SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The scoreboard betrayed the play-call.
Ahead 42-13 on the road in the fourth week of the season at Arkansas, Notre Dame had scored 28 points in the final eight-plus minutes of the second quarter to trample the Razorbacks into the halftime locker room.
The Irish were scheduled to receive possession to open the second half, and the Arkansas defense looked generally disinterested in its own ability to yield even mock resistance.
Until the first series of the third quarter found Notre Dame confronting fourth-and-10 from its own 25-yard line.
Fourth-year Irish coach Marcus Freeman did not like his team’s countenance; he conferred with special teams coordinator Marty Biagi and the duo waited … with stone-cold poker faces.
If “Chaos Kills,” as is the program’s mantra, then Notre Dame’s special teams are the hangman.
Lacrosse-star-turned-leading-wideout Jordan Faison took the would-be punt, galloped right and fired a pass to Virginia transfer Malachi Fields. Forty yards later, the Irish didn’t have points but had an ineffable message:
Comfort is an enemy and indigestion shall be the opposition’s norm.
“In terms of the fake punt, I didn't want to relax,” Freeman said. “We had to come out of that locker room with an aggression no different than the first half. There's no lead that's comfortable. When we went three-and-out, I think, on that first drive, I felt like it was the right time to send a message to our team. This was about our team that [said], ‘Hey, this is something we've worked on. Let's go execute it.’
“That also is something on film for the next opponents, right? I'm not even thinking about this opponent, but I'm thinking about I want to make sure the next couple opponents see that. I could really make them think deeply about how they want to attack our punt unit. …
“We didn't get any points off of it, but it was a mindset that we have to be aggressive. There is no taking your foot off the accelerator.”
FootballScoop has awarded its annual Coach of the Year honors for nearly two decades, but Freeman’s Notre Dame program is the first to ever have two different special teams coordinators win in a three-year span.
After Brian Mason, now running teams for the NFL’s one-loss Indianapolis Colts, garnered the honor in 2022, Biagi – a previous finalist – won the top honor in a runaway-vote amongst his peers for Notre Dame’s 2024 special teams excellence.
FootballScoop’s dive into the unit underscores not only Freeman’s commitment to special teams – he’s insisted on coaching punt coverage in recent seasons, volunteered for soccer-ball, punt-block drills in this year’s preseason camp – but reflects the direct correlation in Irish special teams excellence and wins.
Marcus Freeman runs a soccer-ball punt-block drill for the Irish
In 2023, Notre Dame scored 133 special teams points, including 22 in a romp against Pittsburgh, and added 124 along the team’s journey to the 2024 College Football Playoff Championship against Ohio State – buoyed by 17 points in the Sugar Bowl win against Georgia. That game featured a fake punt, as well as Jayden Harrison's game-sealing kickoff-return touchdown.
Irish teams units since Biagi arrived and teamed with senior special teams analyst Jesse Schmitt, a former Purdue standout who had a brief pro opportunity prior to injury, are closing in on 10 third-phase touchdowns via punt block, punt return, field goal block and multiple kickoff returns for touchdowns.
FootballScoop's reigning 2024 Special Teams Coordinator of the Year, Marty Biagi again has lethal units for the Irish, who already have blocked a punt for a touchdown and returned two kickoffs for 100-yard touchdowns.
Despite changes to kickoffs and more teams emphasizing a more cautious approach that awards possession at the 25-yard line after a fair catch, the Irish have at least one kickoff return for a touchdown in each of the past three seasons.
Already, Jadarian Price has two this year in Notre Dame’s first seven games and his 42.5-yard-per-return average is 9.5 ypr more than the nation’s statistical leader; Price is short of qualifying by one return. Notre Dame has returns of 100 yards in three-straight games against USC: Price kickoff returns in 2023-25, multiple interception returns in the 49-35 Irish win last year at LA Memorial Coliseum.
Notre Dame owns 10 blocked kicks in this span, four punts and six field goals, and is operating at a 90-percent clip on fake punts – the outlier one snuffed out by Ohio State in the CFP title game.
Like all good college football, there’s modest debate on Notre Dame’s won-loss record when it successfully executes a fake field goal, punt; returns a kickoff or punt for a touchdown; blocks a kick or a punt.
The official ledger is that Notre Dame owns wins in 14 of 15 games of the Freeman era that include one of those special teams elements.
The reality? Well, it’s 15-1. Biagi’s mad-scientist Jack Kiser-upback-punt-run-touchdown against Virginia in 2024 initially resulted in an Irish touchdown in a game won, 35-14, by Notre Dame.
That play so flummoxed officials that the NCAA changed its rules and allowable formations for punts prior to the start of the 2025 season.
For Biagi, it has been embracing the empowerment he has received from Freeman and fortifying players’ confidence that these transcendent moments are rote recall from practice-field repetition.
“I think for the most part it's we really try and treat it like any other play,” said Biagi, the former Marshall specialist whom Freeman hired away from Ole Miss in January 2023. “And that's how we even try and present it as this: To everybody else it’s a trick play, but this is no different than any other play that here's the goal. Here's what we're trying to get done. Here's the plan of attack. And then we try and literally break it down of the pros and cons or what can happen and what can't.
“And a lot of times what I'm trying to do is figure out what I would do in the situation. And so, after that I think it's just something where they're confident that they understand the situation. So, they just want to go execute like any other call.”
Moreover, players want to reward their coaches’ faith.
“I think it’s awesome; we’re not scared of anybody and I think it shows that,” said KK Smith, a redshirt-sophomore wideout who’s begun to carve a role on offense in part because of his special teams approach. “We trust in the personnel we put on the field. We rep it enough in practice where like any of us on the sideline that when we see them run on the field, we have no doubt in our minds that we can execute.”
That confidence also breeds the players’ adaptiveness to their coaches’ mindsets.
“A thousand percent. If we on our side of the field or like the 30 and Coach (Freeman) wants us to go out there and do that, even if we don’t execute it, the defense is standing right there too,” Smith said. “They’re like, ‘Hell, yeah! They want to do it? Let’s go.’
“So, regardless whether we execute it or not, whatever side of the ball is coming on the field has that extra juice.”
After all, ‘Chaos kills.’
Jesse Schmitt has drawn praise from both Marcus Freeman and Marty Biagi for his impact on Notre Dame's special teams units, being labeled a certain future special teams coordinator by his peers.