Notre Dame Football – As Season Ends, Questions Begin
It feels like just yesterday we were grinding through the dog days of summer begging for college football to start back up again. Just as fast as it all started, it’s now over, and Notre Dame has finished their regular season at 9-3 with more ups and downs than the newest roller coaster at your local Six Flags.
With the season complete, Irish fans are now asking what comes next. This applies to both bowl season this year and into next year as well. There are a lot of moving parts and I suspect more to come. This year featured lots of things to really appreciate and enjoy, it’s just unfortunate that in the big picture, the deficiencies that led to the 3 losses on the ledger weigh down the positivity, justifiably so.
Let’s examine the three big questions Irish fans have now that the regular season has concluded.
Very Familiar Bowl Opponent?
In case you missed it, Brian Kelly and LSU also had an up-and-down season and finished at 9-3. There is a strong possibility that the Freeman-led Irish and Kelly-led LSU will face off in late December. This is the media’s dream scenario as it provides a juicy storyline to what is normally a nondescript bowl scenario between teams that have six combined losses.
From the time Kelly and Freeman both got settled in at their new locations, this matchup has been in the back of fans’ minds. It’s been on mine as well, but not like this. I wanted this matchup to be with elite status on the line, not a debate of who has 3 losses or 4. I love the matchup in theory, I don’t love the moment it’s tied to for both squads.
OC Decision
Notre Dame finished the year with an impressive points-per-game average of above 39, good for ninth nationally. On the surface seems like exactly what the Irish have been missing. But then there is the dividing line between the “good defenses” the Irish played and the bad ones.
The reality is that the Irish piled it on the bad teams they played and looked inept and had no answers vs the better teams and defenses on the schedule to the tune of averaging 19 points in those games, 3 of them losses. This leaves the fans to ask what the plan is moving forward. The big game results are not good and the PPG average provides easy cover for it should Freeman double down on the Parker experiment. Dangerous place to be.
Another QB Change Is Coming
Notre Dame fans fully embraced Sam Hartman. They wanted him to succeed. They wanted the team to succeed. There was also hope and reason to think it was possible that Hartman could elevate the offense to a level that could get the Irish “over the hump” against tough defenses.
As it turns out, that didn’t happen and the Hartman experience ended in a 9-3 season that nobody is thrilled about. As the Irish turn the page on the Hartman, another QB debate looms. Will the job next year go to Steve Angeli, Kenny Minchey or yet another transfer QB to be named later?
Will Notre Dame dip its toe in transfer portal and land another fish from the ACC?
At some point, I think it’d be in Notre Dame’s best interest to lock onto a young homegrown player and let him develop as “the guy”. The Irish aren’t there yet and the QB carousel continues to spin.
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