Notre Dame Will Be Defined By What It Does Next

Notre Dame earned a huge win over Clemson this past weekend, blasting the Tigers by a 35-14 score. The victory over Clemson, who was ranked 4th nationally when the teams played, certainly went a long way towards changing the narrative about Notre Dame's 2022 season.

What remains to be seen, however, is just how big will the win be for Notre Dame. Is this the Fighting Irish turning the corner as a program, or is it simple another example of this team playing up to its competition, only to be followed by it playing down to inferior opponents.

Notre Dame showed that it can respond to adversity, which it did in impressive fashion by bouncing back to a loss to Stanford. What we don't yet know about this team, but will find out over the next three weeks, is if the Irish can now handle success. Many of the doubters were silenced after the beatdown of Clemson, but they'll quickly return if the Irish don't build on the foundation it laid against the Tigers.

Many have pointed to Clemson's win over Notre Dame back in 2015 as the moment that set that program down the path that led to national championships in 2016 and 2018, as well as College Football Playoff appearances in 2017, 2019 and 2020.

But it wasn't the win over Notre Dame that set the Tigers down that path, it was simply the first big step. Clemson had to still go out and handle its business in the weeks that followed. That is where Notre Dame finds itself right now.

Stumble against Navy or Boston College and all of the positive momentum gets stunted.

We saw Notre Dame start to look like the program head coach Marcus Freeman said he wants it to be. The Irish were physical, they played fast and they played with incredible swagger. We also saw the team clean up many of the mental and technical mistakes that plagued it so much in previous games.

If Notre Dame can build on that we'll look back and say the win over Clemson was the moment Freeman and the Irish turned the corner and became an elite school. But that only happens if what follows is a series of steps forward.

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