Marcus Freeman’s Monday press conference began with a look back at the win over Virginia, with Freeman offering plenty of praise while also pointing out the first-half struggles on offense. Specifically, he pointed to the penalties that helped blunt any momentum, citing it as an area to fix.
Players of the Game were named by Freeman: Jeremiyah Love on offense, Xavier Watts on defense and James Rendell on special teams. Freeman also hailed the contributions of transfers Jayden Harrison and Rod Heard. Currently listed as questionable for Army on Saturday night are nose tackle Howard Cross, who missed last week with an ankle injury, and Devyn Ford.
Freeman pointed out the need for better kicking, which led to him discussing kicker Mitch Jeter’s continuing recovery from injury:
“After warmups, we thought his (kicking) line was the 42. We had him kick the extra points … At halftime, we made the decision, up 28-0, to say, ‘OK, let’s rest him for the second half and get him hopefully ready for this week and extend that line a little longer.”
Regarding the Army matchup, Freeman pointed out the challenge the Irish faces:
“They’re a really good football program. 9-0 and on a 13-game winning streak, which is number one in FBS. All nine of their wins came by double-digits, and they’re one of three undefeated teams in FBS. So, we understand the challenge they present.”
Freeman took great pains to avoid a comparison of Army to Navy, a team the Irish routed last month:
“I told our coaches ‘The biggest mistake we can make is think this is Navy 2.0.’ It’s not. It’s a different offense, they do some different things, they’ve got a different identity and present a different challenge. Yes, it’s still a version of the triple option, which you see with some of the military schools, but they run it with different personnel. To me, they’re led by their O-line. They’re physical, they come off the ball, they’re physical, they’re big, bigger than what you usually see when you play academy schools.
Looking back at Saturday’s touchdown on a fake punt that was negated by an illegal formation penalty, Freeman indicated that the coaching staff believed that the formation was legal:
“The ruling was that it was not a kicking formation. So, if it’s not a kicking formation, you have to have five guys on the line between the numbers of 50 and 99. Going into the game, we believed that it was kicking formation. Haven’t heard back from the league yet, so we’ll see what they say.”
Freeman also pointed out that the planning behind the fake punt had been in motion for quite a while:
“We’ve had this ready to go for about four weeks … I’m dang proud of the way our guys executed it. I know it didn’t count for seven points but we’re gonna celebrate that fake punt, I can’t wait to show them (players) because there’s been a lot of work put into it and we obviously had it ready. You guys might not know this but we had it ready for the bowl game.”
Efforts to neutralize the strengths of Army’s quarterback Bryson Daily was something discussed by Freeman:
“I know he’s a guy who has experience. I know he missed two games ago but he’s back from injury. He makes really good decisions. He can run the ball if he needs to. He can also throw it if he needs to. What he does is run the offense efficiently. He doesn’t put them in bad positions and he does a great job of taking care of the football.”
Freeman also noted the challenges of facing Army’s strong run defense:
I think one, they’ve got some good personnel, D-linemen. They do a good job of simulating some pressures, where you might be thinking a five-man pressure’s coming, a six-man pressure’s coming and it ends up being four guys. So, they just do a good of saying, ‘We’re not gonna let you run the ball.’ We’ve got a mindset where we still want to run the ball …The other thing they do is they move, they’re not stagnant.”
A question was about whether Freeman has had any discussion about seniors who still have eligibility possibly returning in 2025.
“We’ve had them with a couple of them. There’s certain guys who’ll have decisions to make after the season and as I’ve told them, ‘Make your decision after the season.'”
The time constraints resulting from playing on Saturday night and then playing on the West Coast next week were noted by Freeman.
“We’ve known this timeline for quite a while, so you have to make certain accommodations when you get back at three, four o’clock in the morning. So, made some changes in the schedule.”
