With a win over the Penn State Nittany Lions on Thursday night, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish clinched a spot in the College Football Playoff title game, and head coach Marcus Freeman made history.
With the win, Marcus Freeman became the first Black head coach to make the FBS national championship.
Both coaches in the game – Freeman and Penn State coach James Franklin – were Black, meaning that the winning coach was set to make history as the first Black coach in a national title game.
Obviously, with Notre Dame winning, Freeman earned that honor. After the game, he expressed his reaction to it during his postgame interview during the trophy presentation.
“I’ve said this before, I don’t ever want to take attention away from the team,” Freeman said after the game. “It is an honor and I hope all coaches, minorities, Black, Asian, white, it doesn’t matter, great people continue to get opportunities to lead young men like this.”
“But this ain’t about me. This is about us,” Freeman continued. “And we’re going to celebrate what we’ve done because it’s something special.”
With the win, Freeman and Notre Dame moved on to the championship game where they will face the winner of Friday night’s showdown between the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Texas Longhorns.
While this is certainly an accomplishment worth celebrating for Freeman, he’d obviously like to take it a step further and become the first Black head coach to win an FBS national championship.
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