Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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4 SEPT. 21, 2024 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED N otre Dame dubiously became a punch line, a cautionary tale and a source of motivation all at once, following its inexplicable 16-14 home loss to Northern Illinois Sept. 7. In what could be considered the big- gest upset in Notre Dame Stadium his- tory, the Irish entered the game as the No. 5-ranked team in the country and a 28.5-point favorite but left as the talk of college football — for all the wrong reasons. With NIU trailing 14-13 late in the fourth quarter, Huskies placekicker Kanon Woodill nailed a 35-yard field goal with 31 seconds left to secure the first win over a top-10 team in NIU history. For full disclosure, I unequivocally celebrated in this space last week Free- man's evolution as a coach after the way he motivated his team the week prior in an emotional 23-13 road win over then- No. 20 Texas A&M. My father warned that I might be get- ting out over my skis only one game into the season — he's seen this movie before — but I dove in headfirst, nonetheless. "This is Marcus Freeman today, more comfortable in his own skin to start his third season on the job," I proclaimed, "and ready to put his stamp on his pro- gram and lift Fighting Irish football to a place former Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly never did." For the record, Kelly won 42 straight games against unranked opponents at Notre Dame from the start of the 2017 season through his departure in 2021. And now, Freeman has already lost three games to opponents that his Irish were favored to beat by at least 17 points (NIU in 2024, and Marshall and Stan- ford in 2022). In the days following the latest up- set loss, Freeman confusingly explained that his team's physical preparation for Northern Illinois was terrific, but that his guys got caught in the avalanche of praise and hype that came after the Texas A&M win. In previous years, Freeman's Irish were unable to secure a noteworthy victory early in the season, losing twice to Ohio State in close Sep- tember games in 2022 and 2023. "This is the first time in my three years as a head coach that we have won a big game early in the season, after two losses to Ohio State," Freeman ex- plained. "And then, all of a sudden, we win and everybody says, 'Hey, you're going to the playoff. You've got an easy schedule.' We all hear it, and I think we started to believe that." Guarding against overconfidence will forever remain Job 1 for any successful head football coach. Freeman failed at it miserably. The blame for the devastating Irish upset can't be placed on Freeman's fail- ure to read his team or the disinterest his players showed in the game. The Irish defense was bad. The inex- plicable play calling from offensive co- ordinator Mike Denbrock was bad, and the performance of senior quarterback Riley Leonard was really bad. Notre Dame got outcoached and out- played, and in the process it suffered the biggest upset loss based on ranking that a team from the Mid-American Con- ference has ever pulled in the league's 78-year history. Former Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel tried to warn Freeman before the NIU game that the impressive season- opening win over Texas A&M guaran- teed nothing. "I just want to remind you, the great- est danger is the illusion that all is well when indeed all isn't well," was the message from Freeman's former coach. At the time, Freeman called the con- versation with Tressel, "the reminder I needed more than anything." But for whatever reason — and there are plenty — Tressel's message didn't take, and in the span of seven days, the Irish went from a title contender to a long shot pretender. ✦ Brian Kelly (left) won 42 straight games against unranked opponents during his last five seasons at Notre Dame, but his successor Marcus Freeman (right) hasn't fared as well. Freeman has now lost three games against double-digit, unranked underdogs (Marshall and Stanford in 2022, and Northern Illinois in 2024). PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER How One Upset Loss Can Define A Whole Season Todd D. Burlage has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 2005. He can be reached at tburlage@blueandgold.com. UPON FURTHER REVIEW TODD D. BURLAGE