Notre Dame, behind third-year head coach Marcus Freeman, is moving on to the College Football Playoff National Championship after securing a thrilling 27-24 win over Penn State in the 2025 Orange Bowl semifinal. This will be the first time that the Fighting Irish, who are the first team in the sport’s history to win two bowl games in a single postseason, compete for a national championship since 2012.
Freeman is making history of his own, too, as he will become the first Black coach to lead his team into a Division I college football national title game when the ball is kicked on Monday, Jan. 20 in Atlanta.
Freeman, whose father is Black and mother is South Korean, is also the first coach of Asian descent to compete in the CFP.
“I’ve said this before: I don’t ever want to take attention away from the team,” Freeman said after the Orange Bowl. “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.”
Freeman, who served as Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator for one season before he was promoted to head coach in the wake of Brian Kelly’s departure following the 2021 season, is now 34-9 in three full seasons as Notre Dame’s coach. That record includes nine straight wins against AP-ranked opponents and a 3-0 showing in College Football Playoff games.
Given Freeman’s counterpart on Thursday night in Miami Gardens, Florida, was James Franklin of Penn State, it was guaranteed that a Black coach would advance to the CFP National Championship.
Earlier this week, Franklin shared his desire that the showdown with Freeman would have a similar impact on young coaches as when he saw Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith go head-to-head in Super Bowl XLI — the first NFL championship featuring Black head coaches.
“I remember thinking that, as a coach, how significant that was in the profession and how significant that was for young coaches coming up in the profession to see those guys in that role,” Franklin said. “I also remember, at that time, that there was a lot of conversations about, ‘Will this impact the profession? Will this impact have earned opportunities for guys?'”
Ohio State and Texas are set to face one another in the 2025 Cotton Bowl on Friday night with the final spot in the College Football Playoff National Championship up for grabs.
