Notre Dame meets its match in Ohio State
The Irish had a Playoff run for the ages. Now they must ask themselves what it will take to get over that last big hurdle.
Twelve years ago Jack Swarbrick stood outside the deflated home locker room of Sun Life Stadium and cautioned everyone that the sky was not falling, however at odds that might have been with the mood from Notre Dame players and coaches in that moment.
“There are 121 FBS schools,” the Irish athletic director said then, “and we’re in pretty good shape relative to all but one of them.”
He wasn’t wrong, not after a 28-point loss to an Alabama team in the midst of its dynasty. But the sentiment turned out to be not that simple.
Fast forward to 2025, and the Irish must now ask themselves how close or how far they really are to capturing the national title that has eluded them since 1988. Ohio State beat Notre Dame, 34-23, in Atlanta to win it all. The Buckeyes were probably the only team in the country this season that was capable of beating the Irish the way that they did.
But they weren’t those early aughts ’Bama teams in terms of their grip on the rest of the sport. And neither college football nor Notre Dame is the same as it once was, either.
There are no dominant teams or programs that can lord over the rest of the sport anymore. If that were the case, the 8th-seeded Buckeyes wouldn’t have been the 8 seed to begin with. Notre Dame, meanwhile, is in a different place than it was in 2013. NIL, the transfer portal and other factors have flattened the hierarchy of this sport, at least among the bluebloods.