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Is Notre Dame A Serious Playoff Contender?

James Rowe

Notre Dame is 11-1 after their victory over USC and are currently projected to be the six seed in the college football playoffs taking on Alabama. They are one of the hottest teams in all of college football as they are on a 10 game win streak. However, those are just projections, but nonetheless things look good for the Irish and things can change for the better. There is one question though: is Notre Dame a serious contender? A lot of fans of the sport are making that claim because of the loss to Northern Illinois, which is a bad loss, but that might be blind hatred from those fans because of whatever the reason might be (lets be real, there's some real jealousy from them). That being said, the results and numbers suggest otherwise. Notre Dame is the real deal this year or at least that's what the statistics suggest.


Injuries to players such as Charles Jagusah, Benjamin Morrison, Boubacar Traore, Jordan Botelho, and Ashton Craig are huge blows, but credit given to head coach Marcus Freeman for recruiting all that depth in order to compete like the way they are. The Irish are surprisingly deeper than most expected even with as good of a recruiting classes that have come in. The mentality of "the next man up" really is showing here and has played a role as to why the Irish have been so hot and dominant since that loss to Northern Illinois.


Looking at the results, the dominance is very clear. First, the Purdue game which Notre Dame won 66-7! Sure, the team was probably angry coming after the frustratingly bad loss to Northern Illinois, but Purdue is atrocious this season and the Irish showed how good they are and how bad the Boilermakers are. Heck, Notre Dame used four different quarterbacks in that game. Four! Against Miami (OH), the score shows a 28-3 victory, though they struggled for a bit, but the name of that game was defense which saved them. Then against Stanford, this is when the Irish started finding their groove that they are in now, the team absolutely crushed them 49-7 as the Cardinals never stood a chance. After that, it's been smooth sailing for Notre Dame as they defeated a decent (and sound defensive team) Georgia Tech convincingly 31-13, annihilated a ranked Navy side 51-14, demolishing a very bad, but disappointing Florida State 52-3, looked solid against Virginia 35-14, crushing a ranked Army team 49-14, and then dominated USC 49-35. Pure and utter dominance. A really great team is supposed to dominate the bad teams and win convincingly against good, but unranked sides. This team has done that.


Next for the results, let's look at what could help pad their resume. Aside from those results just mentioned, they've also taken cared of ranked opponents. First, the wins against Navy, who was ranked 24 at the time and Army at 19. Sure those sides pail in comparison in terms of talent, but they both were ranked and the Irish absolutely dominated them. Any time that a team dominates a top 25 side says a lot. Notre Dame has also defeated a 20 ranked Texas A&M side at the time and the Aggies have been very good this year as they jockeyed for a chance at a SEC championship game appearance and had some really great wins. Louisville was ranked at 15 when the two sides duked it out and the Irish seemingly won convincingly 31-24. Thats victories over four ranked sides, which looks very good and probably suggests that the loss to Northern Illinois was just simply a bad game. No excuses for it being a bad loss, but with the results that have occurred this season, it most likely means that the loss does not actually reflect the type of team the Irish are actually in 2024.


So the team has managed to dominate the teams it has basically needed to this year, plus have beaten sides that are or were ranked, then what's the possible hold up as to whether they are taken seriously as a playoff contender? The strength of schedule. Honestly, this is a relatively easy schedule for Notre Dame this year. It wasn't as initially easy as it's been this year as Florida State was actually ranked at 10 to begin the season, but aside from that scenario, this seemed pretty cupcake for the Irish. While not expecting Navy and Army to be as good as they were, it still doesn't help the case when the team dominated both of them. Louisville has been a weird case this season as they have fluctuated in and out of the top 25, so a lot of skeptics would even question that. Heck, even with one of the recent losses Texas A&M suffered, a lot of people were questioning how good the Aggies are actually. Fans can nitpick those victories too as they can say some of those teams have proven to not be good or how bad of losses they had later in the season, but, Notre Dame still went out and beat them the way they did regardless and those teams were ranked at the time. Essentially, business was taken cared of.


One of the biggest criticisms this year has been whether quarterback Riley Leonard is the guy. While his arm isn't as strong as some fans would like, he is still a dual threat and the numbers actually suggest that he is better than a lot of critics are saying. Leonard is 194 for 293 for 2092 yards, 16 touchdowns, five interceptions, completing 66.2 percent of his passes and averages 7.1 yards per completion as well as his longest completion being 53 yards. However, Leonard is even more lethal with his legs as he's had 124 carries for 721 yards and 14 touchdowns as he's averaging 5.8 yards per carry and his longest run is 50 yards.


While Leonard has been a huge reason for the success, the running backs have been very good as well. The tandem of Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price have proven to be dynamic as they possess the perfect power and speed partnership. Love has rushed for 949 yards on 134 carries while logging in 15 touchdowns as well as averaging 7.1 yards per carry with his longest run being 76 yards. Price has rushed for 651 yards on 89 carries while scoring seven touchdowns as well as averaging 7.3 yards per carry with his longest run being 70 yards. The depth looks great too with Aneyas Williams, Kedren Young, and Devyn Ford filling in when needed to.


Then the receiving corps has been helpful for Leonard as while there might not be an elite caliber level receiver, there is plenty of good and reliable ones. Beaux Collins might be the best receiver on the team, but others such as Jaden Greathouse, Jayden Harrison, Jordan Faison, Kris Mitchell, Jayden Thomas, Eli Raridon, and Mitchell Evans have all shown to be options for Leonard to throw to as well. Even Love and Williams have shown to be options too.


It just goes to show that offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock's playbook is the real deal. Having a quarterback like Leonard who has been playing really well especially with his running abilities, having a great running back corps, and having plenty of reliable options for Leonard to throw to. There's a reason why LSU had such an elite offense when Denbrock was coaching for them in 2023 and it suggests that the Irish will only get better in the future.


Then let's talk about the defense. Even after losing Morrison, Botelho, and Traore, this is one of the most elite defenses in the entire country as they are ranked 10th. They've only allowed 20 touchdowns the entire season and opposing teams only average 4.53 yards per play. Plus, Notre Dame allows 296.8 yards per game. That's excellent and it only looks "worse" after what USC just did. When looking at the defensive unit, there's a reason why the Irish are so proud of what they have. The defensive line, which is the "weakest" part of the defense has players such as Rylie Mills, Donovan Hinish, Junior Tuihalamaka, Howard Cross, Joshua Burnham, and Bryce Young leading the way, yet provide so much pressure on opposing offensive lines and quarterbacks. The linebackers are fearsome as they feature Jack Kiser, Drayk Bowen, Jaiden Ausberry, Jaylen Sneed, and Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa in which could arguably be the most stacked part of Notre Dame's defense. In the defensive backs, Christian Gray, Xavier Watts, Adon Shuler, Leonard Moore, Rod Heard, Jordan Clark, Luke Talich, Kennedy Urlacher, and Ben Minich show how much depth there is and quality with Gray and Watts arguably being some of the best at cornerback and safety respectively. The Irish are showing how talented and how deep they are and the defense has been a big reason for their success as Al Golden has shown how good of a defensive coordinator he is.


The other question going into this season was whether the inexperience of the offensive line was going to be a problem. Joe Alt and Blake Fisher were drafted to the NFL, Michael Carmody and Zeke Correll transferred, and Andrew Kristofic retired, so there was good reasons to question whether this bunch was going to be fine. Then both Charles Jagusah and Ashton Craig had season ending injuries, so essentially this offensive line took a big hit. However, Notre Dame continues to keep producing solid offensive linemen as Billy Schrauth and Aamil Wagner have led the way while Pat Coogan, Rocco Spindler, and Anthonie Knapp have stepped up in a big way. Spindler and Coogan are juniors, Schrauth and Wagner are sophomores, and Knapp is a freshman, so there was good reason to believe whether the inexperience was going to be a problem, yet they've proven it is not.


So the question remains: are Notre Dame a legitimate contender? It's hard to say no and the numbers suggest that with an elite defense and an offense that has been clicking at the right time, that they could make a deep run or even possibly win the whole thing. The wait on whom they will take on in the first round of the playoffs remains to be seen after this weekend, but regardless, the haters can shut their mouths for now and realize that this is a legitimate contender.

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