This loss for Notre Dame to Ohio State in the national title game wasn't Alabama 2013 all over again, but there were similarites. The differences were huge, though.

Three years after Brian Kelly left for LSU, Notre Dame is in the national championship game. Here's why the players think Marcus Freeman got them this far.

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman took ownership of Monday’s night 34-23 loss to Ohio State in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game. "You're always making mistakes, but those types of detrimental mistakes when you play a really,

The Fighting Irish were coming off their worst three-year stretch in some time when Kelly was hired. Through his 12 years in South Bend, Kelly compiled seven records of 10 or more wins and coached 55 NFL Draft picks, including 10 first-rounders.

Former Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly defends his decision to leave for LSU, but Marcus Freeman’s recent success tells a different story.

Freeman — a surprise hire in December 2021 since he had never been a head coach when Notre Dame promoted the then-defensive coordinator after Kelly bolted for LSU — hasn’t had the same problems.

Jack Kiser walked up the tunnel toward Notre Dame ’s locker room beneath Mercedes-Benz Stadium, tears welling in his bloodshot eyes, as if the linebacker had anything else to pour out. Behind him, all the scarlet and white confetti had fallen as Ohio State ’s national championship party swayed,

Notre Dame was going from Brian Kelly, a proven head coach with an extensive résumé and the school’s all-time leader in wins, to Marcus Freeman, who had been a defensive coordinator for only a few years and had spent only one season in South Bend, Ind.