For the [[2023 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team|2023 season]], Freeman guided the Notre Dame program to a 10-win season. Safety [[Xavier Watts]] received the [[Bronko Nagurski Trophy]] for college football's best defensive player and the team earned victories over [[2023 Duke Blue Devils football team|#17 Duke]], [[2023 USC Trojans football team|#10 USC]] and [[2023 Oregon State Beavers football team|#19 Oregon State]] in the [[2023 Sun Bowl|Sun Bowl]]. Notre Dame finished the year ranked #14 in the final AP Top 25.
Freeman and the Fighting Irish held their first home game of the [[2024 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team|2024 season]] against the [[Northern_Illinois_Huskies_football|2024 Northern Illinois UniversityHuskies football team|Northern Illinois Huskies]] as the #5 ranked team in the AP Top 25 and as a 28.5-point favorite to win. They fell to the Huskies 16-14, throwing two interceptions and giving up two blocked fieldgoalsfield goals. It was the second weekearly-twoseason home loss for the Irish against ana underdogheavy teamunderdog in three years (following the 2022 loss to the Marshall Thundering Herd), was the first-ever win by a [[Mid-American Conference]] football program against a top- 5 team, was the first-ever Huskie win against a top- 10 team, and the 30.5 loss against-the-spread is one of the largest point-spread upsets in modern college football.<ref>{{cite news |last= bromberg |first= nick |date= September 7, 2024 |title= Northern Illinois stuns No. 5 Notre Dame for first-ever win over a top-10 team |url= https://sports.yahoo.com/northern-illinois-stuns-no-5-notre-dame-for-first-ever-win-over-a-top-10-team-224835461.html |location= Yahoo! Sports}}</ref>
