First, let’s get this out of the way now: I cried.

Thirty-one years. Thirty-one long years of not winning these games. Of coming up short. Of drawing the best possible opponent. Of chuckleheads on the Internet pretending losing games meant they shouldn’t have been in them.

It all got swept away in less than one game minute of ecstasy.

Because we are all “hold me, I’m Irish,” I think we all agree that at no point whatsoever the rest of the day did things feel in hand. But in the end, ND beat the SEC champions, 23-10, for its school-record 13th win, and they won it in all three phases of football.

The defense

I’m the guy who always looks for storylines, so forgive me, but this one seemed to find me. How fitting was it, I say, that Donovan Hinish – who is only playing because like 6 other defensive linemen got hurt – came up with the final sack to sew up the best ND victory of many of our conscious lifetimes?

This team does not stop. Down Rylie Mills. Down Howard Cross. Down, for a while, Xavier Watts. Down almost every major defensive cog at one point or another. Notre Dame still was largely dominant on defense against an offensive line that held a 50-pound advantage per man and was assumed to be one of the greatest strengths for Georgia.

And you know what? ND’s strip-sack fumble that completely turned the tide in Notre Dame’s favor wasn’t won on that field. It was won in the head of Kirby Smart. The two-time national championship winning coach blinked. Instead of going into halftime down 6-3 with the backup quarterback, he tried to steal a possession. And he did it because he knew damn well Notre Dame was a good bet to beat his team if he didn’t. It backfired on him.

The Irish came up big on big downs on defense over and over again. Even when flags made them do it again. The blitzes largely either got home or caused enough mayhem to make the play. The depth of this team…I mean, imagine any Davie/Willingham/Weis/Kelly team being down so many important pieces and still largely shutting down the SEC champions. It’s simply incredible to witness.

The special teams

My goodness. It’s always called the hidden yardage. Tonight it was a close second to the defense as the reason ND won.

First of all, Mitch Jeter is fixed. Three 40-plus yard field goals and he absolutely drilled the first two and made the third too. Hard to overstate how important those makes looked down the stretch when the game was a 13-point game instead of a four-point one.

Second of all, Jayden Harrison returned the first kickoff TD Georgia has surrendered in five years to completely melt the brains of any Irish fan watching and officially moving all of us into “just please don’t screw this up” mode.

And third of all, Marcus Freeman and Marty Biagi. Holy schnikes. It wasn’t just the guts to call that fire-drill punt in the fourth quarter with everything hanging in the balance, but the pitch-perfect execution of it. And it got ND an enormous first down.

The offense

Obviously the offense was the third of the three phases if you’re ranking why ND won. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t play its part.

Most notably, the boys took advantage of the aforementioned special teams win by running a full five minutes off the clock, picking up a couple of clutch first downs along the way. By the time, Georgia got the ball back, it was essentially impossible for them to win.

Riley Leonard, of course, was made to carry the load offensively with Jeremiyah Love at far less than 100 percent. He delivered, gaining 80 yards on 14 carries, including an awesome third-and-long conversion run that will hopefully be eclipsed at some point in the next couple weeks as the signature Riley Leonard highlight.

Leonard wasn’t asked to do a whole lot as a thrower – though he did make a couple of solid throws in clutch spots – but he was never supposed to be that guy. What he was supposed to be was a physical, indomitable, gutsy leader. And good Lord, was he that tonight. There are better, more complete quarterbacks in the country. There aren’t any it’s easy for me to visualize leading this particular Notre Dame team.

The coaching

Notre Dame owes Brian Kelly (I swear I don’t mean to bring this name up again) a debt of gratitude for leaving exactly when and how he did. If he leaves any other time than he did, Marcus Freeman isn’t at Notre Dame right now. Had he left before 2021, Freeman doesn’t get hired as DC. Had he waited until the 2021 offseason rather than leaving after Thanksgiving, Freeman’s probably coaching Duke or something right now. Instead, he left at a time where the entire team – the entire school – coalesced around Freeman as a guy worth gambling on.

It’s not always been easy. But when you saw Freeman on the sideline in the Sugar Bowl, outcoaching the best current coach in the sport, you saw a man in complete control of everything. Was there a single point – one single time – that you saw Freeman on the sideline and thought anything happening on the field was surprising to him, was a situation for which he wasn’t prepared? He looked at all times like everything unfolding was exactly what he thought was going to happen.

His growth as a coach is why Smart blinked at the end of the first half and helped Notre Dame get 7 more points before the break. It was why he was so confident making fourth-down decisions, never seeming to be close to wavering. It was why this team just will not stop coming at an opponent no matter how many people get hurt. This is Marcus Freeman’s program. As much as it can be for any football coach, it’s Marcus Freeman’s school. Those players, that staff, they’d follow him into the gates of hell and would do it feeling bad for Satan for what was about to happen.

Next

Notre Dame is going to the Orange Bowl semifinal against Penn State and they’re looking like the Vegas favorites, despite a two-day rest disadvantage*, despite a M*A*S*H unit on defense, despite their opponent being put into the easiest bracket in the field while they had to bare-knuckle box the (at worst) second-most talented team in the country, despite so much working against them.

(* It was an eerie feeling New Year’s Day, watching other games while our brains were still wired for a game we knew wasn’t going to be happening as New Orleans dealt with what it dealt with. It doesn’t need to be said, but all positive vibes to the Bayou right now. In the trivial football world, Notre Dame’s response to the situation it found itself in was unmatched, and to me it was expected. And it’s why everything they’ll be up against over the next week doesn’t worry me.)

There is no ceiling. Notre Dame can do this. I told our writers’ room the day the playoff bracket was announced that as long as this team stayed focused like they had the previous 10 weeks, they were going to the national championship game. They’re now one win away from making me look like I have a clue.