If the circumstances surrounding No. 8 Notre Dame football entering this weekend’s primetime matchup against No. 16 Texas A&M seem familiar, that’s because they sort of are.
With August 31st’s season-opening loss at No. 10 Miami, the Fighting Irish have now failed to escape September without a loss in each of the last four seasons. It’s a pattern that began in head coach Marcus Freeman’s first season, when the Irish dropped their first game of 2022 at Ohio State.
“There’s no moral victories around here,” the newly minted head coach said after that loss, acknowledging the constant noise around Notre Dame football. “The expectation for us is to win every game we play, including playing the No. 2 team in the country.”
That was the last time the Irish started a season 0-1. With a shocking loss to unranked Marshall the following week, they were quickly 0-2, and out of the playoff conversation early.
Three years later in 2025, the Irish have again started the season 0-1. But Freeman isn’t interested in discussing wins and losses, expectations and outcomes anymore.
“Outside of our building, you’re evaluated on one thing, and that’s wins and losses,” Freeman said on Monday. “But inside the building we must continue to be mature enough to understand that the momentary success, or failure, is not what the goal is.”
“Our goal has to be to reach our full potential, and that takes understanding delayed gratification.”
The Irish have had to deal with delayed gratification to start a season plenty over Freeman’s tenure. After the Ohio State and Marshall losses dashed their postseason hopes in September 2022, 2023 followed a similar pattern. One early-season loss to Ohio State gave way to another, just two weeks later, against Louisville.
Even last year, when the Irish had seemed to upset the precedent by winning their first game at Texas A&M, they returned home only to be stunned again by unranked Northern Illinois.
“This is the first time in my three years as a head coach that we have won the big game early in the season, right?” Freeman said in the wake of that 16-14 upset last year. “Two losses to Ohio State, then all of a sudden we win and everybody says, hey, you’re going to the playoffs, you’ve got an easy schedule— we all hear it. And I think we started to believe that.”
“That to me is what we really have to learn from this, is that we have to be able to handle success. And how you do that is you don’t change the way you approach your mindset each week.”
How to watch No. 16 Texas A&M vs No. 8 Notre Dame
We all know what happened next for Freeman’s Irish in 2024. But an appearance in the national championship game has not nullified the lessons learned from three years worth of September struggles. The message remains the same: stay committed to improving, no matter the result.
“You know, there’s sleepless nights, there’s loss of appetite, but what we had to do is we had to turn that frustration into work, and we did,” Freeman said this week. “We can’t let the outcome, good or bad, distract our eyes from the reality of where we are at as a program.”
Freeman’s players seem to be on the same page.
“I don’t think our sense of urgency has changed because we lost,” junior wide receiver Jaden Greathouse said this week.
Sophomore cornerback Leonard Moore echoed the sentiment: “I feel like the mindset doesn’t change, we always come into each game with the same mentality of playing fast and being violent.”
This year’s Texas A&M matchup will be different. For starters, the teams are different. The Aggies will start a far more dynamic man at quarterback in Marcel Reed, whose ability to keep defenses off balance with his legs starkly contrasts with Texas A&M’s 2024 starter Conner Weigman. The Irish have a new quarterback of their own in CJ Carr, who will make his long-awaited debut at Notre Dame Stadium against a revamped—but still potent—A&M front seven.
“They’re asking their quarterback to do [things] a little bit different than what they asked their starter to do that we played last year,” Freeman said. “Still some schemes that are the same, still some concepts that are the same, [but] again, their quarterback’s different. Their wideouts are different.”
The circumstances around this year’s game are different, too. Each team has at least one game under their belt, and will enter the game with fewer unknowns about their opponent. In the bigger picture of Freeman’s tenure, the game will also be the first time his team has had the opportunity to follow a high-profile loss with another high-profile opponent.
Despite these differences, though, there still remains a lingering familiarity about the early-season pressure Notre Dame faces this weekend. Even with the new benefit of a twelve-team playoff, a loss this weekend for the Irish would likely require them to win out in order to return to the postseason.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. But faced with high stakes again in September, Freeman and his team see only one way to approach the challenge.
“Our focus continues— must continue to be on improving, elevating, and doing the things it takes to get our program to reach its full potential.”
That mindset will be put to the test again come Saturday.
About the Author
Ryan Murphy is a senior at the University of Notre Dame majoring in American Studies. Ryan currently serves as the Director of Operations at Notre Dame Television, Sports Co-Director at WVFI Sports Radio, and a beat reporter at The Observer. Originally from Concord, New Hampshire, Ryan lives on-campus as a proud resident of Coyle Hall.
How to watch No. 16 Texas A&M vs No. 8 Notre Dame
- When: Saturday, September 13
- Where: Notre Dame, South Bend, IN
- Time: 7:30 PM ET
- TV Channel: NBC
- Live Stream: Peacock
