Enjoy the Ride Inside Notre Dame’s Championship Window

Bob Davie was overmatched from day one, and finished just 35-25 after five seasons.

Tyrone Willingham started with a bang, but was fired after three seasons and steady decline.

Then it was Charlie Weis who brought a "decided schematic advantage" to Notre Dame, but apparantly failed to use it, going just 35-27 in his time.

Brian Kelly entered after the 2009 season and at least largely put a stop to the bleeding. In 2012 he had Notre Dame in the BCS National Championship Game after working some regular season magic, but the difference between the Irish and Alabama was evident in the 42-14 final.

He would get Notre Dame to a couple of College Football Playoff appearances, but blowout losses to Clemson and Alabama in both of those showed just how far the program still had to go.

Then, Kelly left for LSU late one evening and a few days later, the Marcus Freeman era officially began.

Marcus Freeman's Notre Dame Has Irish on Doorstep

If you dig through the history of Notre Dame football, national championship coaches have come from guys getting to South Bend at the exact time they were needed to.

Freeman was a big-named defensive coordinator at Cincinnati before being plucked by Kelly and Notre Dame for the 2021 season. Had that not happened, he wouldn't have been in position to take over for Kelly a year later.

Growing pains came early in the form of a huge blown lead in the Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma State, before losses at Ohio State and at home against Marshall to begin his career.

2023 saw a quick start, but Notre Dame have just 10 men on the field when it gave up a last-second touchdown to Ohio State, which ended any hopes of returning to the College Football Playoff.

Then came 2024, and a week after getting a massive road win against Texas A&M, Freeman's Fighting Irish were stunned at home by Northern Illinois.

Perhaps we look back at that brutal loss being the day everything changed for Freeman and Notre Dame.

The program clearly hasn't been the same since.

Essentially playing with its food against inferior opponents hasn't been the case, and Notre Dame turned that pain into a run to the national championship game to close that fall.

2026 Notre Dame's Outlook

In a college football world where seemingly all you hear about these days is excuses and court cases, Freeman has said everything right since being left out of the College Football Playoff last December.

There was nobody to blame but themselves, and now the mission is to "leave no doubt" in the 12 regulregular-seasonar season contests this year.

I don't know if Notre Dame is going to finally end its championship drought this year, but it's hard to say it isn't on the shortest of lists of true contenders.

A Heisman Trophy favorite at quarterback, a great offensive line, and perhaps the best defense in college football all play into that.

Now, can Freeman lead this team to clear the final hurdle, and win it all for the first time in 38 years?

Barring something completely unforeseen, 2026 won't be Freeman's last shot to do so at Notre Dame. However, his time isn't going to last forever, either.

Seven year old me in 1993 never would have believed that it would be over 30 years until Notre Dame would be back, regularly competing for national championships, but here we are.

I don't know how long it'll last, but the time is now and as a lifelong Notre Dame football fan, I'm not about to take these next 12 Saturdays of being a championship threat (OK, one of them is a Sunday) for granted.,