Three years ago, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish questioned everything about their program.

Fourteen days after completing an 11-1 regular season, Brian Kelly, the longtime architect who built the program into a consistent winner, surprisingly fled to take the same position with the LSU Tigers. Just a few days earlier, their archrival USC Trojans had just poached Lincoln Riley in an equally shocking move that would change the college football landscape.

If the Irish came within a whisker of making the College Football Playoff and lost their coach in the midst of a tumultuous carousel, what exactly would that say about the most storied program in a sport with a tight grip on the past?

Facing a crisis of trust within the fan base and a looming decision that would shape the team for years to come, then-athletic director Jack Swarbrick acted quickly and promoted young defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman.

At the time it was both understandable and equally questionable. One of the biggest jobs in the country going to a new head coach who has been on campus for less than a full calendar year? This is how Notre Dame would recover and move forward?

In a place that was generally risk averse, this was a risk. Freeman’s resume was razor-thin and far more experienced head coaches were chewed up and spit out by a job as tough as any in the sport.

After Friday night’s 27-17 victory over the Indiana Hoosiers in the first-ever playoff game played on campus, it’s safe to say Swarbrick knew something skeptics didn’t.

Not only was Freeman the right guy for the job, he’s now the man for the moment with a team that looks very capable of winning it all.

“I’m fortunate to be part of a special, special football program, a special group of people from the top down, from our president to our CEO to our athletic director to the people in our football program,” Freeman said. “This is a special place. It’s a special program and I’m lucky just to be a part of it. I know I’m the head coach. You’ll get some praise. You will take criticism when things go badly. But I’m part of something special with a special group of people.”

The Irish have dreamed of a return to the top of college football for much of the last four decades. Her fans have been longing for this. The experts have advocated for this. The haters enjoyed it.

The Bush Push was a classic that continued to receive negative feedback for half a dozen years when Charlie Weis was in charge. The Irish were forced out of the building by the Alabama Crimson Tide in the 2013 BCS Championship Game and have not been competitive in their last two playoff appearances. Most notably, they hadn’t won a major postseason game since defeating the Texas A&M Aggies in the 1993 Cotton Bowl.

Not only was it painful for the team’s large fan base, it was also uncomfortable knowing that you have to go back over a decade before to the advent of high definition television to show the Irish actually succeeding on the big stage.

Now things could be different in South Bend.

To be fair, the team’s performance under Freeman is still somewhat lower than under his immediate predecessor, who beat the teams he knew liked clockwork but never did against better opponents could enforce. In Freeman’s first game in charge, the team blew a big second-half lead in the Fiesta Bowl. He lost at home to Group of 5 programs like the Marshall Thundering Herd and in a stunning performance against the Northern Illinois Huskies earlier this season.

However, these heavy losses have also become building blocks for a higher cap.

After picking up a postseason nudge in South Bend’s biggest win since defeating the No. 1 Florida State Seminoles in 1993, the path is suddenly clear for the Irish to have a realistic one next month Have a chance to win the national championship in Atlanta.

Much of this is thanks to Freeman, who has optimized the program to continually evolve it. He brought in new strength and conditioning staff, changed the team’s weekly routine and lured offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock back to take full control on that side of the ball. Player recruitment has increased and even the Irish’s clean sheet has made them more competitive in keeping talented players in the squad and enticing others to join them.

“I think all of that obviously makes you better,” said defensive coordinator Al Golden, a former head coach. “It makes everyone around you better.”

Notre Dame rings in the new year in the Sugar Bowl against the No. 2 seed Georgia Bulldogs. The schools met three times, playing one-score duels each time, including a memorable game in New Orleans where UGA won the 1980 national title.

However, Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs don’t have Herschel Walker running the ball. It appears they won’t have starting quarterback Carson Beck either.

Despite all the talk about Notre Dame’s record against more talented SEC teams, this matchup is immediately winnable. A cheaper route beckons. It’s a door that Freeman can push the team through.

“(Strength coach Loren Landow) asked me to speak to the team after one of our lifts to show the school what it was like to go to the national lacrosse championship, and I told the guys like we were “Literally in the same world,” said receiver Jordan Faison, who was part of the 2024 NCAA men’s lacrosse title-winning team. “We lost to a team we had to beat and then we had to win to get to the playoffs. A bit of the same journey, it’s like this is a real opportunity and it’s time to commit to it and get started.”

The Irish held one of the highest-scoring teams in the country to just 17 points and 278 yards rushing in the final minutes of the game. The FBS’s top-ranked run defense was crushed for 193 yards and two scores, with Notre Dame reliever Jeremiyah Love’s 98-yard touchdown sprint in the first quarter accounting for 10% of the Hoosiers’ season total to that point soil had allowed. (It was also the longest run of any player this season.)

It was a night that showcased all the legendary splendor the sport had to offer on the grand scale of a playoff game at one of college football’s most historic venues. Touchdown Jesus was lit up and watching from above. Tailgaters survived early morning snow flurries and endured a cold and windy night. Leprechauns danced from the nearby Golden Dome along the paths that make up one of the more idyllic campus grounds in the Midwest.

“I didn’t really understand everything because you concentrate on doing your job, but before the game I did. “I took a minute to take it in and now just thinking about what we got to experience, it’s obviously special,” Freeman said. “It’s not often in life that you’re the first to do something, and as I told the group there, we were the first to win and play a playoff game at Notre Dame Stadium. This is historic. Something we will treasure for the rest of our lives.”

Then, in the rituals that the sport never seems to let go of, Freeman was presented with a game ball and a formal invitation to his next game by two Sugar Bowl officials.

The head coach appeared slightly dazed for a moment before stepping to the media and quickly saying he had accepted the invitation, prompting some laughter from the assembled Notre Dame staff in the room. Freeman joked that he had not consulted any of his superiors before, including current athletic director Pete Bevacqua and the school’s president, Robert A. Dowd.

After earning a record 12th win against a ranked team in his first three years as coach, that’s probably fine

To win like that in a game of this magnitude, Freeman has plenty of scope and more than enough confidence to achieve much more at Notre Dame.