Notre Dame Must Now Show It Can Handle Success
No matter what happens the rest of the season there is one thing I don't think we will ever reasonably question about this Notre Dame football team, and that is this team's ability to handle adversity.
It began back in March when spring was canceled after just one practice, and the team - like most of the college football world - finished up the semester at home due to COVID-19 fears. The offseason was altered, the schedule was revamped, the Irish were thrown into the ACC after seeing the Big Ten and Pac 12 cancel their seasons, the list goes on and on.
Oh, and there was this game scheduled for Sept. 26 against Wake Forest that was never played after an outbreak within the football team. The team went a week without practicing, and even just a day or two before its contest against Florida State there was a chunk of the roster still out due to the COVID-19 protocols.
Through it all the Irish kept winning, and that winning included a 47-40 double overtime victory over No. 1 Clemson. In that game the Irish had to overcome blowing a 13-point lead and a failed 4th-and-7 that seemed likely to cost the team the game. Yet the Irish persevered, as they have all season. They handled adversity like champions.
What we must now learn, and what will determine just how good this 2020 Notre Dame football team will be, is how does this team handle success.
That is something every good team must go through, and every great team overcomes. How do you handle things when you are no longer the underdog, when you are now the hunted, not the hunter. Notre Dame is the only undefeated team in the ACC, and the Irish control their own College Football Playoff destiny.
How will this team handle its change in circumstance? We will start to find that answer on Saturday. It requires a strong plan at the top and demands great leadership at the player level, and so far this season we've seen both, especially the latter.
This is something we've seen play out in the past, to varying results.
When Notre Dame beat No. 1 Miami back in 1988 that team still had five games to play, and it continued playing the same way after the win as it did going into that game. It handled success extremely well and never lost its focus, and the result was a national championship season.
In 1993 the Irish once again beat the nation's No. 1 team, but that time the program did not handle success as well, sleep walking through three quarters before attempting a late rally against Boston College. The Irish ultimately fell short, and the chance for another national title was dashed.
The 2005 Notre Dame squad showed a tremendous ability to handle adversity, and an Irish squad that began the season unranked finished the season ranked ninth. The following season, Notre Dame began the season ranked second in the polls, and the team struggled with the hype that was placed upon it during the preseason.
In 2017, Notre Dame climbed all the way up to No. 3 in the College Football Playoff rankings after it showed it could overcome adversity (a loss to Georgia). The problem for that team was it couldn't finish what it started, and it couldn't handle the success it had achieved, losing two of its final three games.
We now get a chance to see what the 2020 squad is made of. We know it can handle adversity like champions, and now we will learn if this team can handle success, and thrive while being the hunted.
———————
Become a premium Irish Breakdown member, which grants you access to all of our premium content, our premium message board and gets you a FREE subscription to Sports Illustrated! Click on the link below for more
Be sure to stay locked into Irish Breakdown all the time!
Join the Irish Breakdown community!
Subscribe to the Irish Breakdown podcast on iTunes.
Subscribe to the Irish Breakdown YouTube channel.
Follow me on Twitter: @CoachD178
Follow me on Parler: @BryanDriskell
Like and follow Irish Breakdown on Facebook
