Marcus Freeman Talks Spring Practice, Injuries, Crucial Changes

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1:01Every team, every topic, everywhere. This is believed. I be nation welcome back to another pre-spring edition of the Irish Breakdown podcast brought to you by our Friends of Fandall. Thrab, we're going to have a fun show today this week. We are doing a little bit of a change up for you all today because this is going to be a different week. We have practice on Friday. So instead of doing a long practice report on Friday, then doing a mailbag afterwards, we decided that we're going to do a mailbag today. But before we jump into our midweek mailbag, we're going to talk about the things we learned from today's Marcus Freeman press conference. We had a chance to meet with Lauren Landell, then Rob Hunt, and then Marcus Freeman today. And we got a lot of injury news and got some team news and some interesting questions.

2:06And we're going to talk as much as we a little bit about those things. And then we'll drop into our dive into our mailbag. So if you do have a mailbag question, go ahead and leave that in there now. Put MB in there for mailbag, obviously, or you put the mailbag emoji. I would encourage you, if you have a question about the press conference, wait until we're done talking about the press conference. And then if we didn't address what you wanted to ask, then you could put it in there. After that, you can talk about whatever you want. Anything Notre Dame related, we can talk about spring, we can talk about the team, we can talk about recruiting, we can talk about college football. If you have a question about other things, whatever your little heart's desire, we'll go to about five. So give you guys a good three hours before the guys go tonight. So looking forward to that. So to have we'll jump in a very interesting press conference today, obviously got a chance to meet with Lauren Landell. And then Rob Hunt got up there and talked probably longer than anybody else, because he had to read off a very long list of injured players. And I really appreciated honestly, in all seriousness, I really appreciated what Rob Hunt did today,

3:08because he didn't just give us a list of players, he explained what happened, what was going on, where they were in their rehabs and different things like that. And then, you know, that kind of limited some of the questions. But we finally got our first real explanation of what was going on at Charles Jagassal. So we'll talk about that. But I thought he did a really good job. And then of course, we'll have a lot to talk about the information that we learned and how it affects spring practice. But man, it was cool to be there, Trev, because you just know like, okay, spring's right here. We're getting ready to get rocking in the role. And I can't tell you how excited I am about that. Thank goodness. I was starting to get to the point in the off season where I'm just watching random games, because I just need to scratch that issue of watching football. And I'm happy that we're going to be up there in person. But yeah, to kick off the press conference, we heard from Lauren Landell. Got to hear some interesting things. Then we, I was watching at home, because I didn't make the trip up to South Bend. So we didn't get to see, but all the more reason to be a premium message board, subscriber boards at irisbreakdown.com. Brian was providing some live updates going on.

4:09And that's how I was following Rob Hunt's discussion, because that was actually not aired on the YouTube side of things. But we learned a lot during that. And with any off season, this is the time of the year where you go in, and you clean some things up. You're getting people fixed and adjusted. And from, you know, high school injuries, if you're an early enrollee, you're cleaning some things up from the spa season. So there were some things on there that we expected. But yes, the injury list just, initially, you get kind of that sticker shock. And when you see the list of players, it's like, okay, I know that name. And I know Drake Bowen. I know Kingston. I know Quincy Porter. I know Charles Jagger's all. I know Ash and Craig. So basically, we're just going to talk through what we learned. And then kind of what this means for the spring, because now it's going to pave the way for a lot of other players to kind of get a foothold on a rotation. It's going to be very interesting watching how that unfolds this year. Boy, will it. And there were some guys on that list that we were kind of hoping would get an opportunity to do some things this spring. So the way that they did it, they had a kind of broken down into two categories.

5:11One was limited in the spring and the other was out for the spring. So there were three linebackers on the limited this spring list. Drake Bowen, who had surgery on his hip to repair, just something he played with all year. There was a little bit of an issue he had all year that's getting cleaned up. He'll be doing drills and probably at some point time, be doing seven on seven, things like that, but he just won't be in any contact. Mad Ferreimo had a wrist injury that he had in high school and they performed a procedure on it this offseason to kind of clean it off. He'll be also non-contact this spring, but again, he'll go through drill seven on seven. Same thing with Kahanu Kea, they mentioned that it seemed like Kahanu, he said that he might be back in a couple weeks. So it sounds like Kahanu will at some point time be out there this spring. He said Tyler Merrill, again, another injury. That's what a lot of these injuries to the freshman were. He had a shoulder injury that he sustained in high school. I believe it was a, the surgery I also believe happened before he got to Notre Dame.

6:14I could be wrong on that one, but he'll be non-contact this spring. And then Anius Williams is in the offseason, the elbow injury that he had fall camp. There's ligament damage and they had to repair that in the offseason. So he will be in a non-contact situation as well, but he will do drills. He'll do seven on seven things like that. Also mentioned that Leonard Moore hurt his ankle during spring break. So he'll like just be somewhat moderately limited the first week of spring ball. Jayden Greathouse, like a minor little, minor little thing to his hamstring the other day. They said it seems like it's minor. Actually, Trevor, I told you about this last night. I was told that this was a minor thing. It's not something like he went through during the fall. It's a different type of deal. He should be fine. But be a little bit limited early on. Christopher Tarrick's going to be a little bit limited. And then a list of guys are out for the spring. You had, Kedron Young is still coming back. He did have some good things to say about Kedron.

7:16He said that that I'm trying to pull it up. He said that he's doing great. He's in month seven of the six to eight month rehab. He's a bigger-bodied guy. So not surprised they're taking a long. Really good progression. They said his strength looks good. He should be full-go for the summer. Jamie and Osborne had a wrist injury at running back that they had to do surgery on. He's going to be out in the spring. But again, he said he should be good to go this summer. He said he's on a 10-to-week recovery schedule and should be good for the summer. At White receiver, we know about Quincy Porter. He said he should be cleared for the summer. He said they said it was a patella injury. So we finally got some clarity on what that was. And then Braden Robinson suffered an ACL injury in high school at the end of his season. So he's coming back from that. Then on the offensive line, Ashton Craig is, we knew about that when we knew about Charles Jagassal. Defensive line. There was only two.

8:17Tiki Hola, who again, ACL injury in high school. And then Gordy Solstead is coming back from a shoulder surgery. We knew about Kingston. He said that Jacobi Clapper is going to be out for the spring with a high school injury. And then on the back end, Kari Adams had a shoulder surgery recently that'll keep him out. What he said about Kari, it sounded like they knew about it. But one of them to go through the Strength and Dition program, I'm not sure why. I'm not questioning why. I'm saying he didn't necessarily explain that. My guess would be is, it wasn't something that required an immediate surgery. And maybe they wanted to build up some of the muscle around it first. I'm not quite sure why. That's a guess, a speculation. But he said he'll be back. He should be back in the summer. And then with Kingston, he said, he's doing, he said, and I quote, really, really well, said he's in perfect position for where he should be right now. Said he should be active over the summer. And possibly cleared early fall, maybe, maybe even training camp.

9:19So it just depends on how the recovery goes. The big one Trev was the Jagassal news. He had a very lengthy explanation of what happened there. I don't know if you guys had a chance to hear that or not. No, from all the things that were being live tweeted out about it. And from what I've gathered, it was a lot of bumpy road. And yeah, so basically, here's what I wrote. And I wasn't sure when they cut out of the stuff with Rob Hunt. But basically, here's kind of it. Okay, he said on Jagassal, he said he said a bumpy road. He said four surgeries so far. And he's having a fifth today. He said there was the initial surgery. And then he said there was an expected surgery like a couple weeks later to just like to repair the skin damage. And then he said basically, they had to create like some hardware to help repair the bone. And he said that that initial one didn't take. And they had to do that again in January. They'd like clean that up in January,

10:20which had been kind of hinted about from places. And that didn't take. And then they found out there was an infection. What he explained is there was an infection that they did not know about. And they believed that is why his bone wasn't rehealing properly because of the infection. So another surgery, I think the fourth surgery was going back in there and getting rid of that. And that that should allow them to, and that surgery is now clear. The infections are now cleared. They're going to go in today, put in a new piece of hardware that hopefully facilitates bone growth and bone healing, I should say. And he said that he'll need more time. He said that they're optimistic he'll return, but now he said his timeline is undetermined. And they need to see the bone heal first, which again, this can't happen until the final, the fifth surgery happens, which is today. He sounded, he said a lot of very optimistic things,

11:20but it also seemed like it was more of an encouraging optimism as opposed to, oh no, he's going to be fine. We just got to get the stuff cleaned up and no big deal. Like I do think it's fair after today to say that his future is trying to think the way to say this. His future is murky based on what they said today. And he's optimistic and he said, you know, I don't want everyone to tell someone that they can't do this, this and this. So, you know, but there's so much unknown with this because they don't even, I mean, there's no guarantee that this hardware, as he called it, is going to take the last two didn't work. One because, you know, and that's not abnormal. My wife had a bone graph had to get put into her mouth and they explain to like, sometimes your body can just reject it. And then you got to go do it again with a different one.

12:21It's just that that's not abnormal. And then the second time it was more due to an infection. So, I mean, there's reasons why that can, you know, I could spend this in a positive way, but it was not a positive sounding explanation. But he did say we do think he'll be back. We do think he'll be able to play again. So, again, I have my doubts about that. But, um, yeah, yeah. So, you hope, you hope for the kid. And you hope now it's not even about what, you know, this overall ceiling of Notre Dame's offensive line with Jagasson, you just want him to be healthy. That's really the conversation that it sounds like that's my takeaway of what Rob Hunt was kind of getting at. We can talk about what their offensive line would look like with Jags and Kirby Lambert lined up next to each other. But we've got to make sure that health is the number one priority. And it sounds like they're on the road to get in that done.

13:22And you hope to see him back on in pads at some point. But, yeah, I think Merke is the correct word for that. I'm at the point now, Trev, where I just want to know that Charles Jagasson is going to have a normal arm again. Yeah. For him, you know, when he goes into the real world and he's a dad and he's going to be able to play catch with his kids and pick up his kids. And like, that's what I care about right now. If the football piece happens down the road, awesome. At this point in time, I just want the kid to be able to heal. And we'll see, we'll see. But I'll just tell you guys from here on out, we at Irish Breakdown are just at least this show. I don't tell Sean and Vince and Jesse what to say. But on our show, we're just not going to talk a lot about Charles Jagasson moving forward. Because he just said the timeline's uncertain. So we're going to talk about what we know. And if he ever comes back again and he gets a chance to play again,

14:23I'm not saying he's not going to play again, folks. Please don't take me as saying that. I'm not taking what Rob Hunt said. Yeah, he said that, but I'm just telling you based on what he said, you know, uncertain timeline. They need to see the bone, you know, see the bone heal. This is today was his fifth surgery on the elbow. I'm just like, look, with that being the reality, we don't know when or if he's going to play again. So because of that, there's just not a lot to say right now. And so he won't be part of this spring. So, you know, that's the conversation we're going to have now. So we're going to focus on some of the other guys that are there first. And again, I don't, you know, somebody said that the accident was worse than I had originally thought. Perhaps, but I mean, it was considered pretty bad. It was a compound fracture. I mean, it was pretty bad at the time. I think there's just a surprise that it's taken so many different surgeries to heal.

15:24So injury-wise, Trev, obviously, that's a lot. Linebacker is going to be very thin. This spring, no direct bone, no mad framer, no kahano key, or least kahano key is going to be, you know, very limited early. So right now to start spring practice, there's five scholarship linebackers. Marcus Freeman did say like, look, we go against our office. They play 11 personnel. We're not going to be in a lot of three linebackers since when they go 12 personnel, you know, we may only just go two teams because they're going to have least six linebackers. They've got five scholarship linebackers, healthy. Jaden Osbury, Jalen Sneed, Teddy Rizak, co-okia, and Thomas Davis Jr. Plus, I think one of the Paulus kids is still on the team, I believe. Tommy's still on the team. So that gives them six linebackers. They can get, you know, if they want to have a 12 personnel day, they can do that. They'll just have two teams, you know, first team, second team.

16:27Running back is interesting to trev, because no, in the limited in ES, no key drain, no jabian Osborne. That means we're going to get to see a lot of Nolan James Jr. and Jonas Walton. They also added two walk-ons to the roster just to get through practice. That's not me saying that. That's exactly what Marcus Freeman said. We had to add guys just to get through practice. Somebody had said on the board, and I hadn't seen this reported, and Freeman didn't say it, that Cornie Southall had been moved to, or Xavier Southall, sorry, Cornie's is dead. Xavier Southall is going to get moved to running back. I hadn't heard that. He's, I don't have to look into that, but the one thing we've said all along Trev is with this running back room, you don't want to miss time and give somebody else a chance. The other three running backs, the unfortunate circumstances for them is they're giving Nolan James Jr. and Jonas Walton a lot of chances to go out there and show themselves. That's going to make for an interesting spring, as we kind of think about that.

17:29Oh, it is. I mean, it's spring, and the offseason is when projection starts turning into production and potential. That's going to be the biggest part of this. As a coach, you want to evaluate based on what you know. And there's some things that you're going to have to project with certain guys, with Xavier and Osborne being completely out for the spring, with Nia's Williams playing in a limited role with Kedren Young being out this spring. You might be able to go based on things that you believe are going to happen, but it's a little bit different when you can sit there and say, well, I just watch Nolan James do this. Well, I just watch Jonas Walton do this. So it's going to be very interesting to see how that goes. Now, with that being said, there's no starting line up in the country that gets solidified after April 25th. Not awesome. Summer. Right. Yeah, not when there's like closeness, like, okay, we know who siege. We know it's turning quarterbacks on a B. Yeah. Trebs point like the all 22. And Treb, you may think to back up your point. You may think, okay, I've had this happen before. You go into fall camp thinking, this is our first team. And somebody just not just dude, he's going crazy.

18:32And he shifts things up. So even if they thought, okay, these two guys are now our one and two. The way they played this spring. Well, then we got in the fall. And Nes is balling out or Keydren's balling out or Javian's all in out. And that can always change. But like you said, you're going to get to see Nolan James Jr. and and Keydren young get to do this. And look, I don't know what it's going to look like. But I think this could have a bit of an impact on what we see in the spring game too. Like how the spring spring game is formatted as well. They're going to have a million wide receivers. And not a lot of running backs. There was nobody at the tight end position on the the questionable, you know, the injury list. That was good. So hey, coach Dembrock. Time for you to work on your 10 personnel, baby. Hey, you know what I mean? Hey, coach Ash, we're going to work on some dime packages today because we got a lot of D Lyman healthy, a lot of O Lyman healthy, a lot of receivers and tight ends healthy.

19:32All of our quarterbacks are healthy so far. So let's rock and roll there, Trev. But any other thoughts on some of the the injury stuff? Obviously, I was really hoping Madden Frame I was going to be able to practice the spring with with because I so I told Trev that that I did know that Drake was going to be out. I did know about his hip thing. But obviously didn't we don't we don't report things that I be on injuries. I've told people that. But that's why we were really looking to see Madden this spring. And then he's on the list and you're like, oh man, no contact list. That was a bit of a bummer. Very much so. Yeah, it's interesting when you look at the overall injury list because a lot of the guys that we would have talked about of, okay, so you know, player A is hurt. So you better watch out for player B. There's a lot of player B's and a lot of player C's on this list as well. So very interested to see not look. That being said, I don't think Drake Bone is at risk of losing his spot as captain and starting middle linebacker on the team. But there's some other players on this list that, you know, we were talking about before like, hey, this is an opportunity for Madden Frameau to kind of take

20:35the reins and take number one reps at Mike with bow and being limited and with Kingston being out. But now almost all of your backers coming back outside of one Kahanu Kiya comes back. And I guess Thomas Davis Jr. are all wills. You get Jaden Osbury. You get Jalen's need to get Teddy Rizaki of Cole Kiya. So it's a really interesting mix. I'm curious who's going to get the number one reps at Mike. I would love to see Jaden Osbury cross train there a little bit this spring. We'd love to see that. But the other thing too, Trevor, about it is the reason I wanted to see Madden is because I do believe Madden is the heir apparent at Mike when Drake's gone. I just, I think that that's a good chance to happen with Kingston playing, you know, will and depending on how some other things happen. But like, so it's a missed opportunity for development for him to some degree. But again, he's no contact. He's not going to be on the sideline or on the bike all practice. It's more so about, you know, seeing him out there in the team.

21:36He won't be doing team run. He won't be doing inside run. From the sound of it, it sounds like there's a lot of other things he'll be able to do. He just won't be like on the sled and things like that. So it's a disappointment. Disappointed. We won't see Cari Adams this spring as well. No, that was a that was a that was a bummer. I don't see that one, but, uh, but overall travel like it's a long list. And when you see it all at once, it's kind of shocking. But it's not completely abnormal for spring. I think what makes it abnormal is that two positions were hit especially hard. I think that's what makes it. I mean, you have two of 15 receivers are on there. You know, like, what two of 20 DBs, like two of 20 D linemen, two of 20 offensive linemen. It's just running back and lying back or just seem to be especially, especially hit hard by it. The maps app that came with your phone, it's fine. If you enjoy waiting and guessing and inefficient routes,

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25:42Oh yeah, and I think back to last year when the initial spring list got released. And you know, it was, you know, Ashton Craig, Out Anthony Napp, Limited, Emil Wagner, Limited, you know, Billy Shrouth, Limited. Malachite Fields wasn't on campus yet. And so it's, the list always things out once you get into fall camp, when that initial availability report gets released at the end of July. A couple days before fall camp starts. So like I said, it's a sticker shock that stinks, because there's definitely some players that I was looking forward to seeing on Friday, and then watching them progress throughout the spring. But, you know, it is what it is. But one thing that we do know, and one thing that Marcus Freeman touched on, it was actually one of the questions that you had asked about was, what is now the benefit of it becoming a longer offseason? Yeah. Because there is a major dichotomy in the two things that they're going through. You know, going into 2025, it was very abbreviated. Yeah. And now this year, they had even more time, because this was the first time in Marcus Freeman's tenure that they just didn't partake in the postseason.

26:45Yeah. Two, they played in the bowl game, 23, obviously, and then 24, they were in the playoffs. Yeah. Um, so I tried to be as non-controversial as possible with my question, and he was like, oh, there was no situation. Like, okay, I'm trying to, I'm trying to move past. But the question was about, because I haven't heard this from some of my sources, is about how far ahead they are because of they're getting a full offseason. And the thing that Coach Freeman had noted is like, you know, we would always kind of feel like in the past, like, no, it's still good because we're getting all the extra practice time and all the other kind of stuff. But he talked about how, how, um, this is different because it's like, it's this team, that extra practice time is a lot of extra practice time also for guys who won't be there in January. So like in 2024, for example, Notre Dame was done on, on January 20th.

27:45Well, there's going to be a week off of getting home, getting the veterans, you know, you've got to do all that stuff, getting, you know, back in the class. And then you're probably getting ramped up like late January, early February, is when you're starting your initial winner product program. Well, then you have like a month and a half before spring ball starts. And, and now you're, you're getting all of January. You're, you're getting all your rest is happening in December. You're getting, you know, so you don't have those 15 practices, getting ready for even a bowl game like you did. I mean, the Oregon State bowl game in 2023. I mean, the season was over on, on December 29th. I mean, January 1st, season two, but like you were now, now's your rest period. Now's your recovery period. Well, their recovery period was all of December. And so, you know, I've talking to different people like the, the install on offense and defense is way ahead of where it was a year ago in these football schools. And, you know, so when they go back and kind of start those things over again,

28:49in spring ball, it's going to be a lot fresher because they've already gone through all those things and a lot of the drill work, where they were, you know, talking to them last year, they were just kind of just ramping up football school when spring ball started. And so, using that to their advantage was obviously a big thing. And then he had some interesting to say too in response to my second question, which was, because of the other unique thing about this season Trev is, they have way more new players than they've ever had, like at once. Like we've seen them add 30 some guys in an off season before. You know, 25 high school signies and eight or nine, seven, eight, nine portal kids. The difference, but then like of the 25, it'd be like 14 or 15 newcomers, you'd have your portal guys, you know, like you didn't have Malachi Fields last spring. You didn't have Bo Collins this spring before.

29:50You didn't have Rod Herd this spring before. You didn't have Ty Washington last year. You signed eight position players in your portal class. You signed 30 position players in your high school class. And no, hold on. It two quarterbacks, two running backs, five receivers, two tight ends, six offensive linemen actually. Yeah, 28 position players and then two kickers of the 28 position players, 25 of them, 24 of them are already on campus. Of the eight transfers, the position player transfers, seven of them, all but DJ McKinney are already on campus. So you just added over and enough or one of the the kicker from Purdue. Spencer Porat is also on campus. You have over 30 brand new players onto your roster, just like that. And like that, that can be like, you know, it's like, okay, you got like 50, 60 returners and 30 new guys, like, how's that going to go?

30:55And he said something that I never, I didn't think this was like something that they would do, but it makes a lot of sense. He says we started all the newcomers off differently at two groups, new guys, returners. And he said we had to evaluate where they all were. And as guys got acclimated and ready, they kind of move over to the with the main group. You know, this is training and conditioning and things like that. He goes and then, you know, some guys would be ready to move over in a week. Some guys needed three, four weeks. And now they're all a group. I thought that was very interesting. And it gives you some specialized time to get to know them. But also it takes a little pressure off of them because you don't, you're not asking, you know, Keon Keely or Rodney Dunham to be exactly where Bubacar Treyori is on day one of practice. And that was Coach Freeman's point. Once they're ready, okay, now we'll get you over there. So I thought that was very fascinating. So like that's kind of what January was a lot about was getting that stuff going.

31:57I thought that was very fascinating as well. And you could tell he seems very comfortable with the leadership of this team too. Almost like when I asked a question about the leadership, it's like, there's like a sigh of relief. Like, oh, yeah, we got good, good leadership. That's sort of how I took it anyway. Maybe I'll read a little bit too much into it. No, I took it the same way, man. I mean, look, this is a different situation than what Freeman's been in during his tenure. But the thing that gave me a lot of comfort is that there is a, there's an exact plan of how to get everybody acclimated because you have to look at it in terms of, we talk a lot of on the show about, hey, some of the older guys can't get too comfortable. They're going to be doing a lot of this, you know, looking at Joey O'Brien, looking at Milen Graham, looking at Quincy Porter, looking at Rodney Dunham and all the highly talented guys that they're bringing in. But it's a twofold conversation because you have to look on one hand. Yeah, that's how the current players on the roster look. But think about the incoming guys. They're walking into a room where they're like, oh, that's Bubba Cartray or even Bryce Young. So that's Drake Bowen, who that's Leonard Moore. Well, that's Jordan Faeson. They're leading receiver from last year.

32:58It was Jane Greathouse. I watched him torch the school that I just came from in the National Championship game. So I love the way that they're getting the new guys acclimated. And the other big thing that I appreciated about what he talked about was, you know, building the culture. When you have so many new guys that are surrounding and meshing now with the current players, somebody asked, you know, how do you relay that message of keeping the pain and all those certain things? And he's like, look, I think about it, we are all in a relationship now. This is a family, this is a brotherhood. So the things that happens to us now have also happened to you. Use the analogy of his wife talking about how, hey, you know, if my wife doesn't like somebody, you know, I can't go hang out with them. Which Brian, you're going to go on there now. Yeah, like Brian, you and I were talking about it. There's five years of being a head coach. That might be the realist thing. Trev says to me, because Trev's a married guy now, right? So Trev says to me when we're talking about this, he goes, yo, he goes, we know, I've always, you know, he's a pretty honest guy. But that's the realist thing he's ever said. 100%. Thanks, bro.

34:00Bro, absolutely correct. Absolutely correct. That was really in his face as he was like, look, because he's married to an Italian lady. I'm married to an Italian lady. So I completely get it, you know, like if she ain't like this, you don't like somebody. Sorry, bro, we can't be friends anymore. You know, I mean, like, I hate that. I hate to say it to you, but, uh, yeah, I thought that was pretty, uh, that was pretty funny, but it was a great analogy, though. Like, look, we need to make sure those new players understand what this meant for us, because you're part of the team that needs to respond to that. You know, he can't be like, well, I wasn't here, so it doesn't matter to me. I think that was absolutely spot on, absolutely spot on Trev. A couple of things that he talked about true, too, is one thing he said, and this kind of goes back to the question, I asked, he followed up later, but it relates to the question that I had asked about the extra time. And he said he's like, we're so far ahead

35:03in install and a lot of technical stuff. He's like, do we need to spend as much time on individual periods as we have in the past? Because we've done a whole lot of that in the football school that now we're in a position where we can do more team stuff, more, more seven, more team periods, more seven on seven, more inside run, more competition, because a lot of the individual install, the basics that they got to teach guys is already done. Now, they'll still be doing some individual stuff, but you know, said they're going to do a lot more of that, those type of things, which I think is great for spring. Because you are a veteran, you are a more veteran team, and you've been able to get the young guys and the new guys acclimated into some of that stuff during conditioning and some of your football schools. So I just, all things that continue to get you fired up about this team travel, but I thought just more football, like more, and when we say football, like drills are important, but it's not football.

36:06You know, it's not a game. It's not, it's preparing you, it's the building blocks to get you ready to go play football. And what he's saying is those building blocks have already been kind of put down. Now it's like, okay, now we're going to go do more stuff that's built around playing football. I thought that was great to hear. Yeah, absolutely. He alluded to, I didn't even alluded to. He talked about how one of their biggest goals in the mantra of challenge everything and finding different and better ways to do things, said one of the biggest goals of the offseason is figuring out how to start faster earlier in the season. That's something that Brian and I have both been talking about for months. I mean, really dating back to last year. We talked about you're not going to have a faster start than on the road against Miami by week home against Texas A&M at night. Now this year, the outlook is a little bit different starting against Wisconsin. And then you follow that up six days later with a home game against Rice. But the point still stands that Notre Dame is going to be in contention for a national championship. Right now, there's still third best odds to win the national championship on Pandora. But if those things want to stick

37:07and Notre Dame wants to reach their true potential, they have to find out how to start their season quicker. Maybe this is one of those recipes for like, okay, now throughout the spring, we don't have to worry about, you know, installation and making that foundation and setting the foundation for when we get into ball camp, we really ramp it up. Now it's hey, we can ramp it up now. And we really start getting into football specific things. 11 on 11, 7 on 7, inside run, more team oriented drills. Then he also at the end of his press conference talked about how one of the adjustments they're going to make is now because of the foundation, they're going to have certain periods where the offense is allowed to dictate what they see from the defense and then vice versa. That's another big piece that goes into this as well. Could be a sign pointing to they might be able to start the season faster. Now what that means just so we're clear because so like, the offense is going to say, hey, we're going to work on this today and the defense you're going to have to prepare to play with it.

38:09And in other days, where the defense is going to say, hey, these are the things we want to focus on and offense, we need you to kind of, you know, give us that look today and focus on those things today. So Mike Dembrock may say, hey, look today, man, we're going to go 11 personnel, we're going to go tempo. So brace yourself, you know, whatever. You know what I mean? So like, be prepared for it, dictate it. This is what we're going to do. And yeah, that'll be good. That'll be good. He also did note Trev that Dallas Golden and Christian Gray will be playing Nickel this spring as well Dallas Golden. We expected that. We've talked about that on the show before, but now it's confirmed. But he also confirmed what we had kind of said or we felt Trev, which was, I don't know if we said it, but I'm pretty sure I wrote about it, but there will be some cross training between the two of them. They won't just be playing Nickel. I do think that's going to be their primary emphasis, but he said they will also get some opportunities play outside as well as they look to say,

39:11because there's a world in which your three best corners are Leonard Moore, Christian Gray and Dallas Golden. And if Dallas Golden and Christian Gray are two of your top three guys, so I'm just going to move outside. Who will that be? Will it be Christian? Will it be Dallas? Obviously, we don't know the answer to that question, but that's why you don't just lock both of them in at Nickel only, but I do think Nickel in the spring will be where they'll get obviously a lot of their early work. Yeah, it confirmed a lot of what we had already speculated. It was nice to hear that from the top down of, yes, this is going to happen, because there was some question around, okay, we knew that was a plan under Mike Mickens, Aaron Henry talked about it during his press conference, so it was good to hear that from the top down. I have an article coming out tomorrow about a potential Dallas Golden breakout, what that would mean for Notre Dame. And to give you a little bit of a teaser to the article, in there, I basically talk about how Notre Dame right now with their Nickel position with Dallas Golden and Christian Gray, they're in a win-win scenario.

40:12Like there to the point where, okay, for the first time in Freemann's tenure, they have the opportunity to have a true rotation at Nickel. Because over the last couple of seasons, it's been dominated by Thomas Harper, Jordan Clark. Last year, there was a rotation due to injury, but not to give people breathers or to spell anybody. It was, the Montais Smith is hurt. Let's try out Carson Hobbs. Let's get Dallas Golden in there. Let's have Leonard Moore's shadow. It was a mess. But now this year, you have two very highly talented, very high ceiling guys. But the win-win is, if he doesn't work out there, you know what Christian Gray is at field. So at the worst case scenario, Dallas Golden breaks out. He's your starting Nickel, Christian Gray's field. And you have a great field rotation with DJ McKinney and Christian Gray with Dallas Golden holding down the Nickel spot. Or DJ McKinney is who we think that he is from the 2024 season. And you have a highly talented Nickel rotation in Christian Gray and Dallas Golden. So it's a win-win. It was nice to get clarity on that. That's for sure. Yeah, and a couple of, I mean, I shouldn't be.

41:14But I was a little surprised how many questions were asked about the backup quarterbacks. No questions about the receivers. No questions about the elite safety class. No questions about the D-line. No questions about the O-line. A bunch of questions about the number two received. No number two quarterback. I was a little caught off guard by that. And if I didn't know that, I would have tried to maybe ask one of those questions at the beginning, but I tried to ask two more big picture football conversations. So I was a little frustrated by that. But hopefully we'll get a chance to ask Mike Dembrock those questions on Friday. So, but yeah, it was a good press conference, Trev. It was an interesting press conference. On both ends. Exactly. Okay. Speak for yourself. But it was good. I appreciated Coach Landau. I appreciated Coach Hunt and obviously Coach Freeman. So, but I can say if you're a premium member of the message board, the things that we have been reporting about the offensive line, we do believe to be there.

42:14There is a big two big intel pieces that I've dropped this week about the team, talking to sources. I will actually put those intel pieces in the chat here. So for those of you that are listening live, and if you're not a member, this is, I'm telling you guys, this is the kind of stuff that it absolutely is worth, absolutely worth you being a member for. So there's, I felt some really good stuff in there about offensive side of the ball, defensive side of the ball. Had some very interesting stuff about the White receivers yesterday. Some very interesting stuff about the offensive line in really both of those, those things. So you're gonna wanna make sure that you're, you're a premium member. You can find the memberships at boardsatoursprachdown.com. We have annual memberships. We have monthly memberships. We also have booster club memberships. So if you're someone who says, I really wanna support IB, I wanna go above and beyond. You can put those in there as well. And if you join the Shamrock Club and the Blue Club,

43:17you get some merch. So you'll get, it's not, it's the smaller version of this. You can actually, somebody asked me, you can buy this if you want. But we have, it's a, the slightly smaller version of this and it says IB Club on it. You get that if you're a Blue Club or a Shamrock Club member. If you join the Gold Club, you not only get an IB Club mug, but you also get an IB Gold Club t-shirt as well in the color and size of your, that you prefer. So you can sign up for those at boardsatoursprachdown.com. I just put the two intel pieces in the chat. Lots of good intel on there. But we got almost every, I haven't had a lot of DB stuff yet, but quarterback intel, running back, receiver, tight ends, some really interesting tight end nuggets, really interesting ol' line nuggets, really interesting tight end receiver nuggets as well. So I definitely think it's something you're gonna wanna check out. And we'll have more throughout the spring. We'll have some recruiting stuff coming up here

44:18as soon as well. So definitely wanna check that stuff out of boards.oursprachdown.com. Booh, booh, booh, booh, booh, booh, booh! . . . . .

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