He's a young, first time HC that is going to have some growing pains. We all knew that. Al Golden is/was an excellent hire, and the D, despite some lapses, has played well enough to win every game to date. The D has been hung out to dry 5 out of 6 games, so far, and the injuries and fatigue are starting to mount. I'm not blaming Golden or Freeman for what the O is doing to them.
Tom "Three and out" Rees showed in the bowl game that he is waaaay in over his head and stuck in the mindset of system over talent, that he learned from his mentor. Too much thinking and not enough taking advantage of the physical mismatches this offensive roster should present to 95% of the teams in the country. How anyone can look at the bowl game tape, see an offense that made no adjustments to what OSU started doing mid-way thru the 2nd qtr, and say "that's our guy", is mind-boggling. Not to mention, they hired a young , first time head coach (with zero offensive experience) that was probably going to need some experienced guidance on that side of the ball. Foolish and arrogant. And I firmly believe that Swarbrick called that shot, not MF.
I absolutely believe in Marcus Freeman, but he's inherited an albatross around his neck that may be his undoing at ND. 7 games in, there no reason to see any more from TR. Inept does not begin to describe his offense (with 4 and 5 star talent across the board no less). He should have been fired Sunday ala BVG. Ride out the rest of the season with an interim OC and go get a top guy for next year. No sense worrying about keeping top offensive recruits when they're just going to be misused, put in position to fail over and over, or just plain shelved because they don't know enough of the system.