NEW ORLEANS — They didn’t care.
Sequestered in their downtown hotel for an additional day and night while this city dealt with unspeakable tragedy, while this city cried, while this city mourned, members of the Notre Dame football team didn’t mind if it would take one day or one week to play a 2025 College Football Playoff semifinal against Georgia in the Allstate Sugar Bowl.
The Irish were going to take the time and pay proper respect to the city, to the victims, to their loved ones, to anyone affected by what happened here early New Year’s Day and then, and only then, would they turn attention to football.
“(Wednesday) was a horrible, horrible event,” said sixth-year graduate student Jack Kiser. “Football wasn’t bigger than that.”
They didn’t flinch.
Even after Notre Dame turned the massive Ceasars Superdome on its collective dome with a 98-yard Jayden Harrison kickoff return for a touchdown to grab a 20-3 lead at the start of the second half, they knew that recent two-time national champion Georgia would bite back.
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It was going to get loud. It was going to get crazy. When that moment came, the Irish stayed steady, stayed sure and stayed together.
“It was a heavyweight fight,” said head coach Marcus Freeman. “The entire game was.”
They didn’t know.
How Notre Dame football cleared a three decade roadblock
Beating Georgia 23-10 in a College Football Playoff quarterfinal saw Notre Dame win its first New Year’s bowl game (even though it wasn’t played on New Year’s for obvious reasons) since 1994. That’s 31 years of frustration since Notre Dame last did what it did on Thursday.
Plenty of talented dudes who are considered the best of the best never did what this group did. Safety Kyle Hamilton never did it. Offensive lineman Quenton Nelson never did it. Quarterback Brady Quinn never did it. These guys did it.
“Just a testimony to our culture,” said wide receiver Jordan Faison. “We take culture very seriously over here. It allows you to excel in the game and allows you to come out here and show out.”
This team, this program, cleared a hurdle that had sat as a roadblock, a season stopper, a scab that was picked at for over three decades. The hopes and dreams of this group are to go and win two more games, starting Thursday against Penn State in the Capital One Orange Bowl/CFP semifinal, but to do what Notre Dame did on this night, in this city, under those circumstances, no word may adequately describe it.
Amazing.
Impressive.
Dominant.
They all fit this team, this season, this run that saw Notre Dame win for a school record 13th time. It has one loss. That loss is a big loss. That loss likely has allowed this team to do nothing since mid-September but win. In many ways, and the Irish have said it often, and said it again Thursday, that loss was a win in the biggest of picture.
If not for that, they likely couldn’t do this.
Once again, Notre Dame football found its focus
Two more wins and Notre Dame will have earned its first national championship since 1988. Is it too early to write that? To think that? To dream that? Too bad, we just did. After what happened in the Superdome, Irish fans deserve to dream that dream.
This team has proven that no matter the odds — you know, great or small — Notre Dame, as the song says, will win over all.
Win Notre Dame did, one day later than it planned to play. The mass casualty event that rocked this city cast a somber haze over the program at the team hotel on Wednesday. The Irish made sure they had time to reflect, time to grieve and time to think. But when it was time to focus, this team did what it’s done nearly all season.
It locked in. It locked down.
Even up 20-3 in the third quarter and having grabbed all the momentum that you might’ve wanted to start checking flights to South Florida right then, Notre Dame knew Georgia was too big and too talented and too good to fold. The Bulldogs made it close, but on this night, close was as good as they could get.
Each time Georgia tried to get a little closer, Notre Dame had answers. On defense. With quarterback Riley Leonard. With the right leg of Mitch Jeter. Remember when Jeter’s groin injury was a CFP concern? Now, it just might help drive Notre Dame to two more wins.
Why is this Notre Dame team succeeding where others failed?
In the moments after victory, maybe it was just too crazy, too everything for these Irish to admit that they knew the bowl history/losses chapter and verse. To a man, be it safety Adon Shuler, who was still in full uniform, center Pat Coogan, who hoarded three Lemon-Lime bottles of Gatorade at his feet while in shorts and a T-shirt or Clemson transfer wide receiver Beaux Collins, who was fully dressed and styling with his headphones, nobody knew that it had been that long since the Irish did what they just did.
“That’s insane,” Collins said. “That was way before I was even thought of. I’m just ecstatic and happy to be a part of this.”
Which brings us to the most important question of the night.
Why?
Why this team? Why this moment? Why this game against this opponent in this city under those circumstances? Why did Notre Dame do something that nobody has done since 1994?
“A lot of hard work,” Coogan said. “We all told ourselves, that loss to NIU can be the best thing to ever happen to us if we let it. We truly let it. Since that day, we knew what had to be done.”
Maybe it’s fate. Maybe it’s this head coach’s and this team’s and this program’s time. Who can say? All they know is they get another week. Another week of practice. Another week of film. Another week to game plan. Another week with another charter flight to another city to play another game and, oh, yeah, another chance to do something else.
Chase a championship.
“Surreal,” Coogan said.
“Why not Notre Dame?” Shuler asked.
Exactly.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at [email protected]
