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For a generation of Notre Dame fans, Monday night belongs to you
Ronald Reagan was in the waning days of his presidency on Jan. 2, 1989, when Notre Dame took its latest victory lap as the ruler of college football.
Then, a few weeks later, the man who once played Fighting Irish legend George Gipp in a movie long before he entered politics left office. And though they got close to winning a few more national titles in the years after that under Lou Holtz, the Fighting Irish never did return to their long-reserved place as the champion of college football.
More than a generation later — 36 years to be exact — that 1988 Notre Dame team is still waiting for the next Irish national title team to figuratively join hands with. A program steeped in so much tradition that championships were always a given has seen that championship lineage run dry. All these decades later, no Notre Dame team has been quite able to bring the ultimate prize back to South Bend, and so that beloved ’88 team has continued to stand alone in the bone-chilling northern Indiana wind as the interminable title drought has dragged on.
This is why Monday night matters so much to so many people who have sworn their allegiance to Notre Dame football.
There are Notre Dame fans in every corner of the world, which makes it unlike any other college football program, and when you combine all those fans with all those empty years, well, that’s a lot of broken dreams. If you’re not a Fighting Irish fan who’s 40 or older, quite simply, you know nothing but that brutal emptiness that has persisted since Holtz led Notre Dame to its 11th national title. You’ve heard the glorious tales of championships past but come to the cold conclusion that you were simply born too late.
And even if you are an Irish fan who is of that age, quite simply, there is still a brutal emptiness that persists because you probably never believed in your wildest dreams that the 11th title would still be the last one. Since that magical day in the desert when Notre Dame soundly beat West Virginia, 34-21, in the Fiesta Bowl, it has been one long tease in championship purgatory, watching from the outside as blueblood after blueblood basked in confetti.
The agony got worse just last season, when rival Michigan had its turn, capturing its 1st national title since 1997.
That long tease came with splashes of cold reality in 2012, 2018 and 2020, when Brian Kelly seemingly had Notre Dame on the precipice of a title 3 times. But each time, the Irish were easily vanquished by stronger and faster teams from the South, whether it was in the 2012 title game against Alabama, the 2018 semifinals against Clemson or the 2020 semifinals against Alabama again.
Those Kelly-led teams were really good, but they were also really lacking in the goods to keep up with Nick Saban’s dynasty in Tuscaloosa or Dabo Swinney’s richly talented rosters. It was wonderful for Irish fans to feel like they were close to finally getting it done, but when you peeled back the onion, it was all fool’s gold because those teams were never winning anything.
Then, after all those hollow forays into the national title discussion, hated Michigan, of all teams, sweeps in and buries its long-standing demons. One of the few things long-suffering Irish fans could hold onto — the knowledge that at least Michigan hadn’t won a natty in a million years, either — was now vanquished.
And the idea that programs like Notre Dame and Michigan couldn’t win national titles anymore in the high-octane offense, SEC-dominated era was extinguished, because Jim Harbaugh found a way to squeeze out a title in Ann Arbor.
But what about Notre Dame? Fighting Irish fans who felt robbed, or cursed, or both, now felt jealousy because one of their ancient rivals (and, worse, their fans) could remind them that they had finally won while Notre Dame remained in national championship purgatory.
And what about Notre Dame’s head coaches during the past 40 years? Holtz became the latest Notre Dame coaching god after winning that 1988 title, and he almost led the Irish to a 2nd crown in 1993, when ND won the Game of the Century against Florida State before falling to Boston College the following week in one of the most agonizing losses in Notre Dame football history. In fact, you can make a strong argument that things were never quite the same in South Bend since that stunning loss to BC in ’93.
Three years later, Holtz retired from coaching (at least temporarily), and the latest golden era of Notre Dame football was over. That began a parade of head coaches who tried really hard to keep the championship lineage going in South Bend but fell short. There was Holtz’s successor, Bob Davie; there was Tyrone Willingham; there was Charlie Weis; and there was Kelly — and we won’t even get into the very brief but very embarrassing Irish coaching saga that was George O’Leary.
This is why Marcus Freeman matters so much to so many people who truly believe he’s the man who will get Notre Dame over the hump.
Freeman is in only his 3rd season at the helm in South Bend, and he just turned 39 years old the day after guiding the Fighting Irish to a thrilling semifinal victory over Penn State. If things continue to trend the way they have and Freeman has no serious NFL coaching intentions, he could theoretically be the head coach at Notre Dame for the next 30 years or so.
And that could mean a whole lot more chances for Notre Dame to win national titles and reestablish itself as the preeminent program in college football, or at least one of them. But before Freeman can potentially start the next Notre Dame dynasty, he has to do what no Fighting Irish fan who is Freeman’s age or younger has seen them do during their tortured fandom.
Freeman has to lead Notre Dame to the national championship that has eluded the Irish for far too long, and he’ll have to do it against an Ohio State program that he once played for. Whether you’re an actual Notre Dame alum or part of the legions of “subway alumni” in big cities across America who have become Fighting Irish fans for decades because their fathers, uncles or grandfathers passed the romantic allegiance down, it doesn’t really matter.
You’ve arrived at the precipice of your Notre Dame dreams.
You’ve arrived at what could be the night of a lifetime.
You’ve come close before and been painfully denied.
For a fan base that was spoiled hard for about a century, Monday night means everything.
And for those who’ve never witnessed what their elders did way too many years ago, Monday night could make all of the pain and waiting worthwhile.
Win one for the Gipper?
How about finally winning one for a generation?
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.