"This ain't about me"- Marcus Freeman makes crowd go wild with selfless answer to black coach question

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish led by coach Marcus Freeman beat the Penn State Nittany Lions 27-24 in the Orange Bowl on Thursday to reach the national championship game. The Fighting Irish trailed 10-3 at halftime but rallied to win the game via a last-minute kick by Mitch Jeter.

In the process, Freeman became the first black Head Coach and the first HC of Asian descent to lead a team to the national championship game. Freeman's mother, Chong Freeman is of South Korean descent while his father, Michael Freeman is African American.

The charismatic Fighting Irish coach made the crowd inside the Hard Rock Stadium go wild during the post-game ceremony with his answer to a question about being the first black coach to reach the title game.

"I've said this before, I don't ever want to take attention away from the team," Freeman said. "It is an honor, and I hope all coaches, minorities, Black, Asian, white, it doesn't matter, (I hope) great people continue to get opportunities to lead young men like this. But this ain't about me, this is about us."

Marcus Freeman also spoke about being a Black head coach and what it meant, in the lead-up to the game, he said:

"It's a reminder that you are a representation for many others and many of our players that look the same way I do. Your color shouldn't matter. The evidence of your work should."

Marcus Freeman's trust in backup QB pays dividends in Orange Bowl

Coach Marcus Freeman - Penn State v Notre Dame - Source: Getty

Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman had to contend with a long list of injuries throughout the season and it threatened to get worse in the Orange Bowl. With the Fighting Irish down 10-0 in the first half, quarterback Riley Leonard had to leave the game with an injury forcing backup Steve Angeli to come on.

Angeli led Notre Dame on a scoring drive which saw the Fighting Irish score a field goal which helped them get on the board and overcome the early jitters that come with a big game.

“It’s earned,” Freeman said post-game about his confidence in his players. “We’ve got a lot of confidence in Steve and those other guys that had to step up when their number was called. They earned that confidence in practice—from the coaching staff and their teammates. We weren’t just going to put him in there to hand the ball off. We were going to try to go score.”

The Fighting Irish are without defensive tackle Rylie Mills, who has been ruled out of the playoffs. Their star running back Jeremiyah Love was also not 100% fit and Freeman mentioned this at the pre-game press conference but added that Love would play in the game. Riley Leonard returned to play in the third quarter and orchestrated Notre Dame's come-from-behind win.