Notre Dame's Marcus Freeman Emerging As NFL’s Most Coveted Future Head Coach

The New York Giants were among the teams to do significant work assessing how interested Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman would be in joining their organization over the winter.

They were hardly alone and were prepared to move on him if he was sufficiently interested, according to league sources, as were other organizations. And there is an expectation in front offices around the NFL that this process will begin anew in November, in an even more robust manner, especially with Freeman yet to send an overt public signal that he isn’t open to giving the NFL a try.

Not Slamming The Door Shut

Freeman, during a recent appearance on a popular college football podcast (Josh Pate’s College Football Show), said, “I gained some valuable experience” from his NFL inquiries this past offseason and hardly slammed the door on pursuing it at some point, while offering no timelines.

The NFL coaching pipeline, which remains decidedly non-diverse in its nature both in terms of the ethnicity of the candidates and where they come from (the vast majority work with quarterbacks), was looking particularly thin in this last cycle, with several very young assistant coaches on the offensive side of the ball getting more attention than expected because the supply of more developed candidates was not meeting demand.

Freeman will stick out from the pack, invariably, even more after the 2026 season, no matter what kind of season Notre Dame has (barring absolute disaster). 

“He’s an incredibly impressive candidate,” is how one NFL exec, whose franchise explored Freeman, put it.

Freeman has proven to be a master at establishing a culture and being a CEO-type leader and overseeing both sides of the ball, building a staff, establishing boundaries and taking accountability. Scouts who visit his campus gush about his operation; he is producing pro-ready NFL prospects and expects him to be linked to even more teams next year. 

And, with Jets head coach Aaron Glenn among those considered to be on the hottest of seats, it would not be shocking for him to be a prime candidate.

Given their generational issues, building a winner is likely to be a tough sell.