Notre Dame's Marcus Freeman Reportedly Among Names PSU Could Target During HC Search

Penn State could try to poach Marcus Freeman from Notre Dame as the replacement for James Franklin, according to On3 Sports' Pete Nakos.

Freeman is in his fourth full season as the Fighting Irish's head coach. He has a 37-12 overall record and led the program to a runner-up finish in last year's College Football Playoff.

Penn State's coaching search is only a few days old, with Franklin getting the boot last Sunday. For now, it's largely a guessing game as to who will be standing on the sideline in 2026.

Freeman makes sense given his experience in a high-pressure situation. A native of Ohio, he also played at Ohio State before working as an assistant at OSU and Purdue, so he's familiar with the Big Ten and the Midwest region as a whole.

The first question is whether Freeman would be motivated enough to leave Notre Dame for Penn State.

The Nittany Lions wouldn't be a significant upgrade over his current situation, and some would consider it a lateral move at best. Penn State and Notre Dame largely operate within the same tier of the college football hierarchy.

The other question — and one that will linger throughout this process — is how much Freeman would be a change from what the Nittany Lions had with Franklin.

The Fighting Irish fanbase was getting restless following an upset to Northern Illinois last September. Freeman's job wasn't in imminent jeopardy, but people were starting to wonder whether he was truly the guy to build on the foundation Brian Kelly had laid.

The playoff run eased a lot of the pressure on Freeman, and that may have represented a turning point in his tenure. Granted, back-to-back defeats to Miami and Texas A&M, which came by four combined points, to open 2025 meant some of the old skepticism resurfaced.

Coaching hires are almost impossible to predict. Maybe Freeman is just the man to raise Penn State's ceiling. It's just as easy to see him basically being James Franklin 2.0 in Happy Valley.