Notre Dame Is At A Crossroads Moment
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00:03 If you don't win this game, let's be honest, Ryan.
00:05 I mean, look, I wrote the article yesterday.
00:08 It's a crossroads moment.
00:10 And people saying, how can you say that in year two?
00:11 And I'm like, cuz that's the history of Notre Dame.
00:13 We've seen all these coaches in years one and two kind of have some ups and downs.
00:17 Like no coach just came out like year, well, one, Newt Rockne.
00:21 Like in year two, they were undefeated, right?
00:22 Like, okay, let's go back to the OG.
00:25 But like all these other coaches, and this is the point.
00:27 It's like when you look at Frank Leahy and you look at his second season,
00:30 as I broke down the other day, they were seven, two, and two.
00:32 There were some stumbling blocks, right?
00:34 I mean, but then they did whatever it is.
00:37 And I'm talking the first stint at Notre Dame, not the second stint.
00:40 You lose to Michigan at home, you lose to Georgia Tech at home.
00:44 You tie Wisconsin, you tie Great Lakes Navy, who at the time was,
00:47 from what I can tell, was pretty good, right?
00:49 You may be like, who the heck is Great Lakes Navy?
00:51 It was, but they finished the year like number one in one of the polls, right?
00:55 So, yeah, it was a little different era back then.
01:01 But then you come out the next year and you win a national championship.
01:04 We talked about the same thing with Coach Parsegian's early teams.
01:07 You look at that '65 team and what Notre Dame did in 1965.
01:11 They lost early in the season to Purdue, and they lost late in the year to number
01:14 one, Miami, then they tied, I mean, excuse me, lost to number one,
01:17 Michigan State late in the season.
01:19 Then they tied at the end of the year, a Miami team that went five, four,
01:23 five, four, nine, oh, and one that season, and so, and then what do they do?
01:27 They come out the next year and go undefeated, nine, oh, and one,
01:32 win a national title, and literally gave up like 38 points the entire season, right?
01:38 I mean, it just, you went from a good team, but
01:41 how good are you really to a championship team?
01:44 And so you talked about Lou Holtz and starting his second year, eight and one,
01:47 and they've got some big wins, and they had just beat number ten Alabama,
01:50 like 37 to 10 or something like, 37 to 6, I think is actually what it was in 1987.
01:57 And then you come down the stretch and your team fades down the stretch, right?
02:02 And but then he made changes to turn around, so
02:05 everybody's kind of crossroads moment came at a different time.
02:09 Some guys that came during the season, other guys that came in the off season.
02:13 But the reality is, is what Coach Freeman does from here on out is gonna determine
02:16 his future, and I don't wanna say that the USC game is like,
02:19 if they lose, he's done at Notre Dame.
02:21 But it's one of those things where it's just another data point that's gonna tell
02:25 us who he is and his ability to kind of get a team on track.
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02:30 And--
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