Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1538217
8 PRESEASON 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY ERIC HANSEN I t was a dialogue that felt like it was lifted from a dream, or even a delu- sion at various points in the post-Lou Holtz era of Notre Dame football. In a private conversation that Irish director of athletics Pete Bevacqua was willing on July 29 to waft out into the public, he, head football coach Mar- cus Freeman, first-year football general manager Mike Martin and deputy ath- letics director Ron Powlus recently sat down to collectively brainstorm. "I asked just that question," Bevac- qua told a group of five reporters in a 45-minute interview. "What do we need that we don't have? Is there anything we don't have that we need?" The collective answer was even bolder than the context. Nothing. "I think we have what we need," Bev- acqua underscored. "We're there." There, as in partying like it's 1988, the last time the Irish won a national cham- pionship in football and the year before the 54-year-old Bevacqua enrolled at Notre Dame as a freshman. Actually, and specifically, he meant there, as in Notre Dame's 34-23 loss to Ohio State in the CFP national champi- onship game Jan. 20 in Atlanta wasn't a cosmetic moral victory but a real launch- ing pad to something bigger and brasher. "To win a national championship in any sport — football — you've got to be good," Bevacqua said. "We are good. Got to stay healthy. And no matter how good you are, you're going to have to get lucky a couple times. But I really feel like we're positioned to keep knocking on that door. Are you going to play in the national championship game every year? "No, unfortunately, right? There's too many good teams, but we're going to keep knocking on the door." WHAT PROGRESS LOOKS LIKE Bevacqua then went on to list the "whys," a compilation that was as pro- tracted as the "why nots" used to be. The right coach, in Bevacqua's view. The right facilities. A recruiting formula that suddenly mimics alchemy. Revenue from the new NBC deal that keeps Notre Dame in the same financial district as the Big Ten and SEC. A playoff format that builds in a mulligan the Irish didn't really have in most years in the four-team version or in the BCS model that came before it. And a Notre Dame administration that creates minimal headwinds and listens with an open mind. "I can't express the alignment we have from the top of the top … all the way down to everybody that is making decisions for this university," Bevac- qua said. "There is no secret, no doubt, no hesitation. We want to win national championships in football." WHAT THE CHALLENGES LOOK LIKE The long-awaited House v. NCAA settlement that was supposed to cho- reograph college athletics' next morph, was finalized June 6, put into practice July 1 and legally challenged repeatedly in courts and with loopholes — both legit and rancid — seemingly hourly ever since. This, suddenly, is Bevacqua's heavy lift as Jack Swarbrick's successor. Not to exhume a championship formula that once felt lost forever. That box, he feels, has been checked. But to navigate Notre Dame into a new college football arena with rickety guardrails — unless Congress steps in — all while still keeping college football at least resembling enough of the game so many of us fell in love with to stay something worth being in love with it. Conquering one or the other is diffi- cult enough, but doable. But doing both? "I think it's important for people to realize that it's not as though just a switch has been flipped on," Bevacqua said. "Student-athletes, particularly in certain sports — and primarily, it's no se- cret, in football and men's and women's basketball — have been earning money through name, image and likeness (NIL) opportunities for several years now. "We're already in that age of athlete compensation, based on opportunities around name, image and likeness. When you show up to your first Notre Dame game this year, it's not as though there's going to be a tangible difference. We're already existing in that world." But it's not the existing world that's scary. It's what it could turn into. "My biggest concern, in terms of what makes college sports special and could that change, I think primarily around college football," Bevacqua said. "Col- lege football is a big business, right? … UNDER THE DOME CHANGING LANDSCAPE How Pete Bevacqua and Notre Dame's brash new reality fit in college football's morphing minefield Bevacqua, Notre Dame's director of athletics, talked about the alignment from the top down at Notre Dame and said there are no secrets to their collective ambition: "We want to win national championships in football." PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER