NEW ORLEANS – The seventh-ranked Notre Dame football team kicks off the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans this evening against No. 2 Georgia in the College Football Playoff Quarterfinals.
Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman was named the winner of the Dodd Trophy, which honors the FBS coach “whose program represents the three pillars of success: Scholarship, Leadership and Integrity.”
Freeman will look to fill the void left by injured defensive star Rylie Mills, who suffered a knee injury in Notre Dame’s win over Indiana in the first round of the playoffs.
“Number one he’s a captain, he’s a leader. That’s the one thing that hurts you, you can’t replace a captain and you can’t replace his leadership. You have to try to replace the production with multiple different people, ways, schemes, schematic things. It’s not just going to be one person that’s going in there to replace Rylie Mills,” Freeman said.
The winner of tonight’s game moves on to the Orange Bowl and the CFP Semifinals next week.