I always enjoy your posts @Frankus
I’ll have to disagree with a few things as I think they are a little disingenuous. Call these excuses or whatever. But I do think Freeman has been a dealt a bad hand in some regards.
For instance, last year Freeman had Pyne(which I just met recently) and Buchner as qb’s. We can blame him for not diving in the portal for one but hind sight is 20/20. Also looking back. Who was good? That portal class for qbs really stunk. Freeman learned from that mistake and went and got one of the most decorated qbs in college history. He just hasn’t gotten the job done.
This year…look at the state of the receiving class. ND is now starting a walk-on lacrosse player. A true freshman in Flores. Greathouse, another frosh, has started and got meaningful snaps, and then a litany of injuries including your best receiver who is a tightend in Evans.
Blame that on whoever but it’s not like ND didn’t try the portal there. Smith the VT guy just up and retired after committing. So their is that.
Then who schedules 4 straight prime time games against top 25 competition. I’d love to see Saban and Bama do that. I doubt they have ever in his tenure there. That type of scheduling is insane for anyone. Let alone a first time coach and ND.
People can complain about Rees all they want but at least he was established. Rees leaving last second gave Freeman zero chance to hire a big time OC. He tried, something f’d that up. So he had to hire within. We’ll see what Freeman does in the off-season to negate this problem.
Now after defending Freeman I will say he isn’t without faults. Play clock management has been an issue. Going for it and controlling g the refs is another issue. On that note, does anyone else find it weird that the other teams ND plays are hardly getting flagged. It’s like this every game. Not even a hold or illegal procedure? I’m not a conspiracy theorist but something is definitely happening here. I don’t remember Clemson even having a flag until the second half. Really?
Anyways, I’m willing to give him a leash for the time being. I’m not seeing Fuastian type losses by Freeman that looks like the team has zero clue on what they are doing.