Notre Dame football: Marcus Freeman discusses Matt Balis resignation
Notre Dame football was met with a stunner on Tuesday when it was announced that strength and conditioning coach Matt Balis was resigning effective immediately. The move came just two days before Notre Dame opened fall camp and obviously left many questions.
Marcus Freeman met the media on Wednesday following the first practice of fall camp. While the first day was discussed at a significant amount, Freeman was asked a few times about Balis. Here is what the Notre Dame head football coach had to say about the resignation, how it went down, and how the Irish will move forward.
On Balis Resignation
“I’m going to address Matt Balis, and then I’m sure we’ll have questions and I want to just be as transparent as I can with you all. I don’t know what’s being written and everything, but Matt called me on Sunday and informed me that he was wanting to resign and I was caught off guard.
“We met on Monday and talked about it. And ultimately, his reason was that he couldn’t serve the players in the capacity that he felt he should in his position. It’s a personal matter. And that’s how he left it with me. I tried to talk him out of it. I have the utmost respect for Matt Balis. And we have a great relationship. But ultimately, it was a personal decision.
What Resignation Came Down To
“It came down to, you know what? I can’t serve the players in the capacity that I feel like I need to be in the head strength coach. And so, we accepted his resignation. And as I said in the press release, Fred Hill will lead the strength conditioning program moving forward. And we’ll go forward from there.”
On Interim Strength and Condition Coach Fred Hill
“Well, Fred was the only guy in the strength and conditioning program that has actually led a program. He was the head strength coach at Eastern Michigan before he came here. And so, he has the experience of doing it. And so, the plan has been already created.
“As I told those guys, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We need to continue to carry on a plan that’s been really created from myself, Coach Balis, and our whole strength and performance staff. And so, I think they’ll all do a great job.
“I told everybody, your job is to make sure that our strength and conditioning program has no dip. We continue to excel in making sure our guys are ready to play these 12 guaranteed opportunities that we have.”
Hill a Potential Replacement?
“Yes, he will be considered. The head coach and the strength coach, their culture has to be the same. We can’t have a culture in the weight room that’s different than the culture of the head coach. And so that is our culture. That’s the universe, not a football program’s culture.
“It’s not Balis, it’s not Freeman. It’s our culture. And that culture won’t change. Those standards that we have won’t change no matter again, maybe not who’s the head coach. If there’s a new head coach, you might have new standards. But no matter who’s the strength coach, no matter who’s the position coach, we have standards for our football program in a culture that everybody has to make sure there is clear.
“I said this to the staff. I’m sorry, I’m going off on a tangent, but I said to the staff, I can get in front of the team and say, ‘This is our culture. This is what we want out of you.’ But the most powerful voice to those young people are going to be the position coaches.
“So they have to speak the exact same message with the exact same clarity as I’m speaking. So I don’t care if you’re the strength coach. I don’t care if you’re the position coach, we have to have a clear message that’s driven from the head coach down.”
Evolving Role of Strength Coach
“I think, ultimately, when you look at this in a big-picture point of view, how can you help your players reach a full potential? That’s the ultimate goal is to give our players a better chance to reach their full potential. And part of that is the sports science, is using the feedback, the technology, the Catapult, the different GPS systems we use to give us information.
“And so that’s something I’m big on is that, hey, if there’s relevant information that I believe will help our players reach their full potential, give it to me. It’s something I really didn’t understand last year. And trust me, I’m still learning.
“It’s something me and coach Balis were talking about. We’ve had these meetings. We have a sports performance staff led by John Wagle that gives us feedback. And I can tailor practices or different things based off what those numbers are telling us.
“What is their workload? What’s their max velocity? What are we expecting to get out of them? And so if we’re able to get some type of feedback, I think we can tailor certain practices to ultimately get the outcome that we want. So it’s something that I’m still growing in, but I’m definitely using it.”
Signs of Balis Resignation?
“No. Again, part of it was personal. And he didn’t really tell me exactly what those personal reasons were. But at the end of the day, when he says this is what’s best for me and my family, you got to respect that. But no, I had no idea that he was going to resign. And we’ve always worked together.
“We talked about how to continue to get better and things like that, but never did I think I was going to get that phone call on Sunday.”
