Notre Dame Chokes In Fiesta Bowl, But Marcus Freeman Isn’t To Blame

The Boston College Game.

Yes, that one.

It’s the one that kicked (literally) Notre Dame away from the 1993 national championship in the cruelest of ways.

Twenty-nine years later, The Boston College Game still haunts Notre Dame football, whose brand nevertheless remains so strong that NBC will continue to pay the Irish $15 million per year through 2025 for rights to televise their home games after doing so for the past 30 seasons.

That said, many in the Fighting Irish Nation keep fuming through social media over Notre Dame turning a 21-point lead Saturday in Glendale, Arizona during the Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma State into a 37-35 loss. I get the despair, especially as somebody who bleeds blue and gold as a native of South Bend, Indiana, where the University of Notre Dame calls home.

But there’s something more disturbing for the Fighting Irish Nation to ponder than Notre Dame’s biggest collapse ever in a bowl game that coincided with the coaching debut of Marcus Freeman.

These brutal losses for the Irish are part of a three-decade epidemic.

That’s the bigger story here.

Most infamously, Notre Dame was rocked by a combined score of 61-17 against Clemson (2018) and Alabama (2021) respectively in the College Football Playoff. There also was the national championship game after the Irish went undefeated during the 2012 regular season, but Alabama couldn’t care less.

Notre Dame 14, Alabama 42.

The Irish did win a double-overtime thriller in South Bend near the end of the 202o regular season against Clemson, but the Tigers were without Trevor Lawrence, their starting quarterback and future NFL No. 1 overall draft pick.

When Lawrence returned against Notre Dame in the ACC Championship game, Clemson cruised to a 34-10 victory.

In 2015, Notre Dame had four turnovers and eight dropped passes during hurricane-like conditions at Clemson. Still, the Irish had a chance to force overtime in the final seconds of regulation.

They botched their two-point conversion try.

The year before that, Notre Dame threw a game-winning touchdown pass at No. 2 Florida State in the final seconds, but out of nowhere, an official called pass interference on a Notre Dame receiver for blocking a defender.

Remember the Bush-Push fiasco? That came in 2005 at Notre Dame Stadium, where the Irish had victory in hand to upset No. 1 Southern Cal down the stretch. Instead, Reggie Bush changed that after teammates shoved him over the goal line for the game-winning score.

That’s just for starters.

So, for those of us who have been paying attention, it wasn’t shocking to see Notre Dame sprint from powerful to pathetic in a flash between halves against Oklahoma State during the 2022 Fiesta Bowl.

This one needs perspective, though. Freeman lacked Notre Dame’s best player on offense (running back Kyren Williams, the owner of back-to-back seasons rushing for 1,000 yards or more) and Notre Dame’s best player on defense (safety Kyle Hamilton, a Top 10 pick in most NFL mock drafts). They both skipped the Fiesta Bowl to prepare for their professional careers.

Not coincidentally, No. 5 Notre Dame finished with just 42 yards rushing against the nationally third-ranked defense of No. 9 Oklahoma State. The Irish were fortune to get even that much yardage on the ground since they started two true freshmen on the offensive line in the same game for the first time since the NCAA restored freshman eligibility in 1972.

Yeah, yeah, I know. The majority of folks in the Fighting Irish Nation are screaming about the following as much as anything: Freeman and his staff didn’t adjust to the bulk of Oklahoma State’s adjustments on offense, defense and special teams. Without those adjustments, Notre Dame lost its 28-7 advantage near the end of the first half after Oklahoma State scored 30 consecutive points in video game fashion.

Which brings me to more perspective: Even though Freeman inherited most of the Notre Dame staff left behind by former Irish coach Brian Kelly after he bolted for LSU following the regular season, Freeman is just a day shy of his fourth week of going from defensive coordinator to Notre Dame’s head guy. I’m thinking it takes more than a month for a staff of a major college football program to click enough with a new leader to form a system to adjust to the adjustments of a Top 10 program in a New Year’s Day bowl game.

Mike Gundy just finished his 17h season at Oklahoma State, his alma mater, which means he has spent nearly two decades adjusting to the adjustments of opponents with several of his current assistants.

Freeman had no such luxury.

Not only that, but unlike Freeman, most head football coaches of major programs are hired with enough time to spend the spring and the summer preparing for their fall debut against much (much, much) lesser foes than Oklahoma State.

Whatever the case, Notre Dame just dropped to 0-8 in Bowl Championship Series or New Year’s Six bowl games.

We’re back to the Boston College Game. It happened in South Bend on November 20, 1993. The week before that, I was there at Notre Dame Stadium, where the No. 2 Irish held off No. 1 Florida State in the dramatic final seconds for a 31-24 victory to become the nation’s top-ranked team. All Notre Dame needed to do in the aftermath was handle an inferior Boston College bunch at home and then win its major bowl game on New Year’s Day for a second national title in five years.

Somehow, Boston College booted the game-winning field goal of 41 yards with no time left toward Touchdown Jesus. Notre Dame’s championship dreams returned to Florida State, and that caused the college football gods to convert the phrase “luck of the Irish” into a figment of a lot of folks’ imagination.

I also was there several weeks after The Boston College Game on January 1, 1994 in Dallas, Texas, where Notre Dame beat Texas A&M 24-21 in the Cotton Bowl. I hadn’t a clue back then from the press box I was witnessing the last time the Irish would win a major bowl game for the next 29 years.

And maybe forever.