Nick Saban ribs Marcus Freeman about being a harder coach to work for
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Marcus Freeman is in Pittsburgh for the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft. His running back, Jeremiyah Love, will probably be picked pretty early in the draft.
And that’s a great thing for Freeman. The Notre Dame head coach has to get back to South Bend at a decent time so he can be well-rested for a 6:45 a.m. local time meeting with his football team Friday morning.
A meeting before 7 a.m. on a Friday? In the offseason? Really, Coach?
Nick Saban couldn’t believe it.
“They always tell me how hard I was to work for, but we never had a meeting at 6:45 after the draft,” Saban said to Freeman on the set of College GameDay before Thursday night’s draft opened.
Freeman runs a tight ship. He joked that the timing of the meeting was because of class, but the message is also a pretty strong one. Freeman’s advice to Love is no doubt the same messaging he gives to his locker room each week.
“I told him to enjoy this day,” Freeman said of his conversation with Love, “because tomorrow you’ve gotta wake up and go back to work. You’ve got to do the things that gave you a chance to get drafted tonight. So, enjoy this moment. It’s like a win. Enjoy it, tomorrow morning get back to work.”
Love is expected to go in the top 10 of the opening round on Thursday night. As the draft has drawn near, his odds of going as high as No. 3 have shot up.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
