The 2024-25 Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Ohio State Buckeyes are one game away from college football immortality. Yet, the College Football Playoff National Championship means more for the team from South Bend.
What the Notre Dame Fighting Irish Stand To Gain in the 2025 National Championship
Notre Dame is one of the most respected football programs in the nation, largely due to their success during the 1900s. Frank Leahy led the Irish to six of their 11 consensus national titles, two as a player and four as a head coach.
However, they haven’t hoisted the ultimate trophy since 1988, when they defeated the West Virginia Mountaineers 34-21 in the Fiesta Bowl. The four-decade drought isn’t lost on current head coach Marcus Freeman.
“Oh, it would be something special,” Freeman said of winning the 2025 CFP National Championship. “Obviously, this place hasn’t won a National Championship since 1988, and every year, the aspiration is to win a national championship. That’s why all these players choose to come to Notre Dame — one of the reasons — is to be a part of a program that can win a national championship.
“I think it’s something that they’ll be able to say for the rest of their lives … is they were part of a national championship football team. There’s a lot of work that goes into getting to that outcome, and that’s what we’ve got to focus on, but it would be special for this university and for these players that have poured so much work into getting the results that we have.”
Although the Irish haven’t won the natty since 1988, they’ve at least contended several times.
In 2012, HC Brian Kelly, RB Theo Reddick, TE Tyler Eifert, and LB Manti Te’o led Notre Dame to a 12-0 record, a No. 1 ranking, and a BCS National Championship Game berth against the No. 2 Alabama Crimson Tide.
Unfortunately, the contest wasn’t all that close, with Nick Saban’s squads thrashing the Irish 42-14.
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It took six years until Kelly and Co. returned to national prominence, making the College Football Playoff Semifinal as the No. 3-ranked team vs. the No. 2 Clemson Tigers. Once again, the Irish were outclassed, falling 30-3 in the Cotton Bowl.
Their return to the CFP a couple of years later wasn’t any different, with Saban and Alabama dispatching Kelly and Notre Dame one last time, 31-14, in the Rose Bowl.
However, the sentiment has been different since Freeman took the reigns from Kelly. The program has gone 33-9 under his leadership, including 5-1 in postseason bouts.
If the Irish are able to get over their CFP hump in 2025, Freeman (39) will become the youngest head coach to win a national title since Bob Stoops led the Oklahoma Sooners to one in 2000 (also 39).
To do so, he’ll need to knock off his alma mater, where he played in two BCS titles as an all-conference linebacker. Freeman’s faced the Buckeyes two times in his Notre Dame tenure, falling in both 2022 (21-10) and 2023 (17-14), with the latter defeat coming on a last-second 1-yard rushing score.
The 2025 CFP National Championship is more than just a game for Notre Dame and Freeman — it’s a chance to rewrite their legacy, silence decades of doubt, and prove that the Irish can still contend with college football’s elite.
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