What's left on the Notre Dame football national championship checklist heading into 2025?
For too many college football seasons past, there seemingly was always an explanation or an excuse or something else to rationalize why Notre Dame football has stayed stuck on 11 national championships since 1988.
It was the head coach. It was an assistant coach. It was the players. It was recruiting. It was too great a chasm between the administration and the athletic department that held the most storied college football team in the country hostage and held it back from becoming champions. It was a lack of facilities. It was the weather (can't do anything about that). It was the sun and the moon and the stars.
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It was always something as to why the Irish of today couldn't be like the Irish of yesterday.
Those days might be over.
That's what athletic director (and 1993 graduate) Pete Bevacqua believes as Notre Dame football prepares to embark on the 2025 season with the official start of practice Thursday. As the final days of July — and of summer vacation for anyone associated with Notre Dame football — wound down, Bevacqua huddled with the Irish football brain trust.
He sat with fourth-year head coach Marcus Freeman and first-year general manager Mike Martin and deputy athletics director for football Ron Powlus, who's seen some stuff in his decades around the program. Bevacqua offered each one query.
Is there anything that the program needed to push Notre Dame over that national championship finish line for the first time since 1988?
The collective response from Freeman and from Martin and from Powlus? Nothing. Their checklist, if each was carrying one, was full. Athletics and academics alignment? Check. Facilities? Check. Support staff? Coaching staff? Roster compilation? All checked. Recruiting? Heck, that's scorching these days as the Notre Dame Stadium parking lot.
'We have what we need,' Bevacqua said Tuesday during a rare candid 44-minute conversation with five area media members. 'We're there. You never know (but) to win a championship in any sport, you've got to be good; we're good.'
Good enough that securing a spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff field a second straight season is a legitimate baseline goal for the 2025 team. Anything less is unacceptable. Good enough that for the first time since 1988, Notre Dame could be the last college football team standing.
Good enough to dream national championship dreams. Other programs might look at hosting a CFP home game or going on a deep run through the playoffs and leave satisfied. That's not how this works at Notre Dame.
'We have to win national championships in football,' Bevacqua said. 'It's been way too long. We've got to keep knocking on that door.'
Knock on it long enough or loud enough or often enough and eventually, the door's going to crack open. It cracked last year when Notre Dame played the most games (16) and won the most games (14) in program history before losing to Ohio State (34-23) in the national championship game.
Maybe this is the year that the door opens all the way for Notre Dame. Everything is in place. Everyone is aligned. Everything is there for Notre Dame to go do it. Even with all that, Bevacqua has been around Notre Dame and been around the college game long enough to understand that having everything a program needs to win guarantees nothing.
A little luck of the Irish also helps.
'Are you going to keep playing in the national championship game every year?' Bevacqua asked. 'No, unfortunately. There's too many good teams, but we're going to keep knocking on that door.'
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at tnoie@sbtinfo.com
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Athletic director Pete Bevacqua likes where Notre Dame football is as season nears
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