Marcus Freeman isn't Brian Kelly in this regards.
If the best guy at a given position is having some issues, he's going to let him work it out instead of giving him the quick hook instead of yanking him in favor of the "right kind of guy."
Coach Freeman could have yanked Riley Leonard during that 1st half of the season several times, but chose to let him hammer out those kinks. That being said, Steve Angeli would have done just fine for us, and I'm confident he could have gotten us to the playoffs.