No Black head coach has ever won a college football championship in Division I football.
Heck, no Black coach had ever even coached a game in the College Football Playoffs until two weeks ago.
Now here we are with just four teams remaining and a Black coach is guaranteed to reach the championship game in Atlanta on Jan. 20.
Will it be Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman, who on Thursday led his Fighting Irish to a 23-10 victory over the Georgia Bulldogs in the Allstate Sugar Bowl at Caesars Superdome?
Or will it be Penn State’s James Franklin, who led his Nittany Lions to a 31-14 victory over Boise State two days earlier in the Fiesta Bowl.
We’ll find out next Thursday when Notre Dame and Penn State clash in Miami in the Orange Bowl. The winner of that will play the winner of the Cotton Bowl semifinal matchup between Texas and Ohio State.
Freeman, whose dad is African-American and whose mom is South Korean, understands the significance of the history he and Franklin are making.
“Very grateful,” Freeman said. “It’s a reminder that you are a representation for many others and for many of our players that look the same way I do. Your color shouldn’t matter. The evidence of your work should.”
The evidence of his work was as loud and clear as the Notre Dame faithful in Caesars Superdome watching Freeman lead one of the most storied programs in all of college football past SEC champion Georgia. Freeman, just the second Black coach to lead a team to the Sugar Bowl in the game’s 91-year existence, also became the second one to win it. He joined Louisville’s Charlie Strong, who led the Cardinals past Florida on New Year’s Day in 2013.
Freeman’s Fighting Irish dominated in all three phases Thursday to roll to their second straight double digit win of these playoffs. They handled in-state neighbor Indiana in the first round and then turned around and did the exact same thing to Georgia.
Freeman pushed all the right buttons, both during the game and the day before.
The game was originally supposed to be played Wednesday. When it got postponed because of the Bourbon Street attacks in the wee hours of New Year’s Day, Freeman did something he would never typically do on the day before a game. He allowed his players three hours of free time to meet with their families.
“I think that helped the parents as much as it helped the players to be around each other and to help them reset and get their mind into a place that it needed to be for today,” Freeman said.
It didn’t take long to see how focused Notre Dame was as the defense stuffed everything Georgia tried to do on its opening drive.
This was Notre Dame’s first win in a major bowl game since the 1993 season when they beat Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl.
Not bad for a team that many, myself included, thought had no chance of even getting this far after losing to Northern Illinois 16-14 back in Week 2 of the season.
That Northern Illinois team was coached by Thomas Hammock, making it a rare matchup of Black head coaches on the FBS level. This season, there were only 16 Black head coaches at the 134 FBS schools. For a long time, Black head coaches didn’t land major gigs like this. The Southeastern Conference didn’t hire its first Black head coach until 20 short years ago when Mississippi State hired Sylvester Croom in 2004. Notre Dame hired its first Black coach two years before that when it handed the keys to its program over to Tyrone Willingham. Willingham lasted just three seasons.
Freeman, 38, is now in his third season. He’s compiled a 32-9 record, including 12 wins in a row after that loss to Northern Illinois back in early September.
Freeman refuses to take all the credit though.
“It takes everybody,” Freeman said. “That’s what I continue to remind myself when people try to point their finger at you. It’s a great reminder that you’re not in this position without everybody.”
It’s why Freeman was in a rush to exit the stage after receiving the Sugar Bowl trophy amidst all the confetti.
“I couldn’t get off the stage fast enough because everybody couldn’t be up there,” Freeman said. “It’s about the team and everybody that puts everything they have into making sure we could achieve that success.”
Now Freeman gets to be on an even bigger stage.
In Miami.
In the College Football Playoff semifinals.
Against James Franklin.
The winner will get a shot at history as the first Black head coach to play for a national title.
“It’s a great honor,” Freeman said. “It’s a privilege. But again, as the head coach of this place, I understand we’re not in this position unless everybody in this program gets their job done.”
