SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Howard Cross III was the last player to leave the field. By then, his head coach had long since entered the tunnel following Notre Dame’s humiliating 16-14 loss to Northern Illinois, which may end this season before it even begins. The All-American defensive tackle held his helmet behind his back and stared blankly into space. There was nothing to acknowledge, nothing to greet as Cross walked toward the locker room as a chorus of boos rang out from below.

Marcus Freeman tried to explain how his most talented team could lose in Notre Dame Stadium as a four-touchdown favorite in the most devastating home loss since the 1995 season opener to Northwestern. He couldn’t. Riley Leonard tried to make sense of his second-half interception that should never have been thrown. He was somewhat more successful. Enter Cross, who had more experience at Notre Dame than the head coach, athletic director, president or pretty much anyone else.

Cross recounted the losses to Marshall in 2022 and Cincinnati in 2021. He even went back to Toledo in 2021, the last time Notre Dame flew too close to the sun against a MAC program. Cross has been there, done that. That doesn’t make it any easier to be back here. Because Notre Dame should have been done with moments like this.

“Yeah, this sucks. We know that. All of our fans know that. We know that. All of our coaches, from top to bottom, they all know that,” Cross said. “They’re going to hear it all week, ‘We suck.’ OK, use that. Because with all due respect, seven days, we’re back on the field. Are we going to say, ‘OK, damn it, I think it’s over.’ Or are we just going to roll with it?

“I think we’re going to do that. Just keep going.”

GALLING DEEPER

Notre Dame Suffers Shocking Loss to NIU: How Did It All Go So Wrong for Irish?

What more can Notre Dame do? For all the good Freeman has done in his two-plus seasons at Notre Dame, what happened Saturday threatens to undo much, if not all, of it.

It nullifies last week’s win at Texas A&M, which felt like a proof of concept for Freeman and Leonard together. Instead, Leonard, with a one-point lead in the fourth quarter, attempted to complete a pass he hadn’t yet hit against Notre Dame, getting intercepted on a horrendous deep shot when a run up the middle would have sufficed. Eleven plays later, NIU fired the winning field goal.

The maturity Notre Dame showed in College Station when offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock announced the game he had to make the call with a new quarterback and young offensive line? Wasted on that undisciplined pass that didn’t need to be thrown. The determined defensive performance that kept Texas A&M from making the big play? Wasted on a young linebacker group that was fooled by the Northern Illinois game plan and pushed around by a Huskies offensive line that should have been pushed back.

But the most troubling thing for Notre Dame’s football program right now is its head coach.

Notre Dame is 20-9 since Marcus Freeman took over as coach. (Matt Cashore / USA Today)

In promoting Freeman, former athletic director Jack Swarbrick gambled that he could help a rookie head coach succeed in a place where rookie head coaches have failed time and time again. There are too many pitfalls. Too much learning on the job. Because by the time those lessons are learned, it’s often too late.

It’s easy to pick apart Freeman’s postgame press conference, because what could he really say? He said the preparation needed to be better, then said Notre Dame had practiced well all week. He said Notre Dame needed to hit in practice, then ignored the fact that the Irish had a sluggish first half. He questioned the game plan, but the head coach has the final say on what gets called and when. He’s a linebacker by trade, but no position played worse. He touted Notre Dame as a program that’s driven by the offensive line and defensive line, but both positions struggled on Saturday. The head coach decides where the program goes at quarterback, but it’s not clear that Freeman has gotten that right once in three seasons.

“We’ve been here before, right? We’ve been here before. Now it’s time to fix it,” Freeman said. “We’ve got to fix it and get back to playing the way we know how to play, we’ve played before, and we can and we will.”

Nothing Freeman said was more telling. Or more chilling.

Notre Dame has been here before. Against Marshall and Stanford when the offense failed. Against Ohio State when the game ended with 10 men on the field and the Buckeyes scored the winning touchdown. Against Louisville when Notre Dame was outplayed by its coach and blown out. At Clemson when Notre Dame could barely get a first down in the second half. Or even against Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl when Freeman’s defense collapsed.

Freeman is now 20-9 as Notre Dame’s head coach after replacing Brian Kelly, who was 54-9 in his last five seasons. There was little about the end of Kelly’s tenure that captured the imagination — the routine wins, the predictable victories against unranked opponents. And yet the best coaches in this sport are boring that way. They know what’s going to happen on Saturday before it happens, even if they can’t predict exactly how. They have a plan. They have the conviction to stick with it. And they have the kind of resume that makes you believe their plan will work because it’s worked before.

Freeman has none of those things. He’s managed losses to a MAC opponent and another in the Sun Belt. He was a Hail Mary away from losing to Cal. He lost to a three-win Stanford.

Freeman is right. Notre Dame has been here before. That experience should be part of the solution. Maybe it’s just more of the same problem. Shouldn’t Notre Dame get further than this?

“Absolutely,” Freeman said. “Absolutely.”

It will take Freeman a long time to bounce back from Saturday. Because a defeat cuts deeper than losing the benefit of the doubt. And at this point, those reserves are exhausted.

For Notre Dame to finish the season on a high note, nothing less than a spot in the expanded College Football Playoff would do. The administration has supported Freeman every step of the way over the past year, hiring Denbrock, extending defensive coordinator Al Golden, investing in NIL to find success in the transfer portal, raising money for a new facility and re-signing with NBC to ensure independence. They say a good athletic director makes sure his head coach has no excuse not to win. And Notre Dame has done just that, even amid the trade from Swarbrick to Pete Bevacqua.

Now it’s up to the head coach.

“We’ve got to own this,” Freeman said. “Everybody here, every coach has to own it first, and not blame somebody else. That’s the only way to fix it. I’m sure everybody out here is going to try to blame a coach, a player, a person. It should be on the head coach. That’s my job.”

(Top photo: Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)