The more things change in college football, the more things stay the same.
That is certainly true about how Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman views recruiting during the new NIL age of the sport.
"At the end of the day it’s going to come down to relationships and that is more important than anything. Can you get this young person and his family to trust you and your football program to lead their son for four years." Freeman said during a recent appearance on Barstool Sports’ "Pardon My Take."
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"Because you can try and sell as much on a visit and say let’s get him to commit right now, not many guys are going to do that on that moment. So, can you continue to double down and continue to develop relationships with that kid so at the end of the day they are like ‘you know what, this is where I want to be.’"
The 38-year-old knows that relationship building with a recruit does not stop once the pen hits paper.
"Even after they commit, you have to keep doing it because everybody else is still recruiting him. Everybody else is still trying to get that kid to come visit their place, so you have to continuously recruit and develop relationships with that person until he gets here on campus."
Part of why Freeman still believes that relationship building is the most important part of recruiting is because his oldest son is going through the process right now.
"I’m actually going through it right now with my oldest son, and he has gone on a couple official visits for wrestling, and I remember him coming home last night. He got home from a visit last night. He was like ‘Man, I really liked it, this was a great school,’ and I’m like ‘What about the official visit you took two weeks ago?’"
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"He was like ‘Yeah, that was good too,’ but at the end of the day, I was like, young people can be persuaded in a moment, but who is going to continue to develop relationships and pour into you after the visit. That's when I was like, you know what it's still about relationships."
Freeman said his coaching style has not changed due to the threat of players leaving in the transfer portal due to NIL offers from other schools.
"If there’s times you need to be corrected or coached hard, we’re going to do that. That’s a part of trying to get the best out of you and what I’m hoping is that the relationships we build in recruiting, the relationships will continuously build here, helps you understand that coach cares about me, and so he’s getting on me. That’s why we’re doing it."
"When you just get on people and yell and scream, and you don’t have a relationship with them, and you don’t tell them why, yeah they’re going to say man this dude is nuts, I don’t want to play for him, I’m ready to move on somewhere else."
"But if you can continue to tell them why, have a relationship with them, but be authentic and coach them hard and coach others around him hard, I think they’ll truly respect that and that’s the way this program does it."
The Fighting Irish went 10-3 last season, capped off by a 40-8 victory over the Oregon State Beavers in the Sun Bowl. Notre Dame made the College Football Playoff twice under former head coach Brian Kelly but has yet to do so under Freeman.
The Fighting Irish open the season as the seventh ranked team in the country and begin their quest for the Playoffs on Aug. 31 when they travel to Kyle Field to take on the twentieth ranked Texas A&M Aggies.
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