Notre Dame football cements case as CFP worthy team | Noie

That is a College Football Playoff team.

Even as late Saturday night became early Sunday morning and the 2025 regular season wound down, that is a College Football Playoff team.

Even 2,200 miles away on television, that is a College Football Playoff team.

Even in a 49-20 snoozer of a win, that is a College Football Playoff team.

Maybe Notre Dame football won’t do what it did last season in hosting a CFP game, but the Irish, after wrapping 2025 with 10 straight wins each by at least 10 points, are one of a handful of teams capable of doing something this program hasn’t done since 1988.

Capable of winning a national championship. Doubt them. Debate the loss to middling Miami (Fla.). Dismiss the record and the consecutive wins and everything else because of that soft schedule, but don’t decline Notre Dame an opportunity to play in December and maybe again deep into January seemingly because it’s Notre Dame.

More: Jeremiyah Love sets touchdown record for Notre Dame football

Does this Notre Dame football team have flaws? Yes, as do other teams looking to squeeze into that 12-team CFP field. Alabama has flaws. BYU has flaws. Miami (Fla.) and Texas and Vanderbilt, all bid worthy like Notre Dame, all flawed.

Someone’s going to the CFP party; somebody’s getting left home. As the regular season ends, only three elite teams have won at least 10 straight. Ohio State, Indiana, Notre Dame. That’s it. That’s the list.

Doubt and debate and dismiss, but you can’t deny that Notre Dame football has played win-or-go-home-for-good for 24 straight weeks stretched over the last two seasons ― 14 weeks in 2024, 10 weeks in 2025. The Irish have won 23 of those 24 (95.8%).

Rivalry Weekend for college football ― one of the best weekends in college football ― had come and was gone while Notre Dame was just getting started. The Iron Bowl between Alabama and Auburn was done. The Game ― Ohio State and Michigan ― felt like it was played days earlier. Pittsburgh and Miami (Fla.)? Also, long completed. And lopsided.

It felt like everyone had packed up and gone home. Except for No. 9 Notre Dame and scuffling Stanford.

College football was ready to climb under the covers ― an easy task for those of us under a winter storm warning ― but there were Notre Dame and Stanford still doing the block and tackle and throw the ball football stuff out on the West Coast.

For the record, the game started at 10:41 p.m. Saturday eastern time and ended at 2:07 a.m. Sunday.

A wise man once said that nothing good ever happens after midnight. For the most part, that's right, except something good did happen after midnight. Long after midnight.

Earlier in the week, you had to keep from chuckling when Irish head coach Marcus Freeman labeled this one as his team’s Super Bowl. Seriously. This one? Against that team? If that was indeed the case, you could have handed out the Lombardi Trophy before the first quarter was over. This one was so over.

It didn’t take long for Notre Dame to establish tailback Jeremiyah Love and to take the lead. Long, relatively speaking. The Irish took the opening drive right down the field behind Love’s eight carries for 54 yards and the score 6:17 after the kick. At that mark the previous week against Syracuse, Notre Dame was up 21-0 and cruising.

This wasn’t Syracuse, but it was close. Notre Dame needed fewer than 14 minutes to build another double-digit lead. A week after doing it with defense, Notre Dame did it against Stanford with power football. Run the ball left. Run the ball right. Run the ball middle. Even with Love nursing an upper body injury suffered on the second drive, the Irish were going to run the ball. Run it with Jadarian Price. Run it with Aneyas Williams. Run it for chunk yards and run it near the goal line.

When that didn’t work, when the pass game didn’t work, when the Irish looked like they would go three and out on their third possession, Notre Dame unwrapped a fake punt gem from its own 16 for an 84-yard touchdown and 21-0 lead.

That’s ridiculous, Marcus Freeman. You, too, special teams wizard Marty Biagi. When defensive end Joshua Burnham throws a pop pass to safety Luke Talich, we’ve about seen it all.

It was 28-0 before Stanford scored. That snapped what had been a 98-7 run in just under six quarters for Notre Dame. Statement made.

When Sunday morning arrived, it ended the 14-week hamster-wheel existence covering Notre Dame football. If it wasn’t updating depth charts and rosters and other minutiae on Sundays, it was Freeman pressers on Mondays, player interviews on Tuesdays, podcast tapings on Wednesdays, a break on Thursday and maybe Friday before another game Saturday.

Throw coverage of Notre Dame men’s and women’s basketball in there over this month and it never felt like enough hours in a day ― or week ― to squeeze it all in.

The end of the regular season grind ends that non-stop routine where the days and the weeks and the months all blend together. You wake up one day, and it’s Labor Day Weekend and the Irish are in South Florida and the 2025 regular season is about to kick. You wake up the next, and it’s the late-night end of the line with the Irish on the opposite coast closing out a 10-2 season.

Even in the middle of the night/early morning darkness of Sunday, it felt like the last day of school. Everything just ends. It’s over. We won’t know for another week what’s next for Notre Dame. College Football Playoff? Probably, but where? When? Against whom?

With that a discussion for another day, what do we do now?

That answer was easy.

Go to bed.

Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at [email protected]

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame football CFP case after win over Stanford