On Friday, Notre Dame will make its second appearance in the College Football Playoffs in the last three years—an accomplishment only four other programs can claim.
Now, the Fighting Irish face the daunting task of matching up against No. 1 Alabama in the semifinals, with the rest of the country expecting them to lose.
But how are the players — all of which are between the ages of 18 and 24 years old—handling all the negative outside noise? Is it motivating or easy to tune out?
Six Notre Dame offensive players addressed the media on Monday and discussed their process for handling the media and the sacrifices they've made in order to get through a full season during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Irish Players Handle Underdog Narrative In Their Own Way
Within a few minutes of the announcement that Notre Dame would face Alabama in the College Football Playoff, betting lines from several sportsbooks were released with the Crimson Tide favored by 17.5 points. Since then the spread has moved further and further away from the Fighting Irish, who are now listed as 20-point underdogs in some instances.
This line is likely influenced by that national narrative that, once again, Notre Dame will get boat raced by a national powerhouse, especially after a 24-point loss to Clemson in the ACC Championship.
But does such fodder make its way to the Notre Dame players? It depends on who you ask.
One way to handle such an insulting narrative is to internalize it for additional motivation.
“Not everybody in the world believes in us,” said sophomore running back Kyren Williams. “And it's okay because we don't want anybody to believe in us besides us.
“As long as we've got us as a team and the coaching staff and everybody else in the building believes in us, we know what we can do. We'll go out there on Friday and do what we do best and play to the Notre Dame football standards. Being the underdog is nothing new to us. We're just going to keep proving to the world who we are.”
Another option is to stay off Twitter, turn off the TV and do your best to ignore keyboard warriors and the talking heads.
At the end of the day, the outside noise has no real impact on the game.
“Games like these where people are talking about it, you turn on TV, see all these promos, commercials, just people talking about it,” said fifth-year wide receiver Ben Skowronek. “We tune all that out. I couldn't tell you what the narrative is around this game. I know we're the underdog, obviously. They're the No. 1 seed, we're the No. 4 seed. But it's just up to us to go out there and compete, compete every single play and go out there and get the win.
“We're not worried about the spread. We're not worried about all that. I couldn't tell you what all that means, honestly.”
Of course, this narrative that Notre Dame cannot compete on College Football’s biggest stage began well before 2020. Its origin comes from the 2012 BCS National Championship game, when a No. 1 Fighting Irish team played No. 2 Crimson Tide in the Orange Bowl.
Notre Dame lost 42-14 but, in the moment, the game felt even more lopsided than a 28-point defeat.
But how do the current players feel about the 2012 National Championship loss?
There’s a good chance they didn’t even watch it.
“I can't tell you how old I was,” said fifth-year offensive lineman Liam Eichenberg. “I just know that it was a tough game, I guess you could say. But it's a different year and different teams. I feel like the offensive line has come a long way since then. Nothing against those guys. They had a lot of great players.
“That's when Coach [Harry] Hiestand first got here, and the culture wasn't fully there, I guess you could say. I feel like what we've built over these past couple of years will help us during this game, specifically.”
‘We've Sacrificed so Much ... I Can’t Risk Getting Sick’
The COVID-19 pandemic has dominated College Football discussion since March.
First, spring practices across the country were lost, followed by limited summer workouts and team-wide outbreaks. Then there was a debate amongst major conferences if the season should be played at all.
Once the actual season commenced, a mass number of game postponements and cancellations followed.
But one anecdote that, perhaps, has been a bit under-reported (at least prior to Coach Kelly threatening to skip the CFP if Notre Dame played in Pasadena) is what the players had to give up in order to play.
Last season, because Williams redshirted and often didn’t travel for away games, he had ample opportunity to see his family. This season, he would have liked to at least see them after games or over Christmas but, thanks to social distancing protocols and contract tracing requirements, that wasn’t an option for him in the latter half of 2020.
“Knowing that I'm not going to be able to see my family until the season's over, that's been the biggest impact for me, because my mom and my sister, they're the two most important people in my life,” Williams said. “Not being able to see them for at least nine months, not being able to go home. Because I'm a big homebody. So not being able to go home has really affected me.”
In addition to a loss of family time, the Irish players also missed out on valuable team bonding.
This is especially true of the freshmen who enrolled over the summer, as their entire collegiate career has taken place in the midst of the pandemic.
“It's definitely been harder during this pandemic to meet people and to kind of become close with people,” said freshman tight end Michael Mayer. “Like Ben [Skowronek] said earlier, at our dinner and team meals we have a glass in between us that we can't really even hear ourselves talk to each other.”
Instead, Mayer has had to establish relationships in the limited opportunities he has to be with his teammates and do so with a mask on.
“I've been very lucky to come in and have Brock Wright and Tommy Tremble and George [Takacs], the older people in our tight end room that have helped me out a lot and just became really close friends with them,” he said.
For as trying as this fall has been for freshmen, this process is likely much more stressful for the players nearing the end of their collegiate careers.
To them, each remaining game at Notre Dame is precious and missing any of them would be devastating, especially for those with aspirations to play at the next level.
“After the game, I pretty much go home, lay on my couch, watch the game about two or three times and then probably go pick up some food,” said Eichenberg, a likely first- or second-round selection in the 2021 NFL Draft. “I'll talk to my parents for like 30 minutes outside, spaced out with masks on. They leave and I go to bed. It wasn't anything crazy.
“We’ve sacrificed so much. For me as a fifth year, in my final season, there's a lot on the line for me personally. I can't risk getting sick, I guess you could say, and then along with that getting others sick. A lot of guys on this team, even the younger guys, have done a great job at sacrificing and understanding the protocols and the guidelines that we need to follow.”
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