Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM DECEMBER 2024 29 M arcus Freeman knew exactly how many days it had been since Notre Dame's loss to Northern Illi- nois and the final game of the Fighting Irish regular season, a rivalry road tilt at USC. Eighty-four. He mentioned the number twice in the first two minutes of his postgame press conference. Then senior quarterback Riley Leonard brought it up during his own session with reporters at the Los Angeles Memorial Coli- seum after he led Notre Dame to a 49-35 victory. You know, just for good measure and all. Guess how many words were in the first three paragraphs of this column, from "Marcus" through "all"? Eighty-four. You can't make that up. Maybe this Notre Dame football sea- son is just written in the stars. Too good to be true. We won't know until at least the third week of December. That's when the Irish will be competing in the College Football Playoff. They unofficially as- sured themselves of a home game in the first-round with their win over the Tro- jans, their 11th overall. They haven't lost in, well, over 84 days. The most impressive thing about this Irish run to the CFP is that it could have ended in any given week. If the same team that showed up against NIU ever surfaced again — against Louisville or Georgia Tech or, yes, even USC — Notre Dame would have suffered a second loss and would have been a long shot to be considered on selection day. Who is that team, though? These Irish don't know. Notre Dame, with 11 wins and just that one loss, is unequivo- cally one of the best teams in the coun- try and has absolutely earned the right to try to extend its winning streak to 14 and claim the program's first national title since 1988. Not quite 84 years, but it sure feels like it. And it sure would be nice for Notre Dame to snap that streak. Free- man feels like he has a team that can. One game at a time and all of those other cliches, but that's just the truth. "I've known this team has been really good" Freeman said. "I said earlier that it was one of those most talented rosters I've had since I've been here. "Talent is one thing. We've developed into a good team, and that's because of our hard work." In Freeman's first season, a crushing loss to Ohio State in the season opener and a deflating home loss to Marshall the very next week spelled the end of that playoff push before it even started. The Irish lost to a Stanford team that went 3-9 and then on the road at USC in the regular season finale. In his second season, the Irish couldn't beat Ohio State again — or Louisville or Clemson on the road. They did not learn from misfires and repeated them, just like in 2022. This season? Just one blem- ish. That's the difference. Notre Dame took one of the worst losses in program his- tory, processed it properly and used it as motivation to do something special. The Irish did not get beat by the same issues twice. Northern Illinois stayed Northern Illinois. It did not bleed into any other game. That's progress in plain day- light in the Freeman era. "I told our players Monday after that game, 'This will be the greatest thing that ever happened to this football team if we learn from it and con- tinue to use it,'" Freeman said. "It would be the greatest thing that can happen to us. It was. "It's hard to say that the greatest thing that happened to this program this season was a loss, but it taught us what it takes to handle suc- cess. It taught us what it takes to have success. "That's why I said, 'Just keep the pain. I don't want to go back to that place. We don't need to go back there to remember how it feels, but we'll look back and be thankful for it.'" Oh, how much Freeman has matured in his three seasons on the job. And his players reflect that maturity on the field. They got battered and bruised in ways they hadn't in weeks against USC and still had the resolve to shut things down in the waning moments. Think you had a chance to spring this upset, USC? Think again. Not against this Notre Dame team. This isn't 2022 or 2023. This is 2024, the year of the reborn Irish. The year of the CFP-bound, 11-win Irish. ✦ Following the win over USC, Marcus Freeman credited the team's reaction to the Northern Illinois loss for the success it has enjoyed since then. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER Irish Show Again This Freeman-Led Team Is Different Tyler Horka has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 2021. He can be reached at thorka@blueandgold.com GOLDEN GAMUT TYLER HORKA