throw us off.
Speaker 2: That's right. So last year, you guys lose too early.
Speaker 1: You know, you got no margin for error, and you're
Speaker 1: trying to walk a tight rope the rest of the year. Well,
Speaker 1: then all the NFL chatter starts. The job speculation chatter
Speaker 1: starts on the outside of the building.
Speaker 2: I'm really curious. We all know how it ended.
Speaker 1: Fortunately, like glad you're still here, but on the outside,
Speaker 1: like how did you not handle it yourself?
Speaker 2: But like tell everyone else.
Speaker 1: How to handle it. You've got people who represent you, You've
Speaker 1: got family, you got people calling you, hitting you up,
Speaker 1: and all the while you're trying to say, I'm a
Speaker 1: racehorse with blinders on, Like I don't want to hear
Speaker 1: any of this right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, the year before there was a little
Speaker 2: bit of chatter, but you're in the playoffs and that's
Speaker 2: your only focus. You know, this year got really loud
Speaker 2: after the end of the regular season, and you know,
Speaker 2: usually I've never been in this position where we're not
Speaker 2: playing in a bowl game or playing in the playoffs,
Speaker 2: And so I did. I took a minute to really say,
Speaker 2: what is this opportunity of being an NFL head coach?
Speaker 2: I never coach the NFL. I wanted to know what
Speaker 2: they look for, what they think it takes to be successful,
Speaker 2: and I gained some valuable knowledge. I was always honest
Speaker 2: with our players if they asked and they talked to them,
Speaker 2: I said, listen to guys, like I'm the head coach.
Speaker 2: At Notre Dame. And I can't control what opportunities or
Speaker 2: what people are saying outside of this building. But and
Speaker 2: I was always in communication with our athletic director, I
Speaker 2: mean and and my family and then But for me,
Speaker 2: it was it was the opportunity to be the head
Speaker 2: coach of this this university was one that I wasn't
Speaker 2: ready to let go. And I love this place. I
Speaker 2: loved more importantly the people here, the opportunity to coach
Speaker 2: these young men, many of you recruited for multiple years. Like,
Speaker 2: that's just something I'm not ready to let go of.
Speaker 2: And uh, it's it's it's the opportunity of a lifetime
Speaker 2: and uh you know again, Uh. The other thing I
Speaker 2: use it to tell the team like with team success
Speaker 2: comes individual opportunity and the head coach's reflection of the
Speaker 2: players of other coaches. We've had some coaches get opportunities
Speaker 2: to go coaching the NFL, and I'm happy for him.
Speaker 2: But if we weren't having team success, if we didn't
Speaker 2: win those last ten games, then they would my name
Speaker 2: or nobody else's name be floating around here. But you
Speaker 2: get a guy like Jeremiah Love, who had an unbelievable season,
Speaker 2: it's up for the Heisman. It's the number three overall pick. Well,
Speaker 2: there's a strong feeling if we didn't win those last
Speaker 2: ten then he wouldn't have been up for the Heisman, right.
Speaker 2: So it's a reminder for all of us that with
Speaker 2: team success comes to individual opportunity. So let's just be
Speaker 2: let's just be intentional about and focused on team success.
Speaker 2: If we do that, your individual opportunities and individual praise,
Speaker 2: those will come, but it's a result of team success.
Speaker 2: So let's just be focused on team success. And that's
Speaker 2: the message we'd constantly say.
Speaker 1: As you and I are sitting here, were a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks removed from springball wrapping up, and the outside
Speaker 1: world knows well Notre Dame will have a lot expected
Speaker 1: of them. I just saw two tailbacks from the same
Speaker 1: team going the first round of the draft, so you
Speaker 1: know the public would look and say that may be
Speaker 1: an area of concern. I actually don't have that very
Speaker 1: concern for you that position. But you're the head coach here,
Speaker 1: so I'll ask, as much as you can know about
Speaker 1: a team coming out of spring, what is the perception
Speaker 1: of the group you have here right now?
Speaker 2: My perception, yes, it's it's a talented group and we
Speaker 2: got we got work to do. They put they put
Speaker 2: in fifteen really good spring practices, but before that, we
Speaker 2: had eight strong, solid weeks of winter conditioning and strength
Speaker 2: and conditioning, and that's something we haven't had. We had
Speaker 2: maybe three four after the National Championship game, and so
Speaker 2: to have eight solid weeks to look at them physically,
Speaker 2: get bigger and stronger, to have our ability to have
Speaker 2: football school, so you know, mentally they're at a different level.
Speaker 2: The foundation is higher. We have a ways to go,
Speaker 2: but the foundation with both coordinators back, our special teams
Speaker 2: coordinators back, our starting quarterbacks back, we got a lot
Speaker 2: of production that back. The foundation is higher, but the
Speaker 2: work still needs to be put in right. We got
Speaker 2: a ways to go until we get to Game one,
Speaker 2: and we have to continue to be focused on struggling
Speaker 2: with what we have. Let's go back to the very
Speaker 2: first company. We have to struggle with what we have
Speaker 2: right in front of us if we want an opportunity
Speaker 2: to have success and reach our full potential. I don't
Speaker 2: know what it's like to be on the cover of Esquire.
Speaker 2: Never done it.
Speaker 1: I especially don't know what it's like to be on
Speaker 1: the cover of Esquire, but then also stand up in
Speaker 1: front of a room full of eighteen to twenty five
Speaker 1: year old guys who have seen it. How was that
Speaker 1: whole thing perceived and received in this Yeah?
Speaker 2: I love this. Like I often said, two safe places, right,
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you what that means. Second, I'll say
Speaker 2: my home in this football facility, and when I mean
Speaker 2: safe plays, that means that they treat you like a
Speaker 2: normal person. My role here is this is my responsibility.
Speaker 2: My role at home as a husband and a father,
Speaker 2: that is my responsibility. But they treat you truly like
Speaker 2: a normal person. And so when you're a part of
Speaker 2: a family and you're supposed to be this head football
Speaker 2: coach and you're on the Esquire and we'll give you
Speaker 2: some crap, man, it's like, I don't know if you
Speaker 2: saw that Kevin Hart roast. They were roasting me, and
Speaker 2: but that's what family does, all right. Because the same
Speaker 2: thing of one of our players was on the cover Esquire,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be roasting them too. And that's the fun
Speaker 2: part about being in this building with guys that you
Speaker 2: love and you trust and you have a true connection
Speaker 2: with because we're allowed to make fun of each other.
Speaker 2: We're allowed to be a family, and we're also allowed
Speaker 2: to have clear expectations for each other. But yeah, there
Speaker 2: was there. It was a fair amount of roast being
Speaker 2: going on. Definitely when those pictures came out, I think
Speaker 2: a couple guys were walking by my office posing with
Speaker 2: their hands run the same thing my daughter did at home.
Speaker 2: She said, Dad, I just got to ask you out
Speaker 2: like you had your hand behind your head, like did
Speaker 2: you choose to or they asked you did? And I said, well,
Speaker 2: they told me to do that. Your daddy doesn't know
Speaker 2: what to do. But I love that. I love that
Speaker 2: we can have those type of interactions.
Speaker 1: Did you do any comparison you versus Lane? I mean,
Speaker 1: did you ever think one was better than the other?
Speaker 2: And you know what? Credit to him, man, I haven't
Speaker 2: seen his h I'm sure he did a good job.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he did.
Speaker 1: Really smart and really really well handled. You were just
Speaker 1: talking about something there that I was going to ask
Speaker 1: you about. But you're talking about basically like the not
Speaker 1: for public consumption part of being a head coach, the
Speaker 1: locker room, the brotherhood, like it's a lot lesser than
Speaker 1: it used to be because of how much access people have,
Speaker 1: how much visibility people have.
Speaker 2: You've got an entire social.
Speaker 1: And digital team whose specific jobs it is to capture.
Speaker 2: As much of the day to day.
Speaker 1: But yet even then, there's still those few moments, those
Speaker 1: few sanctuaries that you.
Speaker 2: Have where you know, no cameras, no mics, it's just us.
Speaker 1: H How different do you feel in those moments versus
Speaker 1: pretty much ninety five percent of the time when you
Speaker 1: know there's some kind of spotlight on me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's authenticity, Like, that's the real you. I think
Speaker 2: at times we're all filtered when we have a camera
Speaker 2: in front of us or a camera on us. But
Speaker 2: those moments where you can be truly authentic and have
Speaker 2: those one on one conversations or a conversation with a group,
Speaker 2: and that's life, that's what makes it specially, that's a
Speaker 2: real relationship, right, It's not a fake when that's a
Speaker 2: real one. And that's what I enjoy most about the
Speaker 2: position I hold is. It isn't the notoriety, isn't the winds.
Speaker 2: It is none of that. It's the ability to have
Speaker 2: real relationships with other people, especially young people, and in
Speaker 2: hopes that they're better because of the time they spent
Speaker 2: with you. These relationships last forever. They don't last until
Speaker 2: they're gone. These are lifelong relationships. But you hope that
Speaker 2: because of the relationships that you have with these young people,
Speaker 2: they're better off in life. And that is a reflection
Speaker 2: of authentic conversations right in your office where one of
Speaker 2: your players can be crying or you got to get
Speaker 2: after their butt, or you got to hold them account
Speaker 2: or you got to show them why. This is why
Speaker 2: I'm hard on you. This is why I tell you things.
Speaker 2: This is why you've got to continue to choose hard.
Speaker 2: But that's what like, real relationships are all about.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kind of get you out of here on
Speaker 1: this one. You talked about having never felt like you
Speaker 1: really arrive. It's always a process. You're always trying to
Speaker 1: grow football or life, Like what are areas right now
Speaker 1: that you look at and you say, that's still kind
Speaker 1: of a work in progress right there.
Speaker 2: That thing over the past couple of years.
Speaker 1: I really feel like I've progressed there, or maybe I haven't,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to. And obviously that all tails back
Speaker 1: into how you perform at your job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think in every area of your life there
Speaker 2: is no finish line until your life here is over,
Speaker 2: and then I choose to believe there is no finish
Speaker 2: line after that, because then you go to the afterlife.
Speaker 2: But there's been growth as a head coach, as a father,
Speaker 2: as a son, as a husband, as a coworker. There's
Speaker 2: been growth in every area of my life. But there
Speaker 2: is no finish line. There's more to grow, there's more answers,
Speaker 2: there's more improvement. And the minute I believe you have
Speaker 2: a arrived in any area of your life, you'll stop growing.
Speaker 2: And ultimately, if you stop growing, you fail. You regress.
Speaker 2: You don't stay the same right either either working out
Speaker 2: in the weight room, getting better, getting stronger, or you're
Speaker 2: gonna is exactly right. And it's the same thing in
Speaker 2: all those areas that we discussed. As a coach, as
Speaker 2: a husband, there's a father and the challenges to catch
Speaker 2: yourself regressing. That's the challenge because we all we all
Speaker 2: fall short in every area at some point. Catch yourself
Speaker 2: and continue to choose hard. If you can do that,
Speaker 2: that's probably one of the greatest gifts that a person
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