Notre Dame hits Wall Street: Freeman, Carr, Moore Kick Off NYC Media Blitz

Notre Dame football's biggest names traded South Bend for the concrete canyons of Manhattan this week, launching a whirlwind New York media tour that opened in the most on-brand way possible for a program synonymous with tradition: ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

Head coach Marcus Freeman was joined on the trading floor by quarterback CJ Carr, cornerback Leonard Moore, linebacker Drayk Bowen and safety Adon Shuler for the closing bell ceremony, where the group used the moment to remind the Big Apple who was in town with a "Let's Go Irish" chant that got much of the floor chanting along, with a Notre Dame banner draped behind them as a backdrop. It capped a day that had already included stops on ESPN doing a variety of interviews before the group made its way to the Exchange.

The quartet's trip to New York was no accident. Notre Dame announced that quarterback CJ Carr, linebacker Drayk Bowen, safety Adon Shuler and cornerback Leonard Moore would represent the program on its annual media tour around the city's major outlets, with appearances lined up on shows like ESPN's SportsCenter and NFL Network's Good Morning Football. As one Notre Dame outlet noted, the group also doubles as a strong hint at this year's leadership structure — Bowen and Shuler return as captains from 2025, while Carr and Moore, both just second-year players last season, were too young to hold the title but easily could have.

Carr, the presumptive Heisman frontrunner, got the first big spotlight moment, sitting down with Rich Eisen to walk through his path to South Bend — including the story of his father initially hiding Michigan's offer letter from him, and how it was former offensive coordinator Tommy Rees who recruited him hardest and showed him the most love, a pull that, combined with Marcus Freeman's own recruiting effort, ultimately landed Carr with the Irish over his grandfather Lloyd Carr's alma mater. Carr also used the sit-down to frame the mindset for the upcoming season, discussing how Notre Dame plans to keep using the disappointing end to 2025 as motivation heading into 2026.

The tour continued into Friday morning, when Freeman and Moore stopped by the Today Show. Asked about the "Here Come the Irish" refrain that blares over the loudspeaker as Notre Dame takes the field — now also the title of the program's in-house Peacock series — Freeman kept it simple: "It was there before I got there. As you take the field, they play over the loudspeaker 'Here Come the Irish.' We take the field, so I think it's pretty simple to make that the title of the show."

Freeman was also asked what it's been like having a camera crew shadow the program for that same series, and admitted the adjustment took some time. "Yeah, it took some convincing to think about all the cameras, the mics and the distractions. We really started to implement it last spring. It was a good trial run and it became like they were a part of the team, you didn't notice they were there. They feel like they were part of the staff and I think everybody kind of dropped their guards and it just became natural," he said.

The New York swing comes on the heels of a spring in which Moore made headlines of his own, telling reporters in South Bend that Notre Dame was on something of a "revenge tour" after last year's College Football Playoff snub. Moore said the defensive backs took a lot of the blame following Notre Dame's loss to Miami, in which Hurricanes quarterback Carson Beck completed 20 of 30 passes for 205 yards and two touchdowns without an interception, and didn't sugarcoat how Freeman responded. "He told us we was weak, we was soft," Moore said, "all that type of stuff. It's serious to him, too. That's something he's not used to seeing from us."

Freeman, for his part, waved off any notion that revenge is the operative word internally, preaching focus on the present instead. "We spend too much time daydreaming about Miami, we're going to lose to Wisconsin," he said, referencing Notre Dame's Sept. 6 season opener. "You've got to focus on the task right at hand. That's no different than saying, can we go back to the national championship? If we want to focus on the national championship, we're going to lose the opportunity we have right here. It's my job to make sure I'm directing the focus where it needs to be."

With the bell-ringing and morning show circuit behind them, the group's New York run is expected to continue over the next several days, with more national appearances on tap as Notre Dame — with a Heisman-caliber quarterback, an All-American cornerback and a coach determined to keep the noise pointed forward rather than backward — begins building the case for a 2026 season with, in Freeman's words, no doubt left to leave.