Even Notre Dame bashers would have to acknowledge that it’s the feel-good story of the college football season. Or maybe even of any season in some time. And it could probably only happen at one place.
When Touchdown Jesus and the Golden Dome and all the ghosts of past glory are involved, does it really have to make any sense?
The Fighting Irish, coming off a 5-6 season, weren’t in very many preseason Top 25s. They had a new head coach in Tyrone Willingham. He wasn’t even the first choice. Or second.
If George O’Leary didn’t fudge some of the details on his resume, Willingham probably still would be at Stanford, where he went 44-36-1 over the last seven seasons. You want irony? In his last game with the Cardinal, he lost to O’Leary’s Georgia Tech team in the Seattle Bowl.
Before Willingham ever coached a game with the Irish, he lost senior tailback Julius Jones, one of his best skill players, to academics. An injury forced them to play some without starting quarterback Carlyle Holiday. Even with him, the offense still ranks among the worst in Division I-A. The Irish have played a respectable schedule. Somehow they’ve managed to navigate a way.
Last Saturday they won at Florida State, the game that supposedly was going to derail the dream. And they made it look almost too easy, winning, 34-24, to improve to 8-0, their best start since 1993. Saturday they played 4-3 Boston College.
Should they win out, there’s a real good chance they would earn a berth in the Fiesta Bowl. The Irish haven’t played for a national title since 1988.
You couldn’t make this stuff up anywhere else.
This team brings to mind shades of 1993, when a relatively unheralded Notre Dame team came within a last-second November loss to Boston College at home of playing for a championship. Instead it had to settle for No. 2, behind Florida State, which it beat the week before the BC game.
Or maybe this conjures up images of 1964, when rookie coach Ara Parseghian, who inherited a 2-7 program, came within a season-ending loss at Southern Cal of going 10-0. The Irish finished ranked third.
What’s going on at South Bend is magical. And it all comes back to one guy.
“Whatever the circumstances we’re confronted with, we just try to adjust and turn them into positives for us,” Willingham said.
He really talks like that. And means it.
