Notre Dame Being Overrated Is A Tired Trope, But It's Not Going Away Until ND Earns Big Game Wins

Until Notre Dame starts winning the big games it will continue receiving unwarranted mockery from the media

It never ceases to amaze me how tired and lazy the national prognostications about Notre Dame tend to be. So often I hear pundits make off-handed comments about Notre Dame's tradition, and how this isn't your daddy's Notre Dame, so to speak. That is often followed by criticisms about Notre Dame that are more rooted in past failures instead of recent success.

The most recent was a tired and lazy analysis by ESPN's Paul Finebaum, who went on a petty rant about how Notre Dame is always overrated in the preseason Top 25. Of course, Notre Dame is ranked fifth in both the Associated Press and Coaches Polls.

You would think that someone who has been in the media for as long as Finebaum has would take three minutes to do a fact check, but that wouldn't fit the narrative. Instead, Finebaum went on his rant about Notre Dame being overrated. 

For someone who seems to take joy in reminding people this isn't the Notre Dame of history, he falls into the same trap. There was a time when this criticism was warranted, especially during the Bob Davie, Tyrone Willingham and Charle Weis eras. It was true at times early in Brian Kelly's tenure, as the Irish were ranked lower than their preseason rankings in four of Kelly's first seven seasons, they were ranked higher in 2012, and the ranking to start and finish was the same in 2015.

Over the last five seasons, however, things have been different. Notre Dame began the 2017 season unranked in the Associated Press poll but finished ranked 11th after going 10-3 against a scheduled that included eight ranked teams. Notre Dame beat LSU that season and lost to eventual national runners up Georgia by a point.

A year later the Irish began the season ranked 12th in the preseason poll before running the table in the regular season, earning the program's first College Football Playoff berth and finished the season ranked fifth.

Notre Dame was ranked ninth to start the 2019 season but finished 12th. Hardly an argument to make for Notre Dame being overrated in the manner in which Finebaum meant it, but from a technical standpoint they were overrated.

Notre Dame was ranked 10th to start the 2020 season but finished ranked fifth after earning its second playoff berth, and the Irish finished eighth in 2021 after beginning the season ranked ninth. 

Four out of the last five seasons have seen Notre Dame ranked higher than their preseason spots, and the Irish finished just three spots lower than their ranking in the other polls.

So where does this mantra come from? Well, part of it is the "hot take" world we live in when it comes to much of the national "analysis." Making passionate, albeit outlandish, arguments about a major brand like Notre Dame riles up a lot of audiences. Those who don't like Notre Dame will eat it up and look at it as validation, while Notre Dame fans will get fired up, share it, tweet about it, talk about it on message boards and people like me will discuss it in articles.

In either case the mission is accomplished, and it never was about making a rational, data filled analysis of the Notre Dame team.

But there's more to it than that. The reason it's so easy to adopt such an easily disprovable stance is that there are reasons Notre Dame has given non-supporters and supporters alike to doubt them being a big-time program. It's hard to consider a team ranked in the top five if you don't view them as being a program capable of playing with the best teams, and that's what the Kelly tenure gave us. Notre Dame's records were quite good in recent seasons, but Notre Dame rarely looked good in the biggest games.

Kelly liked to point to his overall record in recent seasons while he was still in charge of the program, but the reality is Notre Dame beat up on inferior opponents during his tenure. During the 54-10 run that many point to as evidence of Kelly's brilliance, Notre Dame went just 10-9 against opponents that finished the season ranked, and just 1-4 against opponents that finished ranked in the Top 10 with Kelly at the helm.

In those nine losses the average score was 13.1 to 31.8. Notre Dame's playoff losses were by a combined score of 61-17.

That's why the narrative exists. As poorly argued as many are with their anti-Notre Dame sentiments, and no matter how easy it is to dispute their specific arguments, the big picture remains the same. If Notre Dame wants to shut those voices up the only way to do it is to start winning those big games that have largely escaped the program.

Start to win the games that made Lou Holtz a legend. Do that and the narrative goes away. It's all up to Notre Dame at this point, it's up to head coach Marcus Freeman and his staff, coaches and players. They can change the narrative. The opportunity is there, and in the words of Herb Brooks prior to the United States hockey team pulling off arguably the greatest upset in the history of sports

"Great moments are born from great opportunity, and that's what you have here tonight, boys. That's what you've earned here tonight. .... This is your time. Now go out there and take it!"

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