Notre Dame's improbable run to the national championship

On Sept. 7, Notre Dame fell to Northern Illinois, a 28-point underdog, in one of the most stunning defeats in the program's storied history.

The then-No. 5 Fighting Irish not only lost to the Huskies at home, but they were manhandled by a Mid-American Conference program that had never beaten an AP top-10 opponent.

Northern Illinois outgained the Irish 388-286 in total yardage, converted twice as many first downs, allowed just two plays longer than 19 yards and blocked two field goals.

For the Fighting Irish, who had won 23-13 at Texas A&M in their opener a week before, their season could have been over as it barely started.

"It could have gone sideways fast," Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden said.

Four months later, the Fighting Irish are somehow one victory away from capturing their first national championship in 36 years.

Notre Dame defeated Penn State 27-24 on Mitch Jeter's 41-yard field goal with seven seconds left in a College Football Playoff semifinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl on Thursday night.

The No. 7 Fighting Irish will play the winner of Friday's other semifinal between No. 5 Texas and No. 8 Ohio State at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic in the Jan. 20 CFP National Championship presented by AT&T.

The team that couldn't beat a four-touchdown underdog at home has now won 13 consecutive games -- with a chance for one more, the biggest of them all.

"I often tell them, in your lowest moments you find out the most about yourself," Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said. "We've had low moments, but we had a really low moment Week 2, and these guys battled. We've got great leaders. We've got great players that chose to put this university and this football program in front of themselves."

Notre Dame's coaches and players credit Freeman, who turned 39 at midnight after the game, with keeping the Irish on track after their stunning loss to Northern Illinois. It was an arduous task for a former defensive coordinator who had never been a head coach until he was promoted on Dec. 3, 2021, to replace Brian Kelly, who left for LSU.

"He handled it magnificently," Golden said. "Just being in that situation, being in that chair like that, that's tough. There's no escape from it, but it never got to the locker room. It never got to the team meeting room. He handled all the stress and all the pressure internally, and was the leader that we all needed at that moment."

Freeman didn't want the Fighting Irish to wipe the pain of losing to Northern Illinois from their memory. He wanted them to embrace the adversity to remember that they can never take anything for granted.

Freeman's message to his team was simple: Keep the pain. Don't let it go.

"I think it really caused us to lock the locker room door and say, 'Hey, it's just us. The people in this room are the only things that matter,'" linebacker Jack Kiser said. "I think Coach Freeman's message and mentality through the rest of the year kind of echoed that."

The day after the loss to Northern Illinois, defensive tackle Howard Cross III huddled with Freeman and quarterback Riley Leonard.

"It's the second game of the season," Cross told them. "I'm not going to go belly up in the second game of the season. We need to keep pushing."

The Irish won their next 12 games by an average of 27.5 points. Only one of them, a 31-24 victory over Louisville, was decided by fewer than 10.

Notre Dame will face the winner of the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic semifinal between Texas and Ohio State.