It is Tuesday, December 30th.

This is Irish Illustrated Insider, and you have joined us for our final edition of the 2025 football season and calendar year.

I'm Tim O'Malley, joined today by Tim Priesterner and Eric Thomas of Irish Illustrated, Pete Samson, the Athletic.

And guys, we like to say there should be no such thing as time table recruiting as it appears on the message board.

But there is such thing as timetable head coaching extension signings because those are pretty important,

especially when you're within one week of a transfer portal opening, Marcus Freeman announcing with a quick, I guess, in a homage to his players with a social media announcement.

One more year. Didn't say one more year, of course. 2026, run it back. Guys, good news. One year contract extension, we assume, is what Marcus Freeman meant there. But there was a lot of angst in Irish land. And there probably will be again next year, but we'll get to that part later. Tim Priest of your thoughts on the announcement that Marcus Freeman will be back for 2026 at least. Well, it was necessary to happen because we had already heard of one portal

candidate that was concerned. Is he going to be here? So you start hearing that and you get a little

bit concerned for the whole process and they're going to need some help in the transfer portal.

But yeah, it was it was time. I mean, how many times did we hear okay this weekend or beginning of next week? I mean, I think it was the third time when we finally correct. At least, Jim, the first one I think someone told us, I don't know, it might have been you. the first one that was Friday of the first

playoff game, which would have been all-time

quality pettiness, but that didn't make it. Yeah. Right. Right. So that was good. And, you know, I mean, you start to get cynical, I guess, at a certain point because it needs to happen. and, you know, we're not not privy to we're privy to some of the

stuff but a lot of the obviously the behind the scene stuff we don't really know and what's going on

and what's holding it up and i always say there can be a you know a thousand things that can hold it up

the buy the buyout clause for one thing would be cause for a hold up you know just throwing a

possibility out there among other things.

But good.

You know, and I don't, I see a lot of people on our message board talking about, well, does this mean this is an every year thing?

I don't know that it necessarily means that, but the NFL is going to keep calling Marcus Freeman because he's about to go probably 11 and 1 or 12 in the upcoming season and that's going to keep him on their radar.

So like it's just part of the process.

It's part of college football.

It's an annoying part of college football, especially for impatient old men like me.

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