{"id":703846,"date":"2026-05-30T07:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T07:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/703846\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T07:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T07:31:09","slug":"nfl-interest-in-marcus-freeman-to-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/703846\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Interest In Marcus Freeman To Continue"},"content":{"rendered":"

For two years now, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman has been a major name of interest for NFL teams looking to hire a new head coach. He saw early NFL interest two years ago but, ultimately, signed an extension<\/a> to stay with the Fighting Irish. According to Jason La Canfora on SportsBoom, Freeman has not slammed the door shut<\/a> on an NFL future.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Freeman rose quickly through the collegiate coaching ranks, starting as a graduate assistant at his alma mater a year after getting drafted out of Ohio State in the fifth round of the 2009 NFL Draft. He landed his first position coaching job the next year as the Kent State linebackers coach and found his way to the Power 5 two years later in the same position at Purdue. In his fourth season with the Boilermakers, Freeman was promoted to co-defensive coordinator, and a year later, he got his first full defensive coordinator role at Cincinnati.<\/p>\n

Freeman spent four years with the Bearcats, completely transforming the team\u2019s defense and finishing the 2020 season as a Broyles Award finalist as one of the NCAA\u2019s best assistant coaches. In 2021, he left Cincinnati for Notre Dame and was named head coach when Brian Kelly left the school to assume the same position at LSU. After losing the team\u2019s bowl game in his first head coaching appearance, Freeman saw the team\u2019s record improve each year under his leadership going 9-4 in 2022, 10-3 in 2023, 14-2 with a loss in the College Football Playoff National Championship game in 2024, and 10-2 as they just missed out on the CFP last year.<\/p>\n

Even before nearly winning a national championship in only his third full year in any sort of head coaching role, Freeman had already become an immediate name to watch<\/a> in NFL circles. In 2024, he was named a dark horse candidate<\/a> for the Bears job, which ultimately went to Ben Johnson after Freeman signed what is believed to have been a four-year extension to stay at Notre Dame. In 2025, he was a popularly rumored name with the Giants<\/a>, Titans<\/a>, and Steelers<\/a>, but once again, he announced his intentions to remain<\/a> with the Fighting Irish.<\/p>\n

According to La Canfora, Freeman claimed to have \u201cgained some valuable experience\u201d from his most recent cycle of NFL inquiries, and though he didn\u2019t offer any kind of timeline, Freeman didn\u2019t seem to shut the door on eventually taking that next step to the NFL. As a young, fast-rising, defensive-minded coach, Freeman is expected to receive no shortage of NFL interest in the coming years. When head coaching vacancies inevitably appear near the end of the 2026 season, look for Freeman\u2019s name to come up, once again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For two years now, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman has been a major name of interest for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,189356,593,85],"class_list":["post-703846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-marcus-freeman","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}