How did that first Notre Dame football loss in 2024 deliver a docuseries win?

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SOUTH BEND ― When did the 2024 Notre Dame football season get real for you?
Was it the win in the opener at Texas A&M over Labor Day Weekend, or the win in the finale at USC over Thanksgiving weekend?
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Was it walking into Notre Dame Stadium on that cold Friday night in December for the first on-campus College Football Playoff game (and win), or walking into Merecedes-Benz Stadium on that cold Monday night in January and seeing that national championship logo there on the field?
What moment did it for you? Any? All?
How about none?
Notre Dame director, feature content John Fornaro knew he had something special during what was the football program's lowest moment in 2024, maybe the lowest moment in decades. On that September Saturday at Notre Dame Stadium, Fornaro felt something that only a person in his position could after the loss to Northern Illinois went final.
Charged with overseeing the first season of 'Here Come the Irish,' a docuseries that aired on Peacock last season, Fornaro wasn't going to let one loss keep him from making what he thought had the makings of something special.
Break the doc? How about make it?
'It was like, all right, this could go one of two ways,'' Fornaro said Thursday from a darkened Notre Dame Stadium interview room. 'I will say, after the Northern Illinois game, you kind of knew it was real. You knew the show was real.'
Real because for as low of a moment as that loss was for everyone associated with Notre Dame football – from the head coach on down – they treated it, and treated Fornaro and his crew, just as they had done the previous week after winning at Texas A&M.
Access rarely was restricted. Fornaro and his crew were not asked not to shoot this team meeting or that player-coach interaction. Freeman and his staff, like Fornaro and his, went about business as usual. Even in soul-crushing defeat.
The show must go on. It went on.
'As soon as that happened, I was like, 'All right, we're making a real show here. This is going to happen. This is going to be good,'' Fornaro said.
The result was a seven-episode docuseries look at the 2024 Notre Dame football team from the highest of highs (pick one) to that lowest of lows (Northern Illinois). Everything that Fornaro, a native New Yorker and 2016 Marist College graduate, heard about Notre Dame and its storied football program, he lived last season.
Every day from August camp, into the regular season and through a CFP postseason that stretched from late December to late January, Fornaro learned what makes Notre Dame football after a near-daily 93-minute drive from his home in Chicago's West Loop. It took Fornaro, a four-time national sports Emmy award winner during his four years at ESPN, four seconds when he arrived in April 2024 to understand that campus, that football program, that everything.
It was dizzying.
'You always hear about Notre Dame and you hear about the lore and you hear about the prestige of what Notre Dame is and its history,' he said. 'Being with the team every day, being on the road, being in the team hotel, being on the team charters, you see all this stuff that makes this place special and you understand it.
'The feeling here is real. The fans here are real.'
The docuseries, last season and again this season (it was announced Thursday that the first episode will drop December 8), also, real. Notre Dame football may have the final say, but Fornaro insists there wasn't much of a balancing act to the documentary that he wanted to make and the one Notre Dame wanted made.
'We told the exact story that we wanted to tell,' he said. 'There were no limitations, no restrictions from football or the (communication) staff. There's a good relationship there; there's trust there.'
There also was a lot there. Fornaro admitted he over did it on the amount of footage shot last season just, well, because he could. He thought everything about Notre Dame and its football program was 'amazing' and wanted to squeeze everything in the show.
Not everything made it without making it the War and Peace (ask your parents) of docs. It would have run for days, not hours. Fornaro and his crew made it a point last season and will make it again this fall to be at every team meeting, every practice, every recordable moment.
'We shoot 90% and 10% of it gets used,' he said. 'You have to show the team and the staff that you're committed to be there. That's the most important part for me.'
'Here Come the Irish' has been in production since long before the first official day of practice on July 31. Over the summer, Fornaro and his staff took home visits with several returning Irish to start building out backstories and possible storylines.
What might those be? You know better than to ask any director to reveal his hand. Fornaro won't, though he stressed that flexibility is crucial. Last fall, former Irish All-American cornerback Benjamin Morrison was supposed to be a solid storyline. When his collegiate career came to a premature end in October after hip surgery, Morrison went from central character to a supporting actor.
You can guess what storylines are in pen (for now) this season. Jeremiyah Love, the starting quarterback, any returning starter on defense would be good places to start. There will be a few pivotal plotlines come December that no one saw surfacing in August.
'We,' Fornaro said, 'don't know what exactly is going to happen.'
That's film.
That's football.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at [e-mail]
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: What storyline roads might the 2025 Notre Dame football season travel?