Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM OCT. 19, 2024 53 E ventually, the "handling success" questions grow stale. Shortly after Notre Dame's stunning 16-14 loss to Northern Illinois, head coach Marcus Freeman admitted that the Irish didn't handle success well. They read their own headlines. They got cocky. They looked at their schedule and thought there wasn't a game they could lose until Week 14 at USC. In the following weeks, the questions for Freeman were rightfully relentless. "Did you think the program was past this?" and "Why did the team come out flat?" were hits from the immediate af- termath. Then when the Irish shellacked Purdue in Week 3, they became "How can you handle success better after this one?" and "What needs to change?" "Just the preparation, the mindset," Freeman said at the time. "It can't take a loss to have the mentality that we have to have, mentally and physically, to pre- pare the right way for an opponent." Sure enough, Notre Dame beat Miami (Ohio) in Week 4 and Louisville in Week 5. The fan base, relatively speaking, calmed down, and the questions largely returned to normal. Taking a quick peek at the schedule in the second half of the sea- son, one can almost think about using that four-syllable word that starts with an "M." Manageable. Stop. Drop everything. Red flag. Red flag. The Irish got through Louisville. That was the one game, with the following opponents in mind, that looked really dangerous until late November. Georgia Tech looks very beatable. Army and Navy look like Group of Five juggernauts, but they're still Army and Navy. Virginia is better than expected, but it hasn't beaten anyone of conse- quence yet (pending its Week 7 matchup versus Louisville). Florida State is a tire fire. Even USC was upset by Michigan and Minnesota as it struggles to adjust to the physicality of the Big Ten. That sounds awfully similar to the rhetoric following Notre Dame's win over Texas A&M in Week 1. It was a hard- fought, emotional victory in which the Irish beat a team that hasn't lost since. Remember what fans and media said before and after that one? "Just get by Texas A&M. If you do that, then you have three weeks to work out the kinks until Louisville." Notre Dame's players and coaches weren't saying that out loud, but they were thinking it. If they're thinking it now, the Irish will lose again before their season finale in Los Angeles. Not could. Will. Also, while the Texas A&M game has aged well for Notre Dame, the NIU game has not. The Huskies — probably doing some headline-reading of their own — followed their win in South Bend with losses to Buffalo in overtime and at North Carolina State. For reference, Buffalo lost its next game to UConn 47-3. North Carolina State seems like one of the worst teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference, en- tering Week 7 with an 0-3 mark against Power Four competition. If Notre Dame can lose to NIU, it can lose to anyone. Irish faithful shouldn't go into each game expecting a loss, but they should be aware of the possibility. It's always on the table. And if it hap- pens again, it is the end of Notre Dame's College Football Playoff hopes. One inexplicable loss to an inferior opponent? Fine. In a 12-team playoff, the Irish can more than survive that. It could even host a game if things break their way, and parity in college football has never been better (still waiting for NIL and the transfer portal to ruin that, by the way). Two inexplicable losses? Nope. Done. That won't cut it with this schedule. Maybe 10-2 with a road loss to USC gets Notre Dame in, but even then, its only quality win would have come in August. That would be a tough case to make. Irish fans have seen this exact movie before. In 2022, after its dreadful 0-2 start, including a loss to Marshall, Notre Dame responded. Freeman's group sur- vived a late comeback effort from Cali- fornia, went on the road and comfort- ably beat a solid North Carolina team and came away with a ranked win over No. 16 BYU in Las Vegas. It would have been easy to think the Irish simply figured it out. They definitely thought so, because a week later, they produced another dud. Notre Dame lost 16-14 to Stanford, which finished 3-9. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The Irish failed to learn from the Marshall loss, making the same mistakes against NIU. They have to learn from that Stanford loss to salvage the 2024 season. ✦ Head coach Marcus Freeman pointed to preparation and mindset as the most critical areas that he and his team can improve upon to be better prepared for games in which the Irish are viewed as favorites. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER 'Handling Success' Starts Now 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