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Notre Dame's Three-Year Run Deserves Much More Love

While scanning various news outlets this week for some Notre Dame postseason cyberspace perspectives, it was amazing to see the equal number of posts and stories essentially labeled either, “Why 2019 was a huge success,” or “Why 2019 was an epic failure.”

Seemed like almost a 50-50 split.

A thread about the topic was posted Sunday in Rockne’s Roundtable, “Why we are not as happy as we should be,” that generated good debate over the subject.

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After beating Stanford and completing an undefeated November, Irish coach Brian Kelly has more history to chase.
After beating Stanford and completing an undefeated November, Irish coach Brian Kelly has more history to chase. (USA Today/Sports)

Mulling it over and looking back to the preseason, if we had been guaranteed then that:

*Notre Dame was going to win at least 10 games for the third straight season, something that hadn’t happened since 1991-92-93.

*And, the Irish would win at Stanford for the first time since 2007, and in doing so, Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly would join Knute Rockne as the only coaches in Irish history to go 5-0 in November.

*And, Notre Dame would go undefeated at home for the second straight season and run its winning streak at The Stadium to 18 games.

Wouldn’t all of us have signed up for that profile?

But for whatever reason — presumably the Michigan loss — celebration, excitement and attention toward the Irish program seemingly flatlined throughout November, even as Notre Dame played arguably its best sustained stretch of football of the Kelly-era in its last four regular season games.

The Irish disposed of Duke, Navy, Boston College and Stanford by a combined 175-58, a per-game average of about 44-14.

Yet, during that four-game stretch, Notre Dame only climbed from No. 16 to No. 14 in the AP Poll, received minimal notice in the College Football Playoff Poll, and left many fans a bit under-enthused and still asking, “what if?”

Obviously, the Michigan game gashed a scar into this season because this second loss — and especially with the way it went down — essentially knocked the Irish out of any playoff consideration before November had even arrived.

And that’s really the point.

Is it a bad that Kelly has lifted expectations for his program to a point that anything short of a playoff berth feels disappointing? Of course not.

But once CFP hopes are dashed, 10 wins now seems more like a measure of program consistency than program success.

Remember how thrilling 10 wins was in 2017 after going 4-8 in 2016?

Now, compare that 10-win feeling from three years ago to the 2019 season.

For better or worse, 10 wins now seems to be the low-end of expectations at Notre Dame, which isn’t all bad, especially with no realistic reason to think that mark won’t be reached again next season, and many more times in the foreseeable future.

Consider that if Kelly and his Irish win their bowl game, it will mean 33 wins in three seasons, a feat accomplished only one other time at Notre Dame when coach Lou Holtz did it from 1988-90, a span that included the school record 23-game winning streak.

That history lesson alone helps to show that what is happening this season, and since 2016, is definitely something to get excited about, and nothing to take for granted, even if the Michigan loss still stings.

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Talk about it inside Rockne’s Roundtable

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