SOUTH BEND, Ind. – An Irish fan, who would most likely prefer to be anonymous, sat on the side of his pickup truck draped in a green Notre Dame hoodie.

He lifted his left arm to salute his fellow Irish faithful as they exited the parking lot. He held his comfort: an entire handle of Jim Beam.

Even James Beam would understand.

Notre Dame spent the entire calendar year in 2024 explaining that the Marcus Freeman Era was going to be different. National championships wouldn’t be a dream. They could be a reality. A trip to Atlanta with a competitive loss to Ohio State was evidence that it could happen.

Through two games of the 2025 season, things have felt so familiar. But for all the wrong reasons.

Saturday’s heartbreaking 41-40 loss to Texas A&M felt like Notre Dame of old. Well, not that old. Just a decade old.

Losing primetime games early in the season was a consistent trend under Brian Kelly. It just was. Slow starts have been Marcus Freeman’s trend. The two got married this year.

Now, the Irish don’t have control of their season.

Now, they have to win out for a chance to even be considered for the college football playoff. That’s the bottom line as the Irish have no room to even stumble. The rest of 2025 needs to be a full on sprint to the end, accompanied by a 10-game winning streak.

Even then, that might not be enough.

“I can’t sit here and dwell on 0-2 as much as I dwell on what we need to improve,” Freeman said after the game.

The expectations on Notre Dame’s shoulders this year were greater than any set of expectations during the Kelly era.  Not only did the Irish play in the national championship game, but they were closer than they’ve been in over 40 years to actually winning it. They finally snapped the major bowl curse. Marcus Freeman looked like a young coaching prodigy Notre Dame had always wanted.

In 2024, the Irish show was possible. In 2025, it was about proving the program could sustain that success. This year’s 0-2 start raises questions about whether it ever can. 

If a week 2 loss to Northern Illinois last year was an example of Freeman’s worst trend of losing games. He should win early in the season, then Saturday’s loss to the Aggies was reminiscent of an old Kelly trend.

If anything, the ghosts of 2016 felt like they were haunting Notre Dame Stadium. 

That year, a top-10 Notre Dame team lost in the first week of the season on the road. It also lost faith in defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder by Week 4. Players who suffered injuries were replaced by young players who struggled to make plays.

The 2025 Irish have ways to go before the program loses complete faith in defensive coordinator Chris Ash, but they have two primetime losses on their resume where the defense struggled. They also have a defense that’s in dire need of fixes, and that’s hard to do midseason. Their depth chart can’t afford massive blows. Senior nickelback DeVonta Smith missed Saturday’s game with an ankle injury suffered right before the game and A&M exploited the Irish defense when All-American cornerback Leonard Moore missed the back end of a series.

Whatever goodwill Notre Dame built up during its CFP run last season, that’s gone. It disappeared into the South Bend night, leaving only a former top-10 team to pick up its pieces and a contingent of despondent Irish fans wondering what happened while accepting the fact the season might already be over.

The former is trying to figure out what happened, too. What helps is that Freeman at least knows the main question at hand: Where’s the defensive execution? Under Ash, that was supposed to continue at least.

Regression, with a first-year quarterback, could not be an option. That’s the reality now.

“It’s not the call. It’s the execution,” Freeman said. “At the end of the day, why aren’t we able to execute in a way that we believe we need to and should? That’s the question we’ve got to get answered.”

That leaves a group of players who desperately wanted to reach the mountain top of college football again, but win this time.

They knew it was going to be an adjustment going from an afterthought after a loss to NIU, to national runner-up, to a favorite to make the playoffs. The program wasn’t ready for the adjustment to be this harrowing.

The good news is the offense corrected itself quickly. They went from scoring 24 points on offense vs. Miami to dropping 33 points on offense vs. Texas A&M. It wasn’t perfect, but teams that score 33 points on offense usually win football games. It takes massive defensive failures to cancel out that kind of offensive performance, and the Irish defense had that.

“Not good enough in the run and pass, not good enough getting pressure on the quarterback,” Freeman said. “We had some unexpected injuries, but it doesn’t matter. You’re on the field, we’ve got to put you in position to make plays.”

It’s not just “not good enough.” It’s unacceptable for any team with CFP aspirations.

But, like the offense, Notre Dame has to hope that whatever wasn’t executed properly can be fixed. It starts with an experienced group self reflecting.

“Don’t point fingers at anybody else, point fingers at yourself and see what you could have done to help this team have a better chance at success,” running back Jeremiyah Love said. “Like myself, I can point my at myself, you know, I had a couple plays where I could have converted on a fourth down. I didn’t convert, so I can point a finger at myself and say, Hey, what if I would’ve did this, maybe I would’ve changed the outcome. So it’s really just evaluating yourself, but also just keeping your head up and stand together.”

Love was stellar on Saturday. He didn’t waver, even when he was stopped on a fourth down at midfield on a drive that could have ended in crucial points.

But, that’s just the tip of the spear that pierced Notre Dame’s heart. There was a botched point-after touchdown snap by Tyler Buchner, two third-down conversions on Texas A&M’s final drive, a game-winning touchdown on fourth down and backbreaking turnovers.

It led to a game where the Irish should have won, but didn’t. That will haunt a team that was convinced it could be the same Notre Dame team that contended for a title.

It’s not right now. It may never be. But the team shouldn’t accept that its season is over just two games into the season. There’s still time to win games.

“I want to get back to work right now,” Love said.

That’s the mentality the Irish need to have. They need to take care of business now. Even then, it might not be enough.