Bowl success simply didn’t exist for Notre Dame in the decade previous to Brian Kelly.
I know that there are some nay-sayers out there who will say bowl games don’t matter unless it’s the national championship. I get the premise but my only question to that is – why the hell even bother playing the game if it doesn’t matter?
You keep score and it counts towards your final record – it matters.
Notre Dame was awful in bowl games throughout last decade if you don’t recall. Starting in the Fiesta Bowl following the 1994 season Notre Dame lost every bowl appearance they had until crushing Hawaii in the 2008 Hawaii Bowl on Christmas Eve.
That was the only bowl game the Irish won in the early 2000’s, as they fell, often hard in others including the 2000 Fiesta Bowl, 2002 Gator Bowl, 2004 Insight Bowl, 2005 Fiesta Bowl and the 2006 Sugar Bowl.
Again, I’m not saying they’re program-shifting victories but if you play against LSU to finish your season wouldn’t it feel a lot better to beat them before you head home and back to the training facilities for the rest of the winter?
Notre Dame has done that twice, beat LSU that is in the 2014 Music City and 2018 Capital One Bowl Games.
They’re still lacking a win in a major bowl game, something they haven’t accomplished since beating Texas A&M to close out the 1993 season.
Kelly and the Irish have gone 4-4 in bowl games together since 2010 while the Camping World Bowl against Iowa State awaits on December 28.
The Irish went just 1-5 in their six bowl appearances last decade and in case you’re wondering, you would have to go all the way back to the Orange Bowl in 1990 if you wanted to count four Notre Dame bowl victories previous to Kelly’s arrival.
Final Takeaways: