Notre Dame Football Preview 2024: Here Comes the Breakthrough Year

Notre Dame has everything in place to make the College Football Playoff - and do something when it gets there.

Sep 30, 2023; Durham, North Carolina, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman leads his team onto the field during the first quarter against the Duke Blue Devils at Wallace Wade Stadium. / Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports

Notre Dame College Football Preview 2024

Notre Dame Preview 2024
Offense Preview: Irish O Will Take Off
Defense Preview: Irish Among Nation's Best Again
Special Teams Preview: Kickers Have to Come Through
Keys to the Season: Top Player, Game, Transfer
Win Total Prediction: What to Expect This Season

The landscape of collegiate athletics is evolving, and Notre Dame football is in a perfect position to benefit, improve, and potentially dominate because of it.

The university is uniquely positioned to leverage the changing rules and regulations, - as loose as they all might be - with the possibilities arising to generate more money, get even better talent, and be an even bigger have in a college landscape of way too many have-somes.

Is your school rich? Does it have a good media deal with the potential to be even better?

Like way, WAY better? (Save that for another day.)

Does it have the fan base and alumni with the will and the means to do whatever it takes? Does it have an already great situation that might be just one or two tweaks away from going to a whole new VIP lounge level?

It's a big yes on all of that when it comes to Notre Dame, and it has the coach and the momentum to get there soon, if not now.

But forgetting about the boring administrative stuff, and all the policy changes, and figuring out how to divide the gigantic pile of revenue, the more immediately tangible positive for Notre Dame is the change to the College Football Playoff.

Over the ten years of the CFP there was one wacky upset - TCU over Michigan two seasons ago. And even then, the SEC came to breakfast when it was time to decide a national champion.

Just getting to the four-team tournament was an honor over the last ten years, but the CFP hasn’t been the NCAA Tournament, or like any other playoff in any other sport. You couldn’t just get hot from three, or get a hot run from a goalie standing on his head, or utilize an epic pitching performance to overcome a talent disparity.

In the four-team College Football Playoff, yeah, maybe you got by an Alabama or an Ohio State or a Clemson in the right year, but all that meant is that you had to get by an Alabama or an Ohio State or a Clemson or a 2019 LSU or a 2023 Michigan to win the national title.

Notre Dame has been able to take its cuts over the last decade-plus, only to find out just how far it was away from being a real rock-and-roller.

Alabama 31, Notre Dame 14, and it wasn’t even that close in the College Football Playoff semifinal for the 2020 season.

Clemson 30, Notre Dame 3 at the end of the 2018 season - and no, it really, really wasn’t that close, even though some have tried arguing with me about this.

Alabama 42, Notre Dame 14 in the BCS Championship to end 2012 - and that REALLY wasn’t that close.

But the 12-team playoff should be different.

Longer playoff, more chances for injuries, more opportunities for top players to come down with a case of NFLitis, more shots for strange stuff to happen with the thing going to late January now.

And then there’s the other key thing that might happen going forward - this goes back to the new changes and regulations. Under Marcus Freeman, maybe Notre Dame comes up with a monster like 2023 Michigan, or 2022 Georgia, or a number of Alabama teams, or that 2016 Clemson squad.

At the very least, with eight double-digit win seasons in the last 12 years, two more nine-win campaigns, and only one real dud in that bunch, Notre Dame keeps putting itself in a position to succeed.

The 2021 team would’ve made the expanded CFP. The 2019 team would’ve been in, too, along with the 2014 and 2017 squads. It would’ve been six expanded playoff appearances - and really, really close to seven - in the last ten years.

Keep winning, starting getting into this new College Football Playoff on a regular basis, and keep hammering away. Eventually one of these Irish teams will break through and have the right run in late December through January.

The 2024 Notre Dame Fighting Irish might just be the one to do it.

Notre Dame Preview 2024
Offense Preview: Irish O Will Take Off
Defense Preview: Irish Among Nation's Best Again
Special Teams Preview: Kickers Have to Come Through
Keys to the Season: Top Player, Game, Transfer
Win Total Prediction: What to Expect This Season