Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman Becomes First Black Head Coach To Reach College Football National Championship

January 10, 2025 by Aaron Keenan in Sports with 0 Comments

Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman Becomes First Black Head Coach To Reach College Football National Championship

Marcus Freeman is making history.

The third-year head coach of Notre Dame led the Fighting Irish to their first College Football Playoff National Championship appearance since 2012, securing a 27-24 victory over Penn State in the 2025 Orange Bowl semifinal. Freeman has now become the first Black head coach to lead a team to a Division I college football national title game, per CBS Sports.

In a post-game interview with ESPN, Marcus Freeman, who is Black and Asian, shared,

“I’ve said this before: I don’t ever want to take attention away from the team. 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. We’re going to celebrate what we’ve done because it’s so special.”