re: Is ND that much better with Freeman??

Yeah ND, won the game but put an asterisk by the win, Georgia was without its starting QB and started a backup, his first career start.

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You lost to NIU. You don't get over that.

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I can provide you 12 data points that say they absolutely can get over it. Hell they beat Purdue by 59 points the next week, I would argue they got over it in less than 7 days.

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ND fans were tired of BK plateuing at essentially having some solid teams but losing big games, then a couple medicore years, then solid team that loses big games.

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At this point, can we realistically say anything has changed? 2020 Alabama and 2018 Clemson were elite teams, there's no one that good this year. Notre Dame was favored in both of their postseason matchups, IIRC.

It seems to me that the "big game" argument has become a confirmation bias thing, only BK's losses are considered "big games" and many of those losses came to actual elite teams that no one else beat either.

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In the past, even without Beck, I don't think ND dominates the UGA OL and contains the skill players.

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Why not? Ole Miss and Kentucky did, just off the top of my head. Georgia isn't that great offensively this year, even with Beck.

Seriously interested in the Notre Dame fan opinion here, I get that Freeman "won a playoff game" and "won a big time bowl game" but I don't know that Notre Dame is drastically better now than they were in say, 2021.

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To downplay Freeman's ability to have the team bounce back and go on a run after losing to NIU is a big disservice to him though.

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I don't mean to do so at all, he's a very good coach.

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It's recency bias to crown Freeman as the next big thing, but I am a lot more confident in the future now than 3 years ago.

BK SHOULD succeed at LSU because his recruiting at ND always sucked at getting athletic WR's and big, fast DL/LB's, which you can throw a rock at in LA and find a 4+ star recruit. Getting portal players to Baton Rouge is a lot easier task for that as well. He didn't have that luxury in ND.

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Fair enough, I believe so as well and agree with your statement that it was just time for some new blood. I believe Bill Parcells or someone said a coach should move on after 10 years as his message starts getting stale.

Alternatively, from the outside looking in, it seems as though Kelly leaving "woke up" your admin somewhat and they seem to be making a bigger commitment to the football program now, than they were under BK.

I would imagine Swarbrick's departure has a lot to do with this as well.

Notre Dame was without:

#1 dt
#1 wde
#2 wde
#1 cb
#3 cb

And their defense stuffed georgia and bullied them all game. Read that again. Nd bullied georgia with essentially their second string dline. That was never possible under kelly

Also without

#1 center
#1 left tackle (replacement is true freshman)
#1 rb barely played (knee) because georgia wasnt a threat to score

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Kelly lost by 28, 27 and 17 and was never in any of those 3 games.

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Freeman hasnt even played in an equivalent game yet

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ND is better off long term with Freeman than BK.

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Time will tell. ND still had a really bad loss this year, but unlike previous years, the playoffs allow for mulligans.

I personally like Freeman as a coach. I was pumped when it looked like LSU was trying to get him over as our DC from Cincy but ND offered as well and took the more stable option, which has worked out well for him so far.

The jury is still out though on this year's team. Army is their best regular season win and in the playoffs, they've played an overrated Indiana who got the benefit of a very soft schedule this year and UGA debuting a backup QB in his first start ever.

We'll see on Thursday how they do against Penn State. Both teams match up well against each other and both are relatively at full strength.

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Sometimes a relationship has just run it's course and it is best both parties go there seperate ways.

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We experienced the same with Miles

Fu€< yeah they ARE!

ATTITUDE….look at the injury list of ND players:


Player POS Status
C. Flanagan TE Out - Foot
( Sat, Jan 4)
J. Love RB Questionable - Knee
( Thu, Jan 2)
R. Mills DL Out - Knee
( Mon, Dec 23)
B. Morrison CB Out - Hip
( Mon, Oct 14)
B. Traore DL Out - Knee
( Mon, Oct 7)
C. Tucker CB Out - Knee
( Thu, Sep 5)
G. Payne RB Out - Knee
( Thu, Sep 5)
C. Jagusah OL Out - Pectoral
( Thu, Sep 5)
T. Bennie-Powell SAF Out - Shoulder
( Thu, Sep 5)
S. Prescod OL Out - Shoulder
( Thu, Sep 5)
J. Bethello DE. Out - Knee
( Season )

Then the stats: nothing too eye popping for one individual player other than Love- RB.

Team oriented “next man up mentality”
Disciplined ball. Big in turnover game.
Attention to detail with focus on each play.

Run dominant O-Line. And they just have a huge chip on their shoulder from NIU.

They’re going to win it all. Book it!

It reminds me of when Argentina lost its first 2022 WC game to Saudi Arabia (group stage) and went on a magical run to beat France to win it all.

You can’t stop what’s coming:

And that is the classiest, most steeped with tradition university in college football making a historic run. It’s been exactly 100 yrs since ND win its 1st NAT. Champ in 1924 (4horseman)

And history always has a way of repeating itself.

Thus, why ND will NEVER join a conference. We don’t need too. We’re ND and y’all ain’t!

14 million reasons and counting. Why join the market when you already own it world wide. ND is a global brand.

Peace and good luck with Kelly. Or whoever LSWho gets every three yrs to calm the irrational, impatient and spoiled lsu fan base who all end up working for their families business because they are too scared to branch off the tit of old southern wealth. And dare to be different.

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And their defense stuffed georgia and bullied them all game. Read that again. Nd bullied georgia 

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We must've not watched the same game, Georgia averaged like 5 yards per play.