The landscape of college football is changing rapidly. Probably no one is more attuned to that reality than Marcus Freeman. The first-time head coach had a rude awakening to open his debut season, with losses to Ohio State and Marshall in the first two weeks of the 2022 season. He then bounced back to finish the season 9-4, an admirable triage job on a season that could have gone off the deep end at multiple points.
Then Freeman lost his offensive coordinator to the premier program of the last decade-and-a-half, and replaced that coordinator with an internal promotion of tight ends coach Gerad Parker.