Evaluating Marcus Freeman's Game Management and Decision Making
Small changes could lead to big results
If you follow my Twitter account you know I’ve been critical of the 4th down decision making under Marcus Freeman. He seems to be a very conservative coach and, from the eye of the observer, doesn’t seem to have a process in place to help him decide when to go for it or not.
I wanted to dedicate an article to exploring this topic, and I’ll also talk through his comments about wanting Audric Estime to take a knee at the 1-yard line on the game-winning touchdown vs. Duke.
Is Freeman really conservative? What situations does he seem to choose the sub-optimal path? Let’s dive in.
Not All 4th Downs are Created Equal
The first thing to understand is that not all 4th downs are created equal. “Analytics” don’t tell you to go for it on every 4th down and throw the ball on every play, despite what some bad faith arguments on the internet might tell you.
Rather, there are certain situations that with the help of a fine-tuned and accurate model can help us identify opportunities where coaches and teams would, on average, significantly increase their chances of winning by going for it.
Emphasis on the “on average”. Similar to Freeman himself, I am in the business of judging teams and coaches by process not results. When a model recommends a team go for it, it’s not because it knows a team will convert that specific play. But the expected value based on the probability of converting is worth the risk of failing.
To put that in English, there’s a good enough chance of converting to make the potential reward worth the risk.
A 4th & 5 from midfield in the 1st quarter down 7 will be less influential than one in the final minute.
With that knowledge, let’s look at Freeman’s decision making in these different situations.
In a small sample (10 total plays) Freeman has made the correct decision on all no-brainer 4th downs. Think the 4th & 16 play vs. Duke as an example, where you don’t need a model to tell you that you should go for it. That should be a requirement to be a head coach but still good to see.
In the “Probably” situations (1-4% gain in win probability) he’s been right around FBS average. However, this is only on a 10 play sample and we shouldn’t be overly confident that Freeman won’t turn out to be conservative in these situations with more plays. What’s puzzling is that for a program that wants to be run-heavy and really believes in their run offense they haven’t really demonstrated it. The average yards to go on these plays is 1.8 and when they have gone for it they are 3 for 5.
However, what’s probably most concerning are these “Toss-Up” situations, where the gain in win probability is less than 1%. Since 2022, Notre Dame has only gone for it on 18.8% of the time in these situations, which ranks 124th in the FBS and 65th (out of 69) Power 5 teams.
The bone to pick is not that the Irish don’t go for it all of the time here. With a win probability gain of less than 1%, that’s well within the margin of error for the model and the coaching staff may know something the model doesn’t that would make kicking the smart decision. Notre Dame’s lost 0.6% win probability per game in these situations which is not much.
But consistently choosing to kick in these situations, well below the FBS average, speaks to a conservative mindset which is all the more puzzling with their offensive philosophy that believes it can win the trenches.
Here are a few situations from the Duke game where he chose to kick.
Q1, 2:19 remaining, ND 7 Duke 0: 4th & 9 from the Duke 40
28 yard punt
Q2, 6:40 remaining, ND 10 Duke 0: 4th & 5 from the Duke 19
Missed 37 yard field goal
Q4, 13:52 remaining, ND 13 Duke 7: 4th & 3 from the Duke 43
23 yard punt for a touchback
I don’t know how you feel but looking at that makes me sick. The gain in win probability in the grand scheme of things is small. But it’s easy to point to these situations as turning points in the game that allowed Duke to almost walk away with the win.
Let’s start with the first one. If you’re punting from plus territory with Sam Hartman as your quarterback, there should be at least more than 10 yards to go.
But following that up by passing up on an opportunity to try and score a touchdown and put a lot of pressure on a Duke offense that hadn’t moved the ball well is…a choice. And to make that decision with a struggling kicker is another choice.
Finally, punting on 4th & 3 in a one possession game from plus territory just can’t happen. Not with Sam Hartman as your quarterback, no matter how many receivers you’re down.
If Notre Dame had gone for just one of these 4th downs and converted, they might not have needed a miraculous drive at the end. But by passing up these opportunities they had to go for it on 4th & 16 (!), and thanks to, *checks notes*, oh yeah that Sam Hartman guy, they were able to win.
The downside of not converting on 4th downs in these situations is not game-changing either. For starters, all three of these situations came in Duke territory and if you don’t convert it’s not a guarantee Duke automatically will get points. It’s not like this is a crazy analytics idea where we’re asking Freeman to go for it inside his own 30-yard line. And just take a look at the ensuing drive after the missed field goal. Duke’s only yardage on that drive was from an offsides penalty on 3rd & 10 and they punted after failing on 3rd & 5.
Many football coaches and media members fixate on the 4th down misses that really hurt and not the ones that succeeded. Take a look at the Browns vs. Chargers game from a couple years ago and the flack that Brandon Staley got for the final 4th down attempt. A lot of people who criticized him either forgot or didn’t realize the only reason they were in the game was because they were successful on 4th downs throughout the game.
Notre Dame doesn’t need to go for it on 4th down every time the model says to. That’s not what I’m asking for and nobody should be asking for it. But by passing up on so many 4th down opportunities where there is a mathematical upside to going for it, they will continue to put themselves in a position to have to convert an even longer 4th down later in the game when facing good teams.
That has to change or they will get burned.
Analyzing the Game-Winning Drive
The drive itself was a testament to the players and making big plays in a big moment. However, after watching the video Notre Dame posted and listening to Freeman’s comments we should have concerns about their thought process.
It’s clear that once Hartman converted the 4th & 16 he was trying to set up a long-range field goal attempt immediately and not gain any yardage, which is problematic.
One, Spencer Shrader has struggled, we don’t need to go over that right now.
But two, the probability of making the kick changes drastically with every yard gained. And with a timeout and over 30 seconds in hand, Notre Dame should have been (safely) trying to gain more yardage and increase the probability of making the kick.
If you go back and watch Audric Estime’s touchdown, they weren’t even trying to gain yards. If you don’t believe me, watch Rico Flores and Chris Tyree at the bottom of the screen. They aren’t blocking when the play begins because the intention of the play was to center the ball, not gain yards. When Estime cuts back, you can see Tyree spring into action and actually try and help create a hole for Estime. He went rogue, the coaches wanted a field goal and were fine with a 50-60% chance of making the kick.
Now let’s talk about Freeman wanting Estime to take a knee at the 1. By the time Estime reaches the 1-yard line, there are about 32 seconds left on the clock. Duke has all 3 timeouts but would definitely call one here. With a kneel down and a play centering the ball, there would probably be about 25 seconds left before 3rd down and Notre Dame would have a timeout in hand. Taking a knee would take it down to about 2-3 second before Freeman would call a timeout, and even Shrader and his struggles would almost assuredly make the kick with Duke not having an opportunity to respond.
This is actually a really good thought process from Freeman, despite what some other members of the Notre Dame media might be saying. If you can end the game with a >95% chance of winning and Duke not getting the ball back, sign me up.
But in my mind that’s offset by him wanting to kick a 45+ yard field goal to win the game.
None of this is to say Freeman can’t improve in this area. But I don’t believe Notre Dame has any analytics staffers, and because of that don’t have any resources dedicated to game strategy/management.
College coaches have so much more on their plate than their NFL counterparts with recruiting responsibilities and also any school/administrative obligations. It’s not a surprise that game-management might fall by the wayside.
Without staff members dedicated to developing game plans and coaching the coaches through different situations so they’re prepared come game-time, it’s going to take longer to intuitively get to an average level.