Inside the turnaround week that was for Irish.

Notre Dame fans have been on quite a roller-coaster ride this season. From the ups and downs of a tumultuous regular season to the immediate exodus of offensive players that followed, there’s been anxiety. Is the program on the right track or losing momentum? How will the Irish replenish their needs and when? How does it all line up heading into next year?

Fast forward just a week, and at least some answers have been provided. Notre Dame has a new quarterback and has added many additional cast members on top of it that have Irish fans feeling a bit better about things. If you look deep, you will see that the Irish program is modernizing, and Marcus Freeman deserves credit for it.

WR Coach Hire

Despite there being conflicting reports on why Chansi Stuckey was let go, the fact still stands. Notre Dame filled his role with Wisconsin assistant Mike Brown. That alone is news, but to me, there’s another key detail to note.

Notre Dame is notoriously slow to hire coaches. The issue is rarely finding a top target but is rather more administrative. The vetting process I like to call getting “O’Leary’ed”, has historically taken weeks to complete. Time is precious for football teams and none can afford weeks without a position coach. The timeline has now been sped up, less than a week in Brown’s case, greatly and it’s very much appreciated. This is program progress.

Notre Dame and NIL

Since the inception of NIL legislation, Irish fans have asked how involved Notre Dame will choose to be. How can they maximize the alumni donor network but still operate within Notre Dame’s value system?

There is progress being made in this area. Notre Dame has plenty of NIL money and is willing to spend it, but only in the right situations and for the right players. This applies heavily to the present situation with Leonard and the past one with Hartman. The Irish are getting more involved, but all within the rules. More progress.

Portal Aggression

Because of Notre Dame’s stringent academic rigors, they cannot operate in the portal the way most college football programs can and do. Even with these additional hurdles in place, the Irish moved at warp speed this cycle and have been rewarded for those efforts.

The Irish staff moved fast to identify key targets and turn them into Notre Dame players and not free agents. Slowly but surely, the Irish powers that be are realizing that the portal is a necessity and that they must make navigating it doable for the staff. This is occurring and is yet another sign of progress.

The Big Picture

Slowly but surely, Notre Dame is adapting to the modern realities of college football. Freeman deserves a lot of credit for this shift. Through his interpersonal communication style and genuine relationship-building gifts, his message is getting across to the “powers that be”, and they seem to be responding to his needs to keep the program nationally competitive.

Notre Dame will never operate like Alabama, Georgia, or Ohio State. They just can’t. For a lot of reasons. What they can do is thread the needle between holding firm to long-held values while adapting to modern changes in the game. They are trying to do just that with some evidence suggesting its working.