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Bama News
Does Notre Dame have something to prove after high-profile flops? Irish sick of ānarrative.ā
Notre Dame was routed in the last two postseason games entering the Rose Bowl semifinal against Alabama.
Frankly, the 42-14 final score made the 2013 BCS title game seem closer than it felt. Notre Dame was never competitive that night in Miami Gardens when Alabama steamrolled the blue blood for a third national championship in four years.
Six years later, the Irish were back on the grand stage only to see Clemson silence the echoes in the 2018 Cotton Bowl semifinal. Notre Dame managed just 248 yards in a 30-3 loss that cued the chorus of doubts the historic superpower had a place among modern-day elite.
Was Notre Dame still Notre Dame?
Limping into the 2020 playoff after another blowout loss to Clemson didnāt quiet those questions even after staking its claim with a regular-season win over the top-ranked Tigers. Entering the Rose Bowl semifinal a 20-point underdog to Alabama begged the question that clearly annoyed Irish coach Brian Kelly.
Does Notre Dame have something to prove at 3 p.m. CT Friday after a series of high-stakes flops?
āNo. No, I mean, weāre knocking on the door every year playing really good teams and great opponents,ā Kelly said Monday. āAnd thereās elite football teams. I donāt know why this narrative continues to pop up when weāre always in the games.ā
Itās not a matter of making the games thatās been the issue. Itās how the 11-time national champion has responded in the 32 years since the Irish last ruled college football.
Notre Dame is 2-4 against top-10 opponents in the past five years.
Against Alabama eight years ago, it managed just 132 yards outside of two second-half touchdown drives after the Tide built a 35-0 lead. Notre Dame tied the 2018 Cotton Bowl semifinal 3-3 in the first quarter before Clemson scored the final 27 points.
āNo, we havenāt won a national championship, thatās correct,ā said Kelly, now in his 11th year at Notre Dame. āIām not changing the record. But we are there every single year and weāre grinding it out just like everybody else. And only one team gets to celebrate at the end of the year.ā
Later in his Monday news conference, Kelly noted Alabama lost to Clemson by more in the national title game that followed its Cotton Bowl loss.
āIf you look at it, our game against Clemson was a closer game than they had against Alabama,ā Kelly said. āSo, I mean, if you do that kind of a comparison, it shows very little in terms of what the disparity is.ā
Alabama lost by 28 in that title game (44-16) after Notre Dameās margin of defeat was 27 points. Irish offensive lineman Liam Eichenberg was also versed in that fact.
āIn past years Iām pretty sure Alabama got blown out by Clemson,ā he said. āIām pretty sure other teams have been blown out as well in the playoffs. Iām not specifically concerned about that. This is a different year. This is a different team.ā
The graduate student lineman said he doesnāt even remember the 42-14 loss Alabama handed Notre Dame in his childhood. He said he couldnāt remember how old he was that January night in 2013 when he was a few weeks shy of his 15th birthday. The Cleveland product said the offensive line āhas come a long wayā since that 2012 team.
āNothing against those guys. They had a lot of great players. I do know thatās when, I think, Coach Hiestand just got here, and the culture wasnāt fully there, I guess you could say,ā Eichenberg said, referencing offensive line coach Harry Hiestand who was with the Irish from 2012-17. āI feel like what weāve built over the past couple of years will help us during this game specifically.ā
The 2013 game was remembered for the way Alabama bullied Notre Dame at the line of scrimmage. The Tide ran for 265 yards on 45 attempts (5.9 average) while the Irish netted just 32 playing from behind with 19 attempts and a 1.7-yard average.
Eichenberg was the starting left tackle in the 2018 loss to Clemson while Tommy Kraemer was the right guard. The fifth-year senior wasnāt discouraged by what happened that night in Arlington, quite the opposite.
āI think the biggest takeaway is that we can win these games,ā Kraemer said. āAnd I think just hard work and everything we do together is what puts us in these situations. I think weāre all really excited for this opportunity and ready to take it to āem.ā
The Irish ran for 88 yards on 35 carries (2.5-yard average) in that loss that saw Clemson run for 5.7 yards a carry for a 211-yard total.
The two games with Clemson this fall showed the importance of the running game. Notre Dame had a 208-34 edge in rushing yards in the November win and a 219-44 deficit in the loss.
Notre Dame offensive coordinator Tommy Rees has a unique perspective on the high-profile losses of the past decade. Before his time as the quarterbacks coach in South Bend started in 2017, he was a backup quarterback on the 2012 team that lost to Alabama.
āIt wasnāt a fun night, obviously,ā he said.
Rees credits Kellyās leadership for a run thatās included six 10-win seasons since his arrival in 2010.
āAnd then I think just weāve been in this situation now multiple times,ā Rees said, āand thereās a belief within the program that weāre consistently one of the best five teams in the country, and we handle ourselves that way and we have that belief.ā
This is a completely different Notre Dame program since January 2013, Kelly said. Theyāve changed the way they recruit and built stronger lines in the effort to modernize the old-school blueblood for a modern game.
āAnd weāre going to keep banging it,ā Kelly said, āand weāre going to keep getting back here. And thatās our job. And thatās our challenge each and every year is to compete for a national championship, and weāll continue to do that.ā
