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Notre Dame-Clemson: ‘It’s Not The End-All For Us’

An edge to Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly was palpable during his weekly Monday press conference previewing Clemson. Hosting the No. 1-ranked team in the country can do that.

It comes from a sense — perhaps even frustration — that while Kelly and his staff have been running one of the top seven or eight programs in the country since 2017, the constant comparison of not yet measuring up to the elite triumvirate of Clemson, Alabama and Ohio State can become exasperating to anyone with a competitive pulse.

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It’s like being an A-/B+ student — yet you constantly hear parents or everyone else laud your neighbor as A+ who is getting accepted by Ivy League schools. On a couple of different occasions Kelly became somewhat irked when mention of “reaching the next level” was asked, or where the program currently stands.

“We’ve won 22 consecutive games at home, we’ve won 12 in a row — you guys decide,” he responded.

Indeed, the home winning streak is second in the country, behind only Clemson’s 27. It also is the longest in Notre Dame’s illustrious history since 1950.

The 12 consecutive wins — begun a year ago today against Virginia Tech — are also presently the best in the country.

He didn’t even mention that in this past weekend’s 31-13 win at Georgia Tech, a Notre Dame record was set for most consecutive victories against unranked teams (30), eclipsing the previous standard of 29 from 1990-94 under Lou Holtz. That streak also is second currently to Alabama’s ungodly NCAA mark of 95.

If it were so easy, then Clemson under head coach Dabo Swinney wouldn’t have lost to 4-8 Syracuse in 2017 or at home to Pitt in 2016. Ohio State with coaching titan Urban Meyer wouldn’t have been crushed on the road by unranked Iowa in 2017 (55-24) or unranked Purdue in 2018 (49-20).

Maybe Kelly even omitted that latter remarkable streak because it would have validated how “Notre Dame beats who it is supposed to beat, but can’t win the big ones.”

As one learns through the years, the “big ones” are generally the ones you lose. Last year the “big ones” were road games at No. 3 Georgia and No. 19 Michigan. They were the two losses during an 11-2 season, so consequently they were the “big ones.”

In 2018, when Notre Dame did defeat No. 7 Stanford at home in September (38-17), it no longer was a “big one” after the Cardinal finished 9-4 and unranked. Fair or unfair, that is what you sign up for as the Notre Dame head coach.

Following the 42-14 defeat to Alabama in the BCS National Championship Game in January 2013, Kelly acknowledged how the Fighting Irish infrastructure was not at the same level overall as the Crimson Tide.

However, he felt differently about the 30-3 defeat to Clemson in the 2018 College Football Playoff. That game was more competitive than the final score indicated, but Kelly was still ridiculed for expressing it — which likely exacerbated the frustration he felt during this Monday’s conference.

“People fail to recognize that the next week [Clemson] absolutely blitzed Alabama [44-16], and nobody talked about the talent gap there, nobody talked about the coaching gap there,” Kelly said. “They just talked about the talent gap and coaching gap between the Notre Dame and Clemson game.”

That’s just more frustration spilling out. The difference of course is that from 2009-18, Alabama had recorded five national titles, so there was plenty of football equity built up prior to that Clemson demolition to cap the 2018 campaign.

“We feel pretty good about where we are,” Kelly said. “We’ll continue to develop our players in the manner that we feel is best for Notre Dame, and Dabo’s going to continue to do a great job of developing the players that he has in the manner that he has.

“We have different business plans. We’ll do what we’re doing and it should make for a great game on Saturday, I’ll tell you that.”

The “business plans” was an indirect way of saying that the Notre Dame model does not necessarily follow the ones of “The Big Three,” and likely never will. Ultimately, though, every coach at one of the top traditional programs is going to be judged by how he fares in the type of games like Clemson this week.

Jim Harbaugh hasn’t had a bad career at Michigan, but 0-5 against Ohio State with some recent severe beat-downs won’t ever cut it there — just as it didn’t for Buckeyes head coach John Cooper when he was 2-10-1 versus the Wolverines, even though he did finish No. 2 in the nation twice.

Holtz was 33-4 at Notre Dame from 1988-90, but what made it more notable was 10 victories were against teams that finished in the Associated Press top 10. The impressive 39-6 ledger under Kelly since 2017 features zero conquests of teams that placed in the final top 10.

From 1967-72, Notre Dame’s Ara Parseghian often was castigated as unable to “win the big one” while not defeating top rival USC in those six seasons, but a 1973 victory over the Trojans propelled them to his second consensus national title.

For Kelly, it’s about positioning one’s self to get another chance to play for championships, not necessarily another referendum on the overall program — even if a defeat would prompt the “same ol’ Notre Dame” theme.

“All that matters is that we get an opportunity to play Clemson this Saturday and compete against them,” Kelly said. “Who knows, it might not be the only time we play them this year. There will be enough time to evaluate all this and there will be plenty of opinions, pundits will make their own assessment.”

Win or lose, he is confident the program is at a place now where such a moment is not too big for them.

“We’re 29-3 over the last 32 games,” Kelly said. “We’re not a team that’s easily overcome with the moment. We’ll be just fine. We’ve got to execute. … This team has exhibited that they’re not a team that is going to back away from a challenge when they’re down.

“They’ll certainly pick up their pace and answer any challenges that are in front of them. I have no question about that.”

There isn’t any different messaging for Clemson either, or at least not publicly, because Kelly has acknowledged the past couple of weeks that the Tigers have been naturally in the back of their minds.

“This game, it’s not the end-all for us,” he said. “We could win this game — but if you lose to BC [the next week] this game doesn’t mean anything. We’re still in pursuit of a conference championship. … We’ve shown an incredible consistency as a football team of winning week in and week out.

“Look, you’re going to get opportunities like this and you want to win these games, no doubt. But we can’t be overly emotional about this football game and lose sight of the fact that we’ve got five more games to play as well. … We can’t empty the tank and say, ‘Hey, we beat Clemson, we’ve arrived.’ No we haven’t.

“We’ve got to take this game as an important game. It’s the No. 1 team in the country. You better play really well against a really good Clemson football team — and then get ready to move on to play a BC team on the road that’s really good, too.”

Notre Dame could be on the brink of an outstanding season. Will Kelly’s “edge” this week help facilitate it?

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