History seems to be repeating itself when it comes to former Ohio State linebacker and current Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman. When first being elevated to head coach of one of the most storied programs in college football history last season, he made some comments about making a mistake by not picking the Fighting Irish as a player over OSU.
After some blowback from Buckeye faithful, he made sure to address the situation and make sure his love for Ohio State is still strong.
And now, this week, Freeman was criticized again after he seemed to take a shot at players’ need to attend in-person classes at Ohio State with the ability to just show up online. The message, of course, for a guy trying to sell the Notre Dame program to future recruits is that academics are taken more seriously in South Bend than in Columbus.
It did not hit well with Ohio State fans, media members, and former players.
But never fear, Freeman once again attempted to get his foot out of his mouth by calling into local radio on Tuesday to make claim that his comments were taken out of context by CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd.
“I wanted to set the record straight. I was misquoted by Dennis Dodd in this article, and key words were missing from the quote that upset a lot of people that I care about,” Freeman remarked on ‘97.1 The Fan’. “I’m very proud of my two degrees from Ohio State. I would never discredit the quality of education those degrees represent. I was just specifically really talking about the academic rigors of Notre Dame.”
So just how was Freeman misquoted? According to him, Dodd left out an important two-letter word, “if.”
The original quotes from Dodd appear as such:
“You don’t go to class [at places like that]?” Freeman said rhetorically. “OK, take some online classes, show up for your appointments. At Notre Dame, you’re forced every day to go to class.”
Freeman remarked that he said it was “If you don’t go to class?”
It may sound like semantics, but we can agree that does make a wee bit of a difference instead of starting it off with hey, “you don’t go to class.”
Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman says he was misquoted in comment about OSU academics https://t.co/6mVDXLSkGw
— Columbus Dispatch (@DispatchAlerts) June 15, 2022
Still, one has to wonder if Freeman isn’t too big for the job he has inherited. He has no head coaching experience and is all of a sudden in the fish bowl that is Notre Dame. He’s going to be quoted, followed, and studied like he never has before. He’s getting a quick lesson on throwing his former school under the bus for sake of his current position, whether intentional or not.
He’ll learn an even bigger lesson when he walks out of the tunnel onto the same field he used to play on when the date of September 3 rolls around. You can bet fans aren’t going to let him forget about his penchant to throw shade at Ohio State.
