Notre Dame Football Hasn’t Been This Close To A National Title In 37 Years, So Guess What?

The University of Notre Dame features the Golden Dome and Touchdown Jesus. There also are stately maple trees between Gothic-styled buildings, the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes for miracles and at least another $20 million on the way for the Fighting Irish this season after a second consecutive trip to the College Football Playoff.

Well, that’s the plan.

But here’s what the Irish don’t have, and that is, more than just memories of their last football national championship, which occurred after dinosaurs first breathed.

Actually, Notre Dame’s last football title involved the 1988 season, which is the same thing as prehistoric times for the Irish, owners of 25 national championships overall, but just 11, according to the consensus of those voting in major polls.

Now get this: From offense to defense to the sidelines and to most other places in between, this is the Irish’s most talented football team since the start of their prehistoric times without a national championship.

They are motivated, too.

“I remember the work we put in to get there. I remember that it wasn’t enough,” Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love wrote this week for The Players’ Tribune, referring to last year, which evolved into another “almost” season for the Irish during the past four decades.

Paragraph after paragraph, Love shared his grief from January at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where he, his teammates and Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman culminated their journey from an ugly home loss during the second game of the season against Northern Illinois (I mean, did the Irish really lose to an unranked Mid-American Conference foe that was a four-touchdown underdog?) to the national championship game against Ohio State.

Notre Dame didn’t win, partly because the Buckeyes were about a Wil Howard better at quarterback, but mostly because the Irish failed to “Wake up the Echoes,” as demanded in their legendary Victory March, until they dropped their jitters in the second half to turn a rout into a squeaker.

Not that it mattered.

“And I remember what Coach Free said to us in the locker room after the game,” Love also wrote for The Players’ Tribune. “’Our national championship hasn’t been denied — it’s just been delayed.’”

Whatever the case, Notre Dame got all of that loot.

Here’s how: When the Irish made the CFP last season for only the second time since the event’s debut in 2014, they earned $4 million like the other 11 teams. Then the Irish pocketed $4 million after they beat Indiana in the first round and $6 million when they knocked off Georgia to reach the quarterfinals.

Notre Dame got another $6 milion after it made the championship game with a victory over Penn State in the semifinals.

The other members of last season’s College Football Playoff (CFP) had to split their paydays with conference members. In contrast, since the Irish are an independent, they stuffed every cent of that $20 million overall into their pockets.

It’s not just about the money for Notre Dame.

“I look back at last year, man, and it hurts. It does. But I’m proud of what we accomplished as a group,” Love told The Player’s’ Tribune. “Honestly, and this might sound weird to y’all, but the thing I’m most proud of? The loss to Northern Illinois. Not losing the game, obviously. But how we bounced back. For us to lose at home, against a team outside a major conference … I mean, that stuff derails a program. You see it happen to teams who lose one like that early on and end up with four or five losses.”

To translate, that Northern Illinois upset for the ages made Notre Dame stronger, but is this hurting yet powerful group of Irish players strong enough to win a national championship sooner rather than later?

The world shall see this season, starting Sunday night on national television in Miami, where the Irish will do the frequent for them. They’ll begin with a heavyweight. This time, Notre Dame (fifth in the coaches poll and sixth by the Associated Press) will face another Hurricanes bunch (10th in both polls) claiming to sit on the verge of ressurecting its glory of the 1980s and 1990s.

This is for sure: Notre Dame is loaded.

Every level of the Irish’s defense has certified studs, with a slew of shutdown corners and a defensive line with a seemingly endless supply of quality players. Not only that, but the linebackers are peerless in the country.

On offense, Love and Jadarian Price combined last season for 1,800 yards rushing and 24 touchdowns, and they lead a Notre Dame rushing attack that goes four deep with talent. Nobody has an offensive line with more potency and experience. Elsewhere, this noted Tight End U has several gifted ones on the roster, and the Irish finally have wide receivers who actually can catch and run.

The biggest question mark?

Quarterback.

That’s only because CJ Carr will debut as Notre Dame’s starter this season as a redshirt freshman. Other than that, the former five-star recruit already has a few of his toes high in the first round of a future NFL draft.

Yeah, I know. But can the Irish win their first national title since Lou Holtz’s Notre Dame team sprinted all the way to the top 37 years ago? If you do the math, this current drought for the Irish is more than twice as long as the previous one.

The old mark stretched 17 years, when Ara Parseghian took Notre Dame to the national championship in 1966 for the first time since 1949 under Frank Leahy.

Freeman isn’t a College Football Hall of Fame coach like Holtz, Parseghian or Leahy, nor does his resume mirror that of Knute Rockne, the Notre Dame god who captured the opening of his three national titles in 1924.

That said, in Freeman’s fifth season at Notre Dame, he can start his College Football Hall of Fame run now with that national championship “delayed.

If not, and if the Irish only come close for the second consecutive year in the CFP, well, at least the priests who run the university in South Bend, Indiana will get more extra bucks to keep the Golden Dome shiny.