Could Notre Dame football put to rest the New Year's Day bowl narrative?

Could Notre Dame football put to rest the New Year’s Day bowl narrative?

Posted by author January 3, 2025 Football

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NEW ORLEANS − Everything about everything on the outside could have and probably should have had some effect indoors.

The mass casualty event on Bourbon Street in the early morning hours of the new year. The postponement of a big-time game on a day reserved for the big-time game. The endless hours of sitting around the team hotel waiting to play. Something should’ve thrown Notre Dame football off course.

Not this Notre Dame team. Not this Notre Dame season.

This team’s different. This program’s different. All of that was on display Thursday for all of college football to see. Want more proof? Jayden Harrison put this one basically on ice (somewhat) with his second-half kickoff return. Another 98-yard score for the Irish in a playoff game, this one bigger than the first one.

This one happened, and suddenly, this game was all but over. You didn’t want to say it, at least out loud, but you sure thought it. Start booking flights to South Florida. That’s where Notre Dame is headed after a 23-10 victory over Georgia in the Allstate Sugar Bowl in the last of the College Football Playoff quarterfinals.

Next up, Penn State next week in Miami Gardens, Florida. Pass the sunscreen.

It had been three-plus decades – 31 years to be exact – since Notre Dame last won a major New Year’s bowl. In 1994, Notre Dame beat Texas A&M in the old Cotton Bowl for what it thought would give it a share of the national championship. It didn’t. Florida State won it.

Notre Dame had rarely been the same on the big January stage. It could and would win 10, 11 games but disappear when the spotlight was brightest. It was plenty bright on Thursday, but these Irish weren’t going anywhere.

For too many times afterward in too many bowls, Notre Dame looked and played like it didn’t belong. Out in the desert of the Fiesta Bowl. In Miami in the Orange Bowl. In the Dallas Metroplex for (yep), the Rose Bowl.

We can now nuke that narrative. Notre Dame didn’t just look and play like it belonged Thursday. It didn’t just win a major bowl game. It went and took a major bowl game from a program that has won more national championships (two) in the last four years than Notre Dame has won in the last 40.

This game, this day, this win is what everyone dreamed of the day Marcus Freeman burst through the locker room door that December day in 2022 as the new head coach. That road was a rough one the last two years, and even some in Year Three, but that’s 12 straight wins now for Notre Dame, now 13-1 for the first time in program history.

It’s been a College Football Playoff run of firsts for Notre Dame. Thirteen days earlier, its first CFP win, at home in Indiana. On Thursday, it nailed down a 13^th win for the first time in program history.

That’s some select, serious stuff. Championship-level stuff.

Those cheers from the Notre Dame seating sections bouncing all over the Dome early in the third quarter when the Irish were up 20-3? That was 30-plus years of frustration and failure spilling out for all to hear.

As good as the Irish defense was early, and they were scary good, it was obvious that the Irish offense might have its share of issues against Georgia’s fast and furious group. Nothing came easily those first 15. It was 0-0 on the big board, but felt like Notre Dame was down at least by a touchdown.

We talked so much about Notre Dame being in old territory in this postseason, where it was win or go home. That’s what the Irish had done since losing in the second week of the season – win or they’d be home. That was old territory. New territory? That finally arrived with 12:14 left in the second quarter when Peyton Woodring kicked a 41-yard field goal to make it 3-0 Georgia.

Those points marked the first time since October 19 — also against a team from Georgia (Tech) — that Notre Dame last trailed. It dismissed that deficit that day in another NFL dome (Mercedes-Benz). It needed to do it again Thursday. And fast.

Even at that point. with so much time left before half, it felt like this one was getting away from the Irish. Slowly yes, but also surely for a Notre Dame team that up to that point, had one first down and 11 total yards.

Two first downs and 49 yards later, it was 3-3 after a Mitch Jeter field goal. The answer might not have looked like much, but it was big. To Notre Dame, style points mattered little. The Irish kicked a couple field goals, got a pick turnover late in the first half, got a touchdown and was halfway home halfway through, 13-3.

Notre Dame’s deficit in that first half was a whole 3:54. How would the Irish answer? Oh, they answered.

It was fitting there was a roof on the Superdome — let what happened and is happening a mile away on Bourbon Street stay outside. Let city, state and federal officials deal with that the way they’ve for the last 36 hours. Set it all aside for 60 minutes and let’s play some football.

It didn’t feel like a big game should feel until about 60 minutes before kick. The fans were in the stands. There were cheers and boos. There were hugs and high-fives. There were the bands. We had an atmosphere that we didn’t know we’d have 24 hours ago. The closer this one got to kickoff, with a coin toss and a national anthem and energy, the more it finally felt like football.

If that moment of silence 25 minutes before kickoff didn’t give you chills, you didn’t have a heartbeat. That one hit differently on this day, in this city, for this game. Kickoff at 3:10 p.m. local time couldn’t come soon enough. It was time.

Time for someone to snag the final semifinal spot. Next stop for Notre Dame would be South Bend or South Beach.

Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at tnoie@sbtinfo.com