James Laurinaitis and Marcus Freeman have a friendship that goes back decades.
The two former linebackers became fast friends when they were teammates at Ohio State from 2005 to 2008, with Freeman having an instant connection with Laurinaitis due to the pair’s interest in pro wrestling. Laurinaitis’ father, Joe, was a Hall of Fame professional wrestler affectionately known as Road Warrior Animal. So he’d always be willing to tell Freeman stories and take him backstage at wrestling events when they came through Columbus.
“With (Marcus) being a diehard wrestling fan, I think that was the only reason he befriended me at first was because of my dad,” Laurinaitis said with a laugh. “I’m serious. I think dead on that he was just a wrestling fan and that’s why he befriended me early on, which I’m fine with.”
Whatever the reason for the instant connection, Freeman and Laurinaitis have formed quite a bond in the past 20 years. They’ve played together. They’ve coached together. Each was in the other’s wedding. When Laurinaitis’ father died in 2020, Freeman called him every day for two weeks to check in on him, which he said later touched him even more once he understood the day-to-day responsibilities of a college football coach.
“That’s a true friend right there,” Laurinaitis said. “I’ll never forget that.”
In normal circumstances, the pair will check in with each other every few weeks. But the past eight days haven't exactly been business as usual.
On Monday, they’ll be on opposite sidelines coaching against each other for a national title. Freeman as the leader of the Notre Dame program and Laurinaitis as the linebackers coach for the duo’s alma mater, Ohio State.
“We talked earlier in the week,” Laurinaitis said Saturday. “It’s a cool experience when you get to go against your friend and do all that. But ultimately at the end of the day, this is about Ohio State and Notre Dame, it’s certainly not about us. From the human side of it, I’m proud of him and everything he’s done to lead that program.”
The moment his playing career ended, Laurinaitis had an itch to get into coaching, so he reached out to several notable coaches for an opportunity. He had various conversations with Luke Fickell, Ryan Day and Freeman. Ultimately, his friend and former teammate was the first one to offer him an opportunity as a graduate assistant for the 2022 season.
“He was in my wedding and I was in his wedding,” Freeman said of Laurinaitis. “Those are special moments, obviously the days you get married. But we had some great moments when we worked together here at Notre Dame. It's a unique situation where a guy you're working with is one of your best friends. We've got a lot of great moments and probably some that I won't share on this press conference, but he's a great friend.”
Laurinaitis said he views Freeman as a hybrid combination of Jim Tressel and Luke Fickell as a coach, especially factoring in how well-coached his defense and special teams are. In his lone year with the Fighting Irish, Laurinaitis soaked in tips on how to recruit, how to teach linebacking drills and how to connect with players.
“You have to refresh your skills when it came to Excel, to PowerPoint, I didn’t even know what Microsoft Visio was for drawing playbook stuff, so that was a whole new world,” Laurinaitis recalled of his time starting out. “You had to learn ‘How do I want to teach? How do I want to present this information?’ You can’t just go right into the drills, you have to start with the basics.
“You learn from Marcus, took some of his stuff. You learn from (Notre Dame defensive coordinator) Al Golden, took some of his stuff. And I thought back to drills I did while playing for Luke Fickell and Steve Spagnuolo and just tried to combine everything that I thought worked.”
Laurinaitis left a strong impression on Notre Dame defensive line coach Al Washington, who was a former assistant coach at Ohio State from 2019 to 2021.
“James, number one, he's a good person,” Washington said Saturday. “I think being a great coach is a people business. You have to be a good person. James is the best. Obviously, he's knowledgeable, well-versed in linebacker play. Ton of respect for him and the job he's done over there. I know a lot of those guys that he's working with and I know they're in the best of hands, man. He's doing a great job.”
Laurinaitis left South Bend to return to his alma mater as a graduate assistant in 2023, then was hired as the team’s full-time linebackers coach last offseason. In his first season as a full-time assistant, he finds himself on college football’s biggest stage.
Laurinaitis admitted he expects to take a few minutes with Freeman on Monday hours before the national title gets underway and just soak in the moment of competing against one of his best friends for a championship. They’ll most likely shake hands, embrace and tell each other they’re proud of the other. Once the game kicks off, though, Laurinaitis’ full attention will be on how his unit is playing and any in-game adjustments he needs to make. He hopes to see him briefly after the contest, too, but he knows that may be easier said than done depending on the result.
“To be honest, you just want to get to the end of the game and move on because there are going to be real emotions you can’t avoid with it all,” Laurinaitis said. “But also, what an awesome blessing. Like how many people get to say they’re going against their really good friend in the natty?”
As of Saturday, Laurinaitis was only focused on the two meetings and a walkthrough he had to get through in preparation for Monday. But he knows years down the line this will be a week he replays constantly in his head.
Both Freeman and Laurinaitis have been on this stage as a player before, as each played in a national title alongside the other in the 2006 and 2007 seasons. Both of those efforts, however, resulted in losses. Laurinaitis knows all too well the pressure that comes with games of this magnitude and how it can define legacies at schools.
“You try and carry those memories with you, and you try and use it as motivation. The reality is, when you choose a school like Notre Dame or Ohio State, from our perspective, nobody walks around the Woody Hayes Athletic Center and talks about the runner-up,” Laurinaitis said. “They just don’t.
“That’s the reality of it. We don’t have this radio debate of what are some of the best teams that never won it. Nobody really talks about ’06 or ’07. So if you want to be remembered forever, you go inside the indoor facility and see the banners that are hung. That was the standard when you chose that school, and it’s still the standard.”
Laurnaitis and OSU hope a banner of their own is raised sometime this spring after Monday night.
“I’ve been blessed with a really good group,” Laurnaitis said of his linebackers. “It’d be awesome to just help Ohio State win a national championship. It’s not about me, it’s about these players and the work they put in.”
