NEW ORLEANS — Eleven final thoughts on Notre Dame’s historic 23-10 victory over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, which sends the Irish to the College Football Playoff semifinals against Penn State in the Orange Bowl next Thursday, Jan. 9.
1. Marcus Freeman spent much of this season deflecting questions about expectations and goals and just how far this team could go. He talked about “getting this team to play to its full potential” whenever asked. And if Notre Dame had lost to Georgia, I would have pressed Freeman on whether the program met that sliding scale of a mark. Now I don’t have to. I already know the answer.
2. Does Notre Dame win the Sugar Bowl without its masterful management of the transfer portal? Absolutely not. The Irish don’t even make the game, probably eating life-size Pop-Tarts instead. Freeman talks about majoring in high school recruiting, but it feels like the personnel department minored in rocket science by getting performances from Duke, Clemson, South Carolina, Marshall, Duke, Arizona State and Northwestern transplants against Georgia.
Looking for Notre Dame’s next NIL advertisement to help the Irish load up this month in the portal for 2025? Just watch the tape. Sure, winning is expensive. That’s because it’s worth it.
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3. But it’s not like Notre Dame’s transfer haul was some band of mercenaries. A football locker room doesn’t work that way. And Notre Dame functioning as well as it did says as much about the players who stayed as the ones who showed up for this ride.
“Those guys, they came because of the locker room and coach Freeman. They saw the potential in this team that everybody else knew inside this locker room,” said linebacker Jack Kiser. “It’s hard here. You gotta go to class. You’re not gonna be the dude, always. To see them come in this locker room and fit, that’s a big thing.”
Kiser, already Notre Dame’s career leader in games played, also made a plea on Thursday night.
“I really think this is the start of an elevation of this program,” he said. “It’s only going to get bigger and better from here. It’s a shame I gotta leave. I can’t get another year? But I got another guaranteed game. That’s what matters.”
I told Kiser he sounded like his head coach. He laughed.
Marcus Freeman is 32-9 as Notre Dame’s head coach. (Sean Gardner / Getty Images)
4. So I guess that wasn’t a bridge wasn’t too far. No Rylie Mills, Benjamin Morrison, Jordan Botelho, Boubacar Traore, Jason Onye, Ashton Craig. Then no Cooper Flanagan, Howard Cross III and Jeremiyah Love. And Notre Dame still came out the other side.
5. When is the last time you watched Notre Dame in a big game and felt like it was the better-coached team? And the tougher team. And the smarter team. I don’t remember, either.
Georgia finished with 29 carries for 62 yards. The Bulldogs went 2-of-15 on third and fourth down. The SEC champions were overmatched physically by a defense missing some of its best players.
6. The media doesn’t get into Notre Dame’s locker room often. And that’s fine. But the major bowl games allow locker room access, which pulls back the curtain (literally) on what a team is really like when no one is watching.
The elation, exhaustion and every other emotion in Notre Dame’s locker room isn’t something I’ll forget, probably because I’ve never seen it in 24 years on the beat. RJ Oben clutching the game ball he probably never thought he’d get. Marty Biagi keeping it together while discussing the death of his father and the birth of his twins last month. The eye black of Cross having long since come off, the sixth-year senior taking it all in. Mike Denbrock telling a reporter how much he wanted this … for longtime beat writers who’d covered all three of his stints here. Junior Tuihalamaka walking out with a College Football Playoff souvenir, which looked like the bracket.
Notre Dame’s win was 31 years in the making. So was the locker room scene.
7. Turnover margin is a real thing. We track it. Coaches swear by it. And Notre Dame is one of the best in the country in that department, ranking third at plus-1.29 per game.
But what about TFL margin? Because Notre Dame dominated that not-really-a-stat against Georgia, posting nine TFLs while surrendering just one. Compare that to what Georgia did to Texas in two meetings this season when the Bulldogs posted a combined 25 while giving up 14. Not only was Notre Dame the more physical team at the line of scrimmage in the Sugar Bowl, but it was the better-coached team in the trenches.
Notre Dame’s offensive line knew what was coming, which was the only chance it had to block it. Georgia apparently had no idea how the Irish planned to attack in the front seven, which is how you end up with sacks from Oben, Tuihalamaka and Donovan Hinish.
8. The ability to hold up at the line of scrimmage meant Denbrock could call the game he needed to call, no matter the aesthetics of the game plan. Throwing out the first and last drives, Notre Dame had 22 first-down calls and gained 86 yards. That’s 3.9 yards per play, hardly efficient.
But Denbrock also figured out how to keep the Irish at least inching forward. Thirteen of those snaps gained at least 3 yards, enough to keep the call sheet open. Just three of those went for 1 yard or less: a 1-yard Jadarian Price run on that clock-killing fourth-quarter drive, the 11-yard sack Riley Leonard took in the second quarter and an incomplete pass to Beaux Collins two plays before that sack.
“We’re a really, really good defensive team and an offense that tries to find its way,” Denbrock said. “Sometimes we’re pretty good, sometimes we’re pretty average and sometimes we’re like we were tonight.”
Rule No. 1 of good coaching: Know thyself.
“I didn’t feel like we could just sit back and protect it. We had to win it without getting too crazy,” Denbrock said. “The kids deserved to play to win. I wanted to give them that opportunity.”
9. Riley Leonard won Sugar Bowl MVP by passing for 90 yards. Ninety!
This all felt a little Texas A&M for Notre Dame, putting a clamp on Leonard’s right arm but letting the quarterback turn into a battering ram with his legs and shoulder and head and every other body part. When Leonard went airborne on that fourth-quarter drive that basically left Georgia with no outs, it was a classic moment of the quarterback. He’d said the coaching staff stopped asking him not to jump, calling it a “lost cause.” Fair enough.
Leonard isn’t a perfect quarterback. It’s just that the Irish have been able to perfectly build this offense around him. He finished with a team-high 80 rushing yards on 14 attempts.
10. For how much criticism head strength coach Loren Landow took for the rash of season-ending injuries in September — enough that Freeman defended him publicly — it’s worth acknowledging the weight room work that helped Notre Dame be the more physical team and stage that 12-play, 41-yard drive that took 7 minutes, 36 seconds off the clock in the fourth quarter. The Irish punished Georgia from the start of the game to the end. Adon Shuler’s hit on Trevor Etienne doesn’t just happen. Notre Dame’s offensive line getting stronger during the game doesn’t just happen. Landow is part of the reason it did.
11. You already know (if you read The Athletic) that the special teams fire drill in the fourth quarter was called “Got ’Em,” per Denbrock. Kirby Smart complained about the call afterward but seemed to misinterpret what being set over the ball meant. Notre Dame didn’t set over the ball, and that allowed the 11-man line change.
And no, Notre Dame had no intention of actually running an offensive play on fourth-and-1 from its own 18-yard line.
“When we ran our offense back out there, we thought Mr. Kirby, Mr. Timeout Guy, was gonna call a timeout no matter what,” Denbrock said. “He didn’t. We just wanted them to jump offside. If they didn’t, we’d call timeout. But they made contact, it’s a penalty, so we were the winner either way.”
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(Top photo of Riley Leonard: Sean Gardner / Getty Images)
