SOUTH BEND — Saturday’s game at Ross-Ade Stadium will mark No. 19 Notre Dame football’s first visit to Purdue in exactly 11 years.
Trailing 17-10 entering the fourth quarter, Tommy Rees threw a pair of touchdown passes to Davaris Daniels and Bennett Jackson added a pick six as the 21st-ranked Irish rode that 3 ½-minute blitz to claim a 31-24 win.
Across the way that night was a 27-year-old linebackers coach named Marcus Freeman. Having followed coaching mentor Darrell Hazell to West Lafayette, Ind., after two years on his staff at Kent State, Freeman was about to endure the worst four-year stretch in Boilermakers history.
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Hazell was fired midway through the 2016 season, Freeman’s first with the title of co-defensive coordinator, and Gerad Parker went 0-6 in the interim role to complete a 9-39 (.188) nightmare that included a 3-30 mark against the Big Ten.
Former Notre Dame baseball pitcher Mike Bobinski, who replaced the late Morgan Burke as Purdue’s athletic director in mid-August of 2016, made the decision to elevate Parker — now head coach at Troy after two years on Freeman’s staff at Notre Dame.
The only conference wins for Purdue in that four-year span came at Illinois (2014 and 2016) and at home against Nebraska (a 55-45 shootout in 2015).
“Learned a lot of things about how to have success from there,” Freeman said Thursday. “Even though we didn’t have a whole bunch of wins in terms of our overall win-loss record there, did learn some things, valuable lessons, in terms of what I believe maybe it took to win.”
After going 16-10 with the Golden Flashes, where Freeman also coached linebackers, the Purdue experience was enough to test the resolve of the sunniest optimist. Nearly half of Hazell’s wins at Purdue came against FCS foes: Indiana State (twice), Southern Illinois and Eastern Kentucky.
Purdue, which lost 30-14 to Everett Golson and No. 11 Notre Dame in a 2014 meeting at Lucas Oil Stadium, went 1-3 against MAC foes during the Hazell years. That included a 55-24 loss to Northern Illinois in 2013, which also dealt Kent State losses the previous two years (by scores of 44-37 and 40-10).
In addition, Purdue’s 2015 season opened with a 41-31 loss at Marshall.
Those two mid-majors, Northern Illinois and Marshall, have dealt Freeman his two most stunning defeats through 29 games at the helm for the Irish.
“Sometimes you have to go through those defeats and those tough times to figure out what it takes to have success,” Freeman said of his Purdue years. “I think I learned a lot about that. I thought Coach Hazell, our head coach, was a great leader. I thought we had a good culture there. It just didn’t amount to the wins for multiple different reasons.”
Annual struggles during Marcus Freeman’s Purdue years
Former Notre Dame linebacker Greg Hudson ran the Purdue defense from 2013-15 before spending 2016 at his alma mater as a defensive analyst. Ross Els, who coached high school football in Lincoln, Neb., for the 2015 season, was hired as defensive coordinator in Hazell’s final season.
Els has coached special teams and linebackers at Michigan State since 2020.
From 2013-16, Purdue ranked between 99th and 117th nationally in scoring defense, allowing averages between 31.7 and 38.3 points every year.
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Results aside, Freeman and his family have positive associations with the area.
“I enjoyed my time there,” Freeman said. “My family, we had a couple kids there. … A lot of good memories there.”
The wrestling talents of Vinny Freeman, a junior at Penn High School, brought the family back to West Lafayette in 2023.
“Our son was wrestling there so we had to go back,” Freeman said. “It hasn’t been eight years since I’ve been there. Still familiar with the place. Obviously, a lot has changed. New buildings, I’m sure.”
And yet another rebuilding project for the football program under Bobinski, signed through 2028 as Purdue’s AD, and second-year coach Ryan Walters, formerly the defensive coordinator at Illinois and Missouri. Walters, 38, was born 11 days after Freeman.
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman learned amid losing at Purdue
