Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM SEPT. 7, 2024 53 D ue to the nature of Blue & G o l d I l l u s t ra ted 's publication schedule (during football season the magazine is printed Sunday mornings), this column was written before Notre Dame's Week 1 game at Texas A&M. But one of two things defi- nitely happened. The Irish could have won, and you're looking at the re- maining schedule with dollar signs in your eyes. A 12-0 reg- ular season is very much on the table, and with that would likely come the No. 5 seed in the College Football Playoff. Or the Irish could have lost, and you're furious. It's Year 3, and head coach Mar- cus Freeman still can't beat a quality team on the road. And besides, Texas A&M is only the 20th-best team in the country and ninth-best in the Southeastern Conference. Inexcusable. If they won, you're probably thinking, "We're back." If they lost, you might be thinking, "It's over." In all likelihood, though, both are overreactions. And Freeman knows it. "It's a great opportunity to face a great opponent, to see how good your program is in Week 1," Freeman said. "But no matter what the outcome of this game is, it doesn't dictate what the season is going to be." That's never been more true than it is right now. Twelve teams make the College Foot- ball Playoff, including eight at-large bids, meaning early losses can be for- given much more easily than in prior years. Freeman referenced Florida State's upset loss to Georgia Tech in Week 0, explaining that everything is still on the table for the Seminoles. And that loss was much less forgivable — given that the Yellow Jackets were unranked and the crowd was majority-garnet and gold — than a Notre Dame loss to Texas A&M would be. There have been times in college foot- ball's history when it would have been unthinkable to imagine the No. 7 team losing to the 20th-best team. This is not one of them. These types of upsets hap- pen constantly, and the fact of the mat- ter is that Texas A&M might have just caught Notre Dame at the right place and at the right time. This is also not the 1940s or even the 1980s, when Notre Dame can expect to walk into a hostile environment against a good team and come out with a win because "it's Year 3." Those days are over, and they're not coming back. And the days in which failing to do so is a death blow to the season are, too. "I'm sure a guy like [FSU head coach] Mike Norvell is having that same con- versation," Freeman said. "They come in with high expectations, and they lose the first one. But guess what — you have a whole bunch of football ahead of you, and you can still achieve all your goals." A loss to Texas A&M, provided the Aggies didn't score 30 and the Irish offense didn't look completely inept, would change nothing about what we thought this team was: A playoff team, which could perhaps host and win a game. And it has six weeks to re- group before leaving Indiana again. On the other side, if Notre Dame beat Texas A&M, that does not all of a sudden mean it's a national championship contender. It does not mean the Irish are going to go 12-0, either, although it might be- come the regular season's most likely outcome. This team would still have a ton to prove. Can it get through a season without a letdown game? Can its of- fense stay consistent? Can it close out every tight game with Freeman at the helm? While the schedule isn't as strong as it's been in past years, it's not a complete cakewalk, either. Georgia Tech, if Week 0 is any indication, might be tougher than previously thought. Week 1 overreactions run rampant among fans, particularly in a sport where a loss previously meant the end of a program's title hopes and an un- defeated season automatically put a team in the title game. They can plague poorly coached squads and poorly led locker rooms, too. Notre Dame is not one of those. No matter what happened, Freeman and company will study the film, make the requisite adjustments and move on to Northern Illinois. Notre Dame's vet- eran leadership will keep the players fo- cused on the task at hand. "You get 12 guaranteed opportunities, and I don't care who the opponent is," Freeman said. "You have success? You have to get refocused for the next week. You don't have success? You have to get refocused for the next week. "This is just Game 1, and we need to understand that." ✦ With the College Football Playoff expanding to 12 teams this year, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman knows that one game will not make or break the Fighting Irish's 2024 season. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER Freeman Gets It: Week 1 Does Not Define Season Staff writer Jack Soble has covered Notre Dame athletics for Blue & Gold Illustrated since August 2023. Contact him at Jack.Soble@on3.com. OFF THE DOME JACK SOBLE