How Marcus Freeman, Notre Dame Spent Christmas Before Georgia Showdown

Ahead of his team’s Sugar Bowl showdown against Georgia, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman required his players, staff and their families to spend the holidays as a unit. 

“It’s an honor, it’s a privilege to be able to celebrate Christmas together with your football program, with your football family and to be practicing for a College Football Playoff game,” Freeman, 38, told reporters this week. 

Notre Dame is getting set to face Georgia on Wednesday, January 1, 2025 in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. Freeman and his squad defeated Indiana 27-17 on Friday, December 20 to advance to the game. 

“There’s a lot of college football teams that would want to do that,” Freeman continued. “We gotta make sure we understand that. Our guys do. None of those guys are thinking about going home — at least they won’t tell me if they are.”

Freeman concluded, “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

The winner of the Notre Dame-Georgia game will advance to the Orange Bowl on January 9 in Miami Gardens, Florida against the winner of Penn State-Boise State, which takes place on Tuesday, December 31. 

Freeman and Notre Dame will face a Georgia team without the team’s usual starting quarterback, Carson Beck, who is out for the remainder of the playoffs with an elbow injury. In his place, Georgia will rely on sophomore quarterback Gunner Stockton. 

Despite the change, Freeman said his team’s preparations have not wavered. 

“You look at the 13 games they played,” Freeman said Tuesday, December 24 on FS1’s The Herd with Colin Cowherd. “They won’t be a completely different offense with a new quarterback. 

Freeman added, “There’s some things [Stockton] does well within their system. He makes really good decisions. He makes fast decisions. He obviously can extend plays with his feet — a little more QB run. But we’re still going to plan to see the things that we’ve seen their offense do, no matter who’s been at quarterback.”

Notre Dame has won 11 games in a row since their shocking loss at home to unranked Northern Illinois on September 7. In retrospect, Freeman said the defeat taught him a lot about his team. 

“Well, immediately after the game, you tell them, ‘I’ve been here before,’” Freeman recalled on The Herd. “I told them, ‘Listen, it will be a rough week. It will be a long week, but I’ve been here before.’”

Freeman added, “All season long, I’ve continued to tell them, ‘Keep the pain, keep the pain,’ because we can’t let a loss continue to teach us the lessons we need to learn to prepare. So they’ve done a wonderful job of continuing to find ways to get better, but the preparation and mindset have been the key.”

The Sugar Bowl between Notre Dame and Georgia kicks off Wednesday, January 1 at 8:45 pm ET on ESPN.