EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ – A calm, calm and collected Marcus Freeman attends the postgame press conference on Saturday.

If you didn't watch the game, you may not have realized that Notre Dame beat Navy 51-14 for the sixth straight year. As far as anyone can tell, the Irish may have lost the game – and their season – given the head coach's calm demeanor.

Maybe he wants it that way.

Not too high, not too low.

A win like this shouldn't be the highlight of a South Bend season, but rather the standard. Maybe Freeman is still learning that.

“It's hopefully a mindset that we all have when it comes to dealing with success,” Freeman said. “We won, but we are so much more. It goes back to what we were just talking about. It's the mindset of what happened last week, let's enjoy this thing. The result is what you wanted, but the mental approach we take this week is so crucial to how we can improve and it has to be difficult.

“I just told these guys that you don’t improve by doing the same thing you did the week before. Human nature – gravity will take over and things will get worse. We have to prepare mentally and physically for the next opponent in difficult ways if we really want to improve and improve. That's the mindset we have. Hopefully that’s the reason why overall we’ve been able to cope with the success we’ve had over the last few weeks.”

Just two months ago, a passionate Freeman left Kyle Field after a 23-13 win over Texas A&M. It was only the first week but the Irish felt like they had the world at their fingertips. In a week we would all see how quickly things can change.

But Freeman and the Irish have gradually recovered over the last seven weeks to reach 7-1. They weren't all outstanding performances, some were braver than others, but they still won.

Freeman doesn't view this winning streak as a steady climb back to the top of the rankings. He sees each game as its own individual battle.

“Everyone judges you based on flow,” Freeman said. “The course of a season, the course of a game. We cannot look at this matter in terms of currents. We have to look at this as a game, a life, a game. That’s what I continue to preach to these people.”

When the Irish left the field at Metlife Stadium they were more than happy with the result. You have to be if you win by more than 30 points. And even if you couldn't tell, Freeman was probably happy too. But that doesn't mean he's happy.

“We want more,” Freeman said. “We want the best, but we will enjoy today. Proud of the way they prepared and played – for the most part (partially) after half time we felt we urgently needed to continue executing and improving in all three phases. Big win for this program. We’re going to enjoy going into the bye week and getting ready for the next one.”

He understands the effort and attention required to bounce back from the loss Notre Dame suffered and revive its season. So it's okay to celebrate the successes now. And of course there will still be critics. He understands that too.

“We had other people tell us what a win it was,” Freeman said. “We're going to celebrate it because a lot of people in this room put in a lot of work to make this happen, so we have to celebrate it. This is the result we were aiming for. We're also getting back to work and really addressing some of the deficiencies that we have. We will attack some of the areas where we have done well. I’ll leave it to someone else to describe what a victory it was.”

So Freeman and the Irish will go back to work. Cool, calm and collected, looking for the ultimate goal.

“I am not satisfied. Nobody in this locker room is happy. We are greedy. We want more. We want perfection.”

Notre Dame Fighting Irish Summit full-zip vest