Marcus Freeman was sure that Notre Dame was headed to the College Football Playoff, but fate got in the way, and his Fighting Irish were left out of the 12-team field on Selection Sunday.
Since that crushing news came down on Dec. 7, the Notre Dame head coach has gone through a litany of emotions in trying to get his program back on its feet. The Irish dropped their first 2 games of the 2025 season, losing close battles with eventual Playoff teams Miami and Texas A&M.
Despite winning 10 in a row and finishing 10-2, it wasn’t good enough to get Notre Dame into the Playoff, and on Monday night there Freeman sat, with the ESPN College GameDay crew, explaining how his Irish have tried to rebound from the crushing Playoff snub as they look toward the 2026 season. Ironically, Freeman’s appearance in the leadup to the national title game was in the very stadium where Notre Dame lost to Miami way back on Aug. 31, and to further the irony it was the Hurricanes who were set to play Indiana later in the night for a shot at the national title that Freeman felt was denied his team.
That’s all in the past, of course, and Freeman was trying to get his program looking forward.
“At first when you find out, you’re disappointed, because you get in front of your team and you don’t have the answers for why,” said Marcus Freeman of his team getting squeezed out on Selection Sunday.
Freeman explained that the Playoff rankings were showing that if Notre Dame continued to win, then it looked like it would get in. Obviously, that didn’t happen, but then it was Freeman’s job to point his program forward.
“The day we found, the response was one thing. But after 24 hours, the ability to get in front of your team and say, we have to move forward. It’s up to us to leave no doubt. We left doubt,” Freeman said.
Here's Marcus Freeman on 'College GameDay' ahead of the CFP national title game. #CFP pic.twitter.com/sCFWHkQxSd t.co/9PX37LsBQA
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 19, 2026Freeman sat next to Nick Saban on the ESPN set, a guy who knows a thing or two about playing for national championships. That’s what Freeman wants to do in 2026, like he did in the 2024 season, when he led Notre Dame all the way to the very spot Indiana and Miami were in on Monday night.
As far as 2025 goes, Freeman and his program can’t get that back. It’s gone, and Freeman just wants Notre Dame to move forward.
Marcus Freeman details how Notre Dame has bounced back from CFP snub Saturday Down South.
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