(Notre Dame) — We don’t know whether or not Marcus Freeman is a fan of the poet Robert Frost.  We do know that  Freeman spent much of his Monday press conference reflecting on the “One Step Backward Taken” by Notre Dame nine days ago against BYU.

“I reminded our guys sometimes you gotta lose to win,” noted the Notre Dame football coach in his opening statement. “There’s (sic) lessons in losing that if you learn from them will help you be better prepared for the next opportunity that presents itself.”

Freeman spoke of everyone in the program taking ownership of the loss to the Cougars, which leaves the Irish at 6-1 on the season.

“What last week gave us the opportunity to do is ask ‘Do you really know what it means to own it’,” recalled Freeman. “That means there’s no ‘but” to the statement ‘I should have done this better’.  Coaches say ‘Man, I have should called something different.’ Head coach says ‘Man, we should have practiced this situation more.’ Player says “i should have done this better’ and that’s the end of the statement. It took maybe an extra day to make sure everybody in our program understood how important that was.”

That doesn’t mean the Irish are a shaken program, although they may be stirred right now to do greater things.

“I’ll never allow our program to lose confidence,” stated Freeman. “It’s my job to make sure they understand how good they truly are and how much better we could have played and have to play.”

Freeman was asked many questions about personnel decisions and strategies in the loss to the Cougars

On wide receiver rotation: “That becomes the flow of the game. In those toughest moments, you’re going to go with those guys you truly trust. That’s not to slight these other receivers. These guys are ascending, and we have to play them more.”

On Jonaz Walton only getting five carries: “We want to get Jonaz on the field more. In the first half, he was in at the end of the second series and the next series we went three and out. In the second half, the first series he was in was three-and-out, so that limits the opportunities he has.”

On a lack of aggression on defense: “We can’t let offenses talk us out of what we do defensively. ‘If they hit us on a manbeater, let’s go to zone.’ No, let’s play man better. ‘Hey, we’re playing zone and they hit us on an easy pass, let’s go to man’. No, let’s play zone better. I’m not saying do more. I’m saying continuously do what we do, but do it at a higher level.”

However, this week’s opponent, Navy, can be the kind of team that takes away an opponent’s aggressiveness.

“As you study their offense, they’re as explosive and putting up as many yards as any team we’ve seen,” Freeman says of the 2-5 Midshipmen option attack. It starts with (QB Jackson) Gutierrez. He’s a really good player, rus the ball hard, making real good decisions. Defensively, they’re as aggressive and exotic as we’ll see. They do a heckuva job stopping the run.”

The 97th meeting between Notre Dame and Navy will be played Saturday at high noon in Foxborough, Massachusetts. The game will be televised by ABC.

Sports Michiana’s Chuck Freeby and Angelo Di Carlo share more from Freeman’s press conference and preview the game Monday night at 7 on Notre Dame Federal Credit Union’s “Irish Football Fix”. The show airs locally on Pulse FM (92.1, 96.9, 103.1) and then can be found in podcast form on Spotify and Apple.