How did CFP finalist Notre Dame football lose to Northern Illinois?

Posted by Admin January 19, 2025 Football

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ATLANTA — They bought into everything. And everybody.

One week into the 2024 regular season, Notre Dame football did what it absolutely couldn’t do after opening with a win at Texas A&M. It listened to everything that everyone said about them. It accepted every handshake and high-five and back slap across campus.

It believed the hype, then didn’t handle the hype. Notre Dame beat Texas A&M, so Notre Dame would surely run the regular-season table and secure a spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff. A No. 5 seed and a home game was there for Notre Dame.

Life was great.

Then that happened.

You know what that is. Was. The most unexplainable result of the 2024 college football regular season. Seven days after the highest of highs, it was the lowest of lows — and below — for Notre Dame (14-1) when it lost its home opener (16-14) to 28-point underdog Northern Illinois.

Notre Dame didn’t compete with Northern Illinois, in part because it wasn’t ready. As sharp and as attention to detail and as driven as Notre Dame was the previous week, that focus never appeared. The Irish operated like, yeah, we’ve got this. All of this.

They took winning — and an opponent — for granted. It was something head coach Marcus Freeman vowed would never happen again on his watch. It hasn’t.

“That week, we were messing around a little bit,” said Irish wide receiver Beaux Collins. “Coach Freeman has done a good job of reminding us of what the pain was after that NIU loss.”

That first defensive series dictated that this day would be different. Trailing 7-0, Northern Illinois was backed to its own 2. Against that Irish defense. In that atmosphere. Surely, a safety would surface. Instead, the Huskies needed only five plays to go 98 yards and tie the game.

Right then, we should’ve known this day was headed a different direction. The vibe of the afternoon changed right there.

Offensively, the Irish were, well, offensive. They couldn’t run the ball. They couldn’t pass the ball. They couldn’t move the ball. Offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock warned everyone all August that the group was the proverbial work in progress. The offense in September wouldn’t be the offense in November. The NIU game underscored that.

Players and coaches drifted through that post-game in an upset haze. Quarterback Riley Leonard was so out of sorts that he asked a campus security guard to get him back to his off-campus residence. He didn’t want to see anyone. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. He didn’t know what to do or say or where to go next.

All that was left was to get back to work and win. The following week at Purdue. Then back at home against Miami (Ohio). Turns out that the NIU loss was Notre Dame’s biggest win. It recalibrated everything.

It helped the Irish refocus and realize that anything less than everything they could give, and NIU would happen again. It never did.

A chance at the school’s first national championship since 1988 is a result.

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