Ohio State football: Marcus Freeman gets motivation

Saturday night will be a homecoming for two former Ohio State football players when Notre Dame comes to town. James Laurinaitis, who is the Linebackers Coach for Notre Dame, will be back. So too will another former linebacker, Marcus Freeman.

Freeman leads the Fighting Irish in his first year as a head coach. He will be coming into a hostile environment for the first game of the 2022 season. It will certainly be more hostile after he made some comments in the offseason, but he himself got some motivation today.

During his press conference today, Freeman learned that the spread had jumped to 17.5 in some sportsbooks. He was clearly unaware of that number but said it would give him and his guys some more motivation. That’s something he’s going to use all week in practice.

Truth be told, I don’t blame him. Notre Dame is a top-five team and he should think that he belongs in that group. Top-five teams aren’t supposed to get beaten by three scores, no matter who they are playing. Freeman is definitely going to be sharing that with his team.

Whether or not that will matter is something else. The Ohio State football team is that favored for a reason. They have the more talented team on both sides of the ball. 17.5 is a lot of points, but the Buckeyes’ offense is more than capable of putting up 50 on anyone.

This season-opener is so fascinating for a number of reasons. There are so many storylines to follow and I can’t wait for them to unfold. It is going to be interesting to see how each of these storylines unfold.

If Freeman does pull off the upset though, that would be a great start to a coaching career that is just in its infancy. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen!