(Photo: AJ Houk)
Most every summer I have the opportunity to speak to the Notre Dame Club of Fort Wayne about the upcoming football season. I’ve done these presentations for several years, and I always enjoy them because I know I’m talking to people who are knowledgeable, passionate, and deeply invested in Notre Dame football.
As I was putting my remarks together this year, I decided to begin with a simple question.
“How many of you would give the College Football Playoff Committee an ‘A’ for the way it handled Notre Dame last season?”
I already know the answer.
Then I’ll ask how many would give the committee an “F.”
There will be a lot more hands in the air, check that, EVERY hand will be in the air.
Personally, I’ll go to my grave knowing the committee handed ND a raw deal last December. And the main beneficiary of the CFP committees flawed decision wasn’t Miami, it was Alabama.
I’ve listened to every argument about Alabama’s strength of schedule and the almighty, omnipotent SEC. I understand the reasoning. I simply don’t agree with the conclusion. At all.
Around the middle of the 2025 season, FIP began pointing out that Alabama was a deeply flawed football team. My colleague Tim Prister on several occasions made the point: in direct contrast to the once in a lifetime “Love and Price show” in South Bend, Alabama couldn’t run the football.
Alabama jumping the irish in the CFP ranking after the last regular season escape against a mediocre Auburn team while ND had destroyed Stanford had me thinking somebody had made a deal with the devil.
Then, in the SEC Championship Game, Bama confirmed it. As they got blown out in the SEC
chsmpionship game, The Crimson Tide rushed for minus-three yards.
Minus three.
Notre Dame didn’t even play that weekend, yet somehow managed to gain more rushing yards than Alabama.
Much of the prognostication in the weeks leading up to the final CFP ranking, had projected that Notre Dame would be playing Indiana in the Rose Bowl.
That would have bben a spicy one to cover! Oh, and one quick reminder for our friends in Bloomington: Who was the last team to beat the Hoosiers?
Instead, Alabama ended up in Pasadena, and got its clocks cleaned.
Okay I need to stop, it is not healthy to obsess on it. Let it go, and it is time to move on.
Especially because, after thinking about it for months now, I’ve come to believe we’re asking the wrong question. The CFP committee isn’t really the story anymore.
The story is what our reaction says about Notre Dame football.
Let me ask you a new question. If I had told you ten years ago that Notre Dame fans would someday be upset—not because the Irish missed the playoff, but because they believed the committee handed a great team on its way to a national championship a raw deal—would you have believed me?
I wouldn’t have.
Remember 2016?
Notre Dame stumbled to a 4-8 season. The defense couldn’t stop anybody. Brian VanGorder was gone after four games, and Brian Kelly famously acknowledged that Notre Dame might have to start “shopping down a different aisle” when it came to recruiting.
Those were difficult days for Irish fans.
Back then, the conversation wasn’t about playoff seedings or championship paths. It was about whether Notre Dame could ever climb back among college football’s elite.
Making the College Football Playoff wasn’t an expectation.
It was a dream.
Winning a national championship felt even more distant—something to hope for someday, not something to realistically expect.
Today, the conversation is completely different. Nobody is asking whether Notre Dame belongs anymore. They’re asking whether the Irish were given a fair opportunity to win it all.
Think about how significant that change in Notre Dame nation’s psyche really is.
Expectations don’t evolve overnight. They change because a program changes. They change because recruiting improves, depth improves, player development improves and, perhaps most importantly, belief improves.
I’ve covered Notre Dame football for thirty years, and I honestly can’t remember a time when expectations entering a season were this high—and deservedly so. This isn’t hype generated by a preseason magazine or a television network looking for ratings. It’s the result of what Marcus Freeman and his staff have built.
Does that mean Notre Dame is guaranteed to win the national championship? Of course not. There are plenty of questions that have to be answered. CJ Carr enters his second season as the starting quarterback, and while he has already proven he belongs, quarterbacks at Notre Dame are ultimately judged by championships, not potential. Replacing the production of Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price won’t be easy, regardless of how talented the players waiting behind them may be. And if the Irish have one area where depth remains a legitimate concern, it’s making sure they have a capable answer should something happen to Carr.
Those are fair football questions.
But they’re championship questions.
That’s a sentence I couldn’t have written with confidence ten years ago.
After the CFP snub last December, Marcus Freeman introduced his team’s theme for 2026: “Leave No Doubt.” At first I thought it was simply another preseason slogan. Every coach has one. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized those three words perfectly describe where Notre Dame football is today. They’re not about last season. They’re about this one.
Freeman isn’t asking this team to trust the committee next time. He’s asking them to make the committee irrelevant. Win the games. Beat good teams. Handle your business. Don’t leave your fate in someone else’s hands.
Because the surest way to avoid another argument with the committee is to play so well that there isn’t an argument to have.
Maybe that’s why “Leave No Doubt” resonates with me. It’s more than a slogan. It’s a challenge and it’s a standard.
And if Notre Dame meets that standard this fall, we won’t spend the 2026 post season arguing about seedings, rankings or committee decisions. We’ll be talking about something much more enjoyable.
We’ll be talking about a national championship.
And if that happens, Marcus Freeman will have accomplished exactly what he asked of his football team from the very beginning.
Leave no doubt.