FOX Sports’ Colin Cowherd: Notre Dame football is ‘not very good’ in 2021

Notre Dame has once again fallen prisoner to the ultimate measuring stick.

FOX radio show host Colin Cowherd brought FOX color analyst Joel Klatt on his show, “The Herd”, this week to recap the Fighting Irish’s 41-13 win over Wisconsin. Cowherd saw enough in that three-quarter grind turned eventual blowout to say: “This is actually, in my opinion, not a very good Notre Dame team.”

“They’re not as good as they’ve been in the last couple years,” Klatt agreed.

Then Cowherd went to the comparison well. The ultimate measuring stick.

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“Alabama can just reload. Notre Dame doesn’t,” Cowherd said. “They have down years. I think they’re just coaching their way to wins. I don’t think they’re that much better than Wisconsin. I don’t think they’re a 41-13 better team than Wisconsin.”

Cowherd has a point in each regard.

Wisconsin was beating Notre Dame 13-10 early in the fourth quarter. The Badgers out-gained the Irish 318-248 in total yards by the conclusion of the game. If not for five Wisconsin turnovers and 31 Notre Dame points off of them, then the final score would have obviously looked a lot different.

As for the “down years,” sure. Everyone but Alabama seems to have those. Notre Dame has recorded multiple losses in nine of head coach Brian Kelly’s 11 seasons. During the same span, Alabama has lost twice or more just four times with a max loss total of three. Notre Dame has lost three or more games five times under Kelly, including a 4-8 season in 2016.

The Irish have come a long way since then, though. Notre Dame went 11-2 in 2019 and 10-2 last year, and those seasons followed up a 12-1 campaign in 2018. With two undefeated regular seasons and subsequent College Football Playoff berths in the last three seasons, the Irish are rolling as well as anybody in the nation not named Alabama.

Even Cowherd could admit that.

“If you took Alabama out of the sport, I think Notre Dame could go toe to toe in the last five years with everybody, including Georgia,” Cowherd said. “I’ve seen it twice.”

Notre Dame Fighting Irish football head coach Brian Kelly — Head coach Brian Kelly has the Irish off to a 4-0 start in 2021. (Chad Weaver/BGI)

Klatt has an explanation for Notre Dame’s success. He visited the Notre Dame team facilities before last week’s game, which was something new to him because he never gets to call Irish home games with the university’s TV deal with NBC in place.

The day in South Bend was well worth Klatt’s time.

“I came away from that even more impressed with Notre Dame than I had been before,” Klatt said. “It was largely due to the fact that when I meet with coaches in person, you get a really good sense based on what game plan they’re about to use in the game.

“I watch the film. I know what I’m looking at. I can tell when a game plan is not going to be great. You can tell when a guy’s ego is getting in the way of his game plan. ‘Well I don’t care what they do on defense, we’ll be able to run the ball.’ OK, no you won’t. That would have been the case if Notre Dame said, ‘Hey, listen. We’re Notre Dame, we’re going to run the ball against Wisconsin.’ And to their credit, they didn’t do that.”

Notre Dame called 47 pass plays (including sacks and scrambles) and 21 rushing plays against the Badgers. Offensive coordinator Tommy Rees knew the running game just wasn’t going to be there. The Irish passed for 239 yards and two touchdowns as a result.

Two touchdowns, regardless of what happened with special teams and defensive scores in the fourth quarter, was enough to win. Klatt said Notre Dame’s refusal to “sit there and run their head into a brick wall” was the reason the Irish were victorious.

“They had a game plan that was setting themselves up to win, and then they won,” Klatt said. “And I think in large part that belief seeps down to their players.”

It’s going to take another well-designed game plan and a whole lot of belief for No. 9 Notre Dame (4-0) to beat No. 7 Cincinnati (3-0) at 2:30 p.m. ET (NBC) at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday. The Bearcats present a plethora of challenges on both sides of the ball.

Klatt wouldn’t be surprised if a savvy Irish squad squeaks out another victory, though.

“Notre Dame is probably a year or two away from being really, really good,” Klatt said. “But this team is maximizing itself based on the fact that the coaches are putting them in great positions to succeed.”

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