It is Thursday, January 15th. This is Irish Illustrated Insider. And today I'm joined by Pete

Samson, the Athletic, Timbreast of Irish Illustrated. And guys, we're going to have almost entirely

question and answer today. But Pete, since you are, you are not on our post-press conference

emergency podcast. I think it wasn't an emergency. Post-press conference podcast with Marcus Freeman. I wanted to get your thoughts on Marcus Freeman's thoughts yesterday. The first time we spoke with him in over a month. And quite a few things happened as he dropped that joke early on. Yeah. I mean, there was a lot of material to cover. I was surprised that we were able to get through as much as we could. you know, obviously, the things that I would love to go deeper on,

one, I asked about just what, and I know this is a question later,

but like the change in university procedure to make undergraduate transfers,

you know, palatable, acceptable, green lit, fast-tracked,

whatever sort of term you want to use is,

I mean, that's, that it is a philosophical change.

And that's something that I really would like to write about this offseason is like how Notre Dame got from point A to point B.

And it was nice to hear some, like, all right, what do we have to do better in 2026 so we don't have a replay of 2025,

opposed to the ACC tweeted this or the committee screwed us, you know, whether that be scheduling,

Marcus talking about sitting down with Ron Pallas about that, whether whether that be strength conditioning, figuring out how you start the season much sharper than what you have last

year. And I think it's been kind of an ongoing thing. So it was nice to put a bow on last season

that was kind of felt overdue, not just in the sense of like how dramatically it

ended not in the fact that like you know Marcus Freeman had been ducking us so yeah that that

was good and then you know just to be able to spin it forward a little bit I thought was was

refreshing because I think it's been this this offseason is, I think,

going to be one of the,

not just literally one of the longest ones that we've ever covered.

I think also figuratively and emotionally and frustratingly,

one of the longest ones we've ever covered.

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