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“Sometimes the things you’ve lost can be found again in unexpected places.” from The End by Lemony Snicket
A generation ago, Notre Dame reached the mountain top. They won a national championship after a season that saw the Irish beat then #9 Michigan Wolverines (finished #4), then #1 Miami Hurricanes (finished #2), then #2 USC (finished #7) and then #3 West Virginia Mountaineers (finished #5). That’s 40% of the Top Ten for the year and it also meant the Irish played 33% of their schedule against ranked teams. Pretty good
So far the Irish, have defeated current #2 Georgia Bulldogs, #5 Penn State Nittany Lions, #9 Indiana Hoosiers and #19 Army. They also beat then #20 Texas A&M, #15 Louisville Cardinals, and #24 Navy. They will play #6 Ohio State in the National Championship game. That’s 8 of 16 opponents who will have at some point been ranked. More than likely, Louisville will be ranked in the final AP poll, so we will have 6 of 16 finish in the AP Top 25. That’s 50% opponents played that held a ranking at some point and 37.5% that will be ranked by season’s end. Pretty good
What does all this mean? I vaguely remember the 1988 Irish, having only been 4 years old. Most of my recollection of that season came from conversations with my grandfather wherein he reminded me of the great achievements of this team. Later in life, I found DVDs and then YouTube videos of these contests and saw for my own eyes the details of that greatness. My grandfather hadn’t lied to me. What I had sat there barely acknowledging at age 4 was indeed one of the greatest achievements in football. The Irish destroyed lackluster teams (8 teams). They won close and memorable contests against Michigan and Miami before dominating USC and West Virginia. This was a great team, and it was very foreign to me by the time I began to witness it in all of its glory (starting in the late 2000s).
The Irish in 1988 was a complete team. They ran the ball with impunity. They had a run first QB who could dial up a decent pass to a handful of talented targets when the need arose. They had a defense that refused to let most teams get anything going (only Miami scored more than 21 points against the Irish). Even their special teams were spectacular with the Rocket returning kicks and Cho kicking the ball like he had ice in his veins. They were coached well and they performed like a machine. That wasn’t the case by the time of the 20th anniversary and my reintroduction to my vague first hand experience and the mythology of my grandfather’s secondhand telling of the matter.
The Irish were regularly disjointed in their composition. The defense would have a good front seven but a bad secondary or vice versa. The offense could run the ball but couldn’t pass or vice versa. Sometimes the whole offense was good but the defense was bad or…vice versa. One thing that was regularly true for the Irish: Notre Dame was subpar in the coaching department.
After 1993 (I remember this season well and was the end of what I knew of ND greatness, really), Lou Holtz seemed to lose his gleam and slowly marched to a retirement/resignation that soured an otherwise great legacy. Bob Davie was out of place from the moment he stepped on campus and never could figure out how to maximize the talent on his side. Ty Willingham left the recruiting to rot on the vine and mostly coasted on what good recruits Davie had brought on board. Charlie Weis outsmarted himself with NFL schemes and coaching hires that never fit the culture or the types of players he brought to the program. Brian Kelly rebuilt a damaged program, but didn’t have the chest to go the extra mile. He didn’t chase top level recruits (while giving ridiculous grocery store excuses), drug his feet (along with Swarbrick) on facility upgrades in the first half of his career, and coached big games like a man afraid to seize greatness – or maybe he was never prepared or equipped to do it to begin with. These men (and the ADs that empowered them), helped to drag down a program that was at the sport’s peak a generation ago.
For a while, I felt the same about Marcus Freeman. I didn’t like that we hired an inexperienced guy to be the head coach.I I didn’t like his awkward nature behind the microphone. I didn’t like his buddy method of relating with the players. I didn’t like how he seemed to be making the same mistakes in the games and off the field that his predecessors had committed (bizarre play calls, unprepared for big games, hiring friends who shouldn’t have been on the coaching staff). I didn’t like his use of the transfer portal, especially at QB. I wanted things done my way. I wanted it done the 1988 way. After all, that was the example of greatness I had seen and remembered, even if it was a shadow of a shadow.
Yet, this coach has done the thing I have hoped for my entire life. He has brought Notre Dame to the peak again. Yes, there is one more game, but the Irish are already back at the pinnacle of the sport. They are one of the Elites of college football. They aren’t going anywhere. The talent has been accrued. He did this by identifying the right guys that Brian Kelly claimed to be going after but rarely found. He built the depth that Kelly and Weis promised we would have. Those next man in philosophies were a fairy tale under them. If a guy went down, we were screwed. That’s not true anymore. Look at how Steve Angeli managed a difficult situation to get the Irish 3 points before the half against PSU. Would BK, Weis, Willingham or Davie had been able to get a backup ready for that situation?
The coaching staff is solidified. Coach Freeman didn’t need to be backed into a corner to send his buddy Gerad Parker off with a pat on the back (And kudos to Petey Bacqs for making sure we kept Golden locked up. I don’t think Swarbrick would have done that). Freeman has also identified position coaches that match the personalities of his players and buy into the culture of ND and what it represents.
The transfer portal has been mastered. Kelly attempted this with Jack Coan and it didn’t work out. Past coaches didn’t have this new fangled system to play with, but transfers did exist. Regularly, Davie, Willingham, Weis and Kelly saw guys transfer out. And that is in a time when transferring mean missing a whole year. Players would rather miss a year than play for those guys. I just don’t see that happening all that much anymore. Guess that buddy system isn’t so bad.
Coach Freeman’s system works because he tailors it to his players (and defers to his coordinators when necessary) rather than leaning towards his own tastes. The man has done what seemed to be lost forever. He brought Notre Dame back and he didn’t it in ways I never expected to succeed. I guess that’s why he’s the coach and I’m just a fan.
I want the Irish to win a national title, but just as much I want ND to be where they are now. Regularly competing for titles. Regularly playing against and beating top tier and highly ranked teams. They’re there. Everything else is extra sauce. I’ll take that, too.