Friday at 4: A rare and unavoidable Notre Dame first vs. Tennessee State serves an inarguable greater good

There are few firsts left to be accomplished in Notre Dame football history. 135 seasons will do that.

But for the first time since the NCAA created two divisions among its Division I football teams, the Irish will face an FCS foe on Saturday (3:30 ET on NBC) in Tennessee State. And that is a good thing.

Notre Dame was in a scheduling jam when it set up last week’s trip to Dublin on less than two years' notice. It needed to either burn an idle week before most of the country has even begun playing or it needed to find an opponent not yet booked for 2023’s Labor Day weekend.

There was not an FBS opponent available given that short notice. This is a sport that schedules out a decade in advance.

Enter an FCS foe, someone competing at the level that was known as Division 1-AA up until a rebranding in 2005. And if needing to find an FCS foe, the level of competition should be assumed to be nil. Outside of the four schools in the Dakotas, perhaps Eastern Washington and, recently, Incarnate Word, few FCS opponents’ best days would keep them within four touchdowns of the Irish on their worst day.

That talent disparity isn’t altogether new. Notre Dame has been favored by more than 30 points at home four times in the last five seasons. Beating Bowling Green 52-0 in 2019 was hardly competitive. This space touted the turning point of that game as “Kickoff.”

How to make something of this transatlantic-induced Notre Dame first? Well, either skip Dublin and avoid this quandary or make the FCS foe unique, a program that can make the off-the-field aspects more engaging. Enter a historically Black college or university.

The Irish reportedly reached out to Jackson State and Florida A&M to fill the date before striking a $1 million deal with Tennessee State. And it could be argued that was fortunate. Deion Sanders’s loud departure from Jackson State led to that roster undergoing significant turnover and becoming a great unknown. Florida A&M has had a few off-the-field moments the last two years that raise an eyebrow, beginning with a rash of academic suspensions days before the 2022 season began and the football staff subsequently pointing at compliance officials for the issue, an argument that also highlighted the under-staffing around the program as a whole.

Meanwhile, Tennessee State’s marching band, the Aristocrat of Bands, won a 2023 Grammy for the Best Gospel Roots Album, the first marching band to win a Grammy.

Citing the marching band when discussing the merits of playing an HBCU may be surface-level thinking, but that halftime show should be the best at Notre Dame Stadium in a long time, arguably ever. The merits certainly go beyond that.

“We’re truly — I’m truly and I will make sure [the Irish players] are — grateful for the opportunity to be able to do this,” head coach Marcus Freeman said Monday. “They are different universities, but they are both distinct in celebrating their own way. At the core values that both universities possess, they align. It’s a great opportunity, it’s going to be a great experience for both schools.”

Notre Dame’s roster may have a greater appreciation for this chance than Freeman assumed. The football facilities are the rare spot on the South Bend campus where minorities may be a majority. The university needs to do better in those regards, an active worry now that the Supreme Court recently ruled demographics cannot be explicitly considered in college applications, a ruling many universities across the country have already begun taking measures to work around.

Scrolling through the Irish roster, at least 25 players hail from the Southeast, including two from Tennesseee in freshman quarterback Kenny Minchey and transfer defensive back Thomas Harper. Many of them had family members attend HBCUs. They recognize the need for HBCUs in the country, schools that legitimately do not need to factor in demographics in applications.

Raising the profile of an HBCU, pouring seven figures into its budget and welcoming a Grammy-winning band are all, inarguably, good things. A few thousand Tennessee State fans are expected to make the seven-hour drive to South Bend, bettering the on-campus atmosphere as visiting fans always seem to.

Notre Dame chose to go to Dublin. It then wanted a season-long competitive edge and thus needed to find an opponent for this week. An FCS opponent was, at that point, inevitable.

Playing Tennessee State this weekend at least achieves a greater good, one that should not be diminished by Irish fans in the name of praising Bowling Green, Ball State and New Mexico football.

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