Since losing his first three games at the helm, Marcus Freeman’s Notre Dame football teams have improved each season.

Notre Dame was going from Brian Kelly, a proven head coach with an extensive résumé and the school’s all-time leader in wins, to Marcus Freeman, who had been a defensive coordinator for only a few years and had spent only one season in South Bend, Ind.

The star of college football’s title game doesn’t want the spotlight, even with the Irish chasing their first national championship in a generation.