(Notre Dame) — Nearly every football practice this spring has had what Marcus Freeman calls “a scuffle, a tussle”.

And that’s just fine with the Fighting Irish head coach.

“If we don’t have a scuffle, a tussle…I don’t think I’m going to define it as a fight…then we’re probably not as competitive as I aspire to have our team to be,” states Freeman. “We do have a simple rule. Two guys fighting is the max. We’re not gonna have full team melees. We’ve got so much work to do, we can’t waste two minutes breaking up a fight.”

It’s all part of a competitive edge that Freeman continues to build into his team this spring.

“You need one every day,” emphasizes Freeman. “If not, you’ll get complacent, you’ll get comfortable and you won’t improve. It’s my job to create that. We have to struggle. Nothing great is achieved without hard, tough struggles, but you have to sacrifice.”

Part of the though process behind putting his team through conflict, is it also builds a closeness, that’s particularly evident to the newcomers to the program.

“You’ve got two captains returning who continue to uphold a high standard,” notes Freeman. “You have a returning quarterback and returning coordinators. When you have strong leadership, from the top, there’s no other option to have a close brotherhood.”

Quarterback CJ Carr has taken advantage of his starting role to do some on-field experimenting during the spring, which Freeman lauds.

“I don’t want our guys practicing or playing with fear. The worst thing that’s gonna happen is your coach is going to yell at you. You can’t worry about that. You have to accept that coaching, learn from it and get better, but I want our guys to be aggressive, and try different things that are ultimately going to help us.”

Backups Noah Grubbs and Blake Hebert are in a “different part of their journey”, according to the head coach. “What I’ve seen is the highest of highs and lowest of lows. They make some decisions you say ‘wow’, and they make some where you say ‘he’s got a ways to go'”.

The offensive line in front of them consists of Will Black and Guerby Lambert at tackles, Anthonie Knapp and Sullivan Absher at guards and Joe Otting at center. Matty Augustine is working at multiple positions. Freeman says the defensive line is doing a better job of staying in lanes and QB contain.

Wide receivers coach Mike Brown was also lauded by Freeman for his recruiting and development at that position.  Freeman mentioned almost every receiver by name during the gathering, but pointed out that Jaden Greathouse has regained the explosiveness he had before last year’s hamstring issues.

Asked about the national championship trophy coming to South Bend tomorrow (visiting IUSB), Freeman said  “Thinking about a national championship isn’t helping us get better in the moment. If you don’t have aspirations to win a national championship or move to the highest levels of the NFL, you’re at the wrong place. We don’t need to focus on that. We need to focus on what we have. What we have today is class. Tomorrow, it’s meet and lift. We can’t worry about the destination or outcome, we have to focus on what we have.”

Notre Dame will resume on-field practices after Easter, with the annual Blue-Gold Game set for Notre Dame Stadium on April 25