The Penalty Box: Notre Dame Bowl Game This Year Should Be Treasured
December 28, 2022 at 2:41 a.m.
The Penalty Box: Notre Dame Bowl Game This Year Should Be Treasured
By Roger Grossman-
I love its traditions. I love its high standards.
I am not Catholic, but I love that God is a big part of Notre Dame and unashamedly so.
But, all of that being true, I don’t always appreciate my fellow fans in Irish Nation when it comes to expectations and results.
There is a mentality among Notre Dame Football fans that the season is a failure or lost or wasted if they don’t make it to the College Football Playoff’s Final Four.
That means there are millions of fans of the Fighting Irish who look at Friday’s bowl game against South Carolina as pointless and not worth their time.
Those people could not be more wrong.
Let’s stop and reflect on the season for a minute, may we?
This season started with a new coach who spent most of his summer making sure that the best of their current players and their top recruits who had signed and committed were still willing to come to South Bend.
They were not ready for the first game of the season at Ohio Stadium and it showed in a respectable loss to Ohio State.
Then the season turned very sour.
They lost to Marshall and Stanford.
Marshall won their last five games to finish 9-4.
The Cardinal went 3-9 and fired their coach.
From 0-2 and many people thinking that Marcus Freeman was not going to work out as the head coach of the Irish, to 3-3, to 8-4 and the Gator Bowl—not many people outside of that locker room in the northwest corner of Notre Dame Stadium could have envisioned that.
Except one…the guy with the biggest office in the building.
Marcus Freeman stood up there every week and answered every question, looking the questioner squarely in the eye, with strength and conviction.
I said out loud at 3-3 “this guy can coach and if he can survive to the end of the season, he’s got a chance to make it work.”
The only game they lost after that was to a USC team that was a win away from being in the CFP themselves.
If they beat the Gamecocks on Friday, they will have set the stage for a remarkable return to the national spotlight in 2023. And even if they don’t, there is a stability in the program now that was unlikely in September.
Sure, playing in a major bowl and for championships is THE goal of Notre Dame. But it would be incredibly short sited for anyone to consider this season as anything other than a successful one.
I’ll just say it right here—Notre Dame fans should be thrilled-to-death of be playing in the Gator Bowl.
Irish fans are not always ones to be grateful for what they have and are often covetous of what they don’t have. But considering how this season started they should count their blessings for the chance to play South Carolina in Jacksonville.
This is an opportunity to grow the program.
It’s a chance for the Irish to practice for an extra month and improve at every position and position group.
That extra time on the practice field makes every player in the aforementioned locker room better.
That extra time will also make Marcus Freeman and his coaches, right?
That makes Notre Dame football better.
That’s the whole point.
Maybe you hate Notre Dame. That’s ok. You and I can still be friends.
But even through your hatred, you must admit that when the Irish are good, college football is just better than when they are not. Notre Dame is like having the right sauce and rub on a rack of ribs—ribs taste good, but what makes them great is what you put on them.
Notre Dame is the spice that makes the fall feel right.
So Irish fans, enjoy the Gator Bowl and appreciate the effort that was required and the breaks that had to be made to make it happen.
And Happy New Year, Notre Dame.
I love its traditions. I love its high standards.
I am not Catholic, but I love that God is a big part of Notre Dame and unashamedly so.
But, all of that being true, I don’t always appreciate my fellow fans in Irish Nation when it comes to expectations and results.
There is a mentality among Notre Dame Football fans that the season is a failure or lost or wasted if they don’t make it to the College Football Playoff’s Final Four.
That means there are millions of fans of the Fighting Irish who look at Friday’s bowl game against South Carolina as pointless and not worth their time.
Those people could not be more wrong.
Let’s stop and reflect on the season for a minute, may we?
This season started with a new coach who spent most of his summer making sure that the best of their current players and their top recruits who had signed and committed were still willing to come to South Bend.
They were not ready for the first game of the season at Ohio Stadium and it showed in a respectable loss to Ohio State.
Then the season turned very sour.
They lost to Marshall and Stanford.
Marshall won their last five games to finish 9-4.
The Cardinal went 3-9 and fired their coach.
From 0-2 and many people thinking that Marcus Freeman was not going to work out as the head coach of the Irish, to 3-3, to 8-4 and the Gator Bowl—not many people outside of that locker room in the northwest corner of Notre Dame Stadium could have envisioned that.
Except one…the guy with the biggest office in the building.
Marcus Freeman stood up there every week and answered every question, looking the questioner squarely in the eye, with strength and conviction.
I said out loud at 3-3 “this guy can coach and if he can survive to the end of the season, he’s got a chance to make it work.”
The only game they lost after that was to a USC team that was a win away from being in the CFP themselves.
If they beat the Gamecocks on Friday, they will have set the stage for a remarkable return to the national spotlight in 2023. And even if they don’t, there is a stability in the program now that was unlikely in September.
Sure, playing in a major bowl and for championships is THE goal of Notre Dame. But it would be incredibly short sited for anyone to consider this season as anything other than a successful one.
I’ll just say it right here—Notre Dame fans should be thrilled-to-death of be playing in the Gator Bowl.
Irish fans are not always ones to be grateful for what they have and are often covetous of what they don’t have. But considering how this season started they should count their blessings for the chance to play South Carolina in Jacksonville.
This is an opportunity to grow the program.
It’s a chance for the Irish to practice for an extra month and improve at every position and position group.
That extra time on the practice field makes every player in the aforementioned locker room better.
That extra time will also make Marcus Freeman and his coaches, right?
That makes Notre Dame football better.
That’s the whole point.
Maybe you hate Notre Dame. That’s ok. You and I can still be friends.
But even through your hatred, you must admit that when the Irish are good, college football is just better than when they are not. Notre Dame is like having the right sauce and rub on a rack of ribs—ribs taste good, but what makes them great is what you put on them.
Notre Dame is the spice that makes the fall feel right.
So Irish fans, enjoy the Gator Bowl and appreciate the effort that was required and the breaks that had to be made to make it happen.
And Happy New Year, Notre Dame.
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