A New Coach For The Fighting Irish
By CHRISTOPHER MANION
On November 29, Louisiana State University announced that it had hired Brian Kelly, head coach at Notre Dame since 2010, as its new football coach.
“The search for LSU Football’s next championship head coach is over,” LSU Director of Athletics Scott Woodward said. “Brian Kelly, who has more victories than any active coach in major college football, has been hired as the head football coach at LSU.”
Kelly will receive a 10-year, $95 million contract, plus incentives, said Woodward.
In a statement, Kelly said, “I could not be more excited to join a program with the commitment to excellence, rich traditions, and unrivaled pride and passion of LSU Football.”
Last Friday, Notre Dame’s Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick announced that Marcus Freeman, who has served as the team’s defensive coordinator this past year, would be promoted to head coach.
“It is an honor to be named the head coach of Notre Dame Football,” Freeman said in a statement. “I am eternally grateful to both Fr. John Jenkins and Jack Swarbrick for giving me the opportunity to lead the exceptional men who make this program what it is. Notre Dame is a very special place and I look forward to pursuing a national championship with the most outstanding student-athletes, coaches, and staff in college football.”
The day after Kelly’s departure, Swarbrick told the press, “First and foremost is getting the right leader.” When Freeman was introduced to the student body last Monday, they obviously agreed that Swarbrick had gotten just that. Speaking to the roaring crowd, Freeman promised to lead the Fighting Irish football program to its “greatest heights.”
Freeman came to Notre Dame after four years coaching at Cincinnati. He’s got quite a record. As a high-schooler at Wayne High School in Huber Heights, Ohio, he was named to Parade’s All-America team and went on to play defensive linebacker at Ohio State. He played on several NFL teams before beginning his coaching career. He and his wife Joanna have six children.
Notre Dame (11-1) is now ranked number five in the country. Since the College Football Playoffs include only the top four, Freeman will take the Irish to meet Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Day.
A Look Behind The Record
A week before Kelly’s sudden departure, FightingIrishWire asked him if he’d ever leave Notre Dame before he retired.
“No, I mean, look, I think Mike Tomlin had the best line, right? Unless that fairy godmother comes by with that $250 million check, my wife would want to take a look at it first. I’d have to run it by her,” he replied. (Tomlin coaches the Pittsburgh Steelers.)
As Kelly moves on, he leaves behind an uneven tenure. His first season in the fall of 2010 was especially rough. Two months in, Declan Sullivan, a junior team manager, was told to film an outdoor team practice from a 50-foot hydraulic scissor lift. He must have known about the tornado warnings — “Gust of wind up to 60mph well today will be fun at work….I guess I’ve lived long enough,” he tweeted. Less than an hour later, a strong wind toppled the lift and Sullivan fell to his death.
Several days later, Kelly spoke to the press. “On Wednesday I made the decision that we could have a productive and safe practice outdoors….There are systems in place to make certain and deal with issues of safety and clearly in this instance they failed.”
After an investigation of the incident, Indiana’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration (IOSHA) announced in March 2011 that it would fine Notre Dame $77,500 for “workplace safety violations.”
After the university contested the fine, a settlement was reached in July. Notre Dame paid a $42,000 fine for six safety violations and established a scholarship in Sullivan’s memory.
Remember Declan Sullivan, But Forget Lizzie Seeberg
Wait — who was Lizzie Seeberg?
That same fall of 2010, Lizzie Seeberg was a freshman at St. Mary’s College (across US 31 from Notre Dame). While visiting friends at Notre Dame on August 31, she was sexually assaulted (she alleged) by a Notre Dame Football player (he later said it was “consensual”). Lizzie did everything right, but Notre Dame — from President Jenkins to Coach Kelly to the campus police — did everything wrong.
Lizzie went to the hospital and reported the incident to campus police the next day. For some reason this clown unit is responsible for even felony crimes committed on campus. For two weeks (!!), the police did nothing. Meanwhile, Lizzie received texts from a friend of the player: “Don’t do anything you would regret,” he wrote. “Messing with Notre Dame Football is a bad idea.”
Message received. When they finally interviewed the accused player on September 15, Lizzie had already committed suicide — five days before.
At the time, some stupid campus cop complained about the accusations of gross malfeasance in the case. After all, he said, there were two home games — Purdue on September 4th and Michigan on September 11th — and gosh, they had to make arrangements for all that traffic!
Thanks to Kelly, the accused player never missed a practice and never missed a game. The investigation? That was the university’s problem. Meanwhile, over at the university, Fr. Jenkins refused to meet with the family or even to discuss the case, except for complaining about all the bad press. The local district attorney could not bring charges because, after all, the key witness for the prosecution was deceased.
After leaving Notre Dame, the accused player was drafted by the Atlanta Falcons. A year later, when he was arrested for killing his girlfriend’s dog, Falcons Head Coach Dan Quinn fired him immediately.
Do the Atlanta Falcons have higher standards than the Fighting Irish?
We report, you decide.
Kelly won’t have to worry about “high standards” at LSU. Last March, a law firm released a damning report on the university’s handling of cases involving ten different LSU football players accused of sexual misconduct in recent years. According to a report in The Advocate, the investigator “noted that athletes are ‘beneficiaries of being very powerful on campus,’ which can make victims even less likely to come forward.”
Sounds like Kelly and LSU were made for each other.
And what about academics? In 2018 the NCAA ordered that the Irish delete all wins from 2012 and 2013 from its record due to multiple cases of academic misconduct. Fr. Jenkins complained that the school’s “exhaustive investigation” and action taken made the NCAA penalty unnecessary, even “disturbing.”
So while the NCAA penalty stands, Notre Dame’s official stats ignore it.
Down The Irish Memory Hole
And Notre Dame wants us to ignore the memory of Lizzie Seeberg too. The university publishes Notre Dame Magazine four times a year. In May 2019, I suggested to the editor that perhaps it was time to break the silence with an appropriate story.
“You should know that the magazine did undertake a story on Lizzie Seeberg,” he replied, “but after consultation with the legal office and other university leaders we decided the situation was too complex and nuanced to go into those personal and private affairs in such a public way.”
So the lawyers and the leaders define the ethics of the situation, and the golden rule prevails. “Silence is Golden.”
But that’s not Head Coach Marcus Freeman’s fault. We wish him well, with gratitude that we can once again “cheer, cheer for Old Notre Dame.”