Marcus Freeman explains how he lured Irish legend Joe Montana back

For a while, many Notre Dame football alumni felt slighted by the previous coaching staff, but head coach Marcus Freeman has changed that.

One of the big-time alums was quarterback Joe Montana, who was the face of the program during his time there from 1974 through 1978. While he didn’t make an impact right away, he did against North Carolina, engineering a comeback victory in 1975, and then again with another comeback versus Air Force, showing tons of promise.

Unfortunately the next season was lost to a shoulder injury, but in 1977 Montana had the same magic against Purdue, yet comeback win. None of these came with him as the starter, but following the victory over the Boilermakers, he became QB1. That season Notre Dame finished at the top of both the AP and Coaches Poll, with a national championship.

The “Chicken Soup Game” would follow the next season with a win over Houston in the Cotton Bowl, cementing Montana’s legend status in South Bend. He’d go on to win four Super Bowls and eventually a spot in the NFL Hall of Fame in 2000.

A player of his calibers should have had an all-access pass back to his collegiate home, but that wasn’t the case until Marcus Freeman came around. He recently spoke with Kay Adams about having Montana return to South Bend, and the way he did it was simple, he wanted all the Notre Dame greats to return saying “with tradition comes responsibility.”

The respect between the two is obvious, and Freeman knew that he wanted Montana back. It’s been great to see him back on campus and don’t except that to change anytime soon.

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This article originally appeared on Fighting Irish Wire: Marcus Freeman explains how he lured ND legend Joe Montana back