Is Notre Dame positioned to be a power in the new era?

Anyone under 40 can be forgiven for not really getting the whole Notre Dame football thing.

The Fighting Irish have remained fiercely, strangely independent in an era where programs have moved conferences like a wild game of musical chairs. They have rivalries with neighboring schools like Purdue and Michigan State but also far-away teams like USC and Stanford. And Navy.

Most importantly, Notre Dame has only been good enough in recent decades to be occasionally embarrassed by a true football power. Witness its two previous College Football Playoff appearances: a 30-3 loss to Clemson and a 34-13 thumping from Alabama. This is at least partly because the school continues to enforce tough academic standards for its athletes, even as many powerhouse football schools stopped worrying about such things years ago.

If you haven't heard of the Four Horsemen, Knute Rockne, "Rudy," or even Lou Holtz, it can be hard to figure out why Notre Dame holds such a high-profile place in the football landscape. Why is this exceedingly mid team such a big deal to so many people?

The Irish won 13 national championships once upon a time, back when they were decided by competing polls from The Associated Press (sports writers), as well as United Press International and, later, USA Today (coaches). Notre Dame also produced seven Heisman Trophy winners, from Angelo Bertelli (1943) to Tim Brown (1987). The university is close to Chicago and has connections to Irish Catholicism. Notre Dame became a favorite team for many Americans, even if they'd never set foot in South Bend, Indiana.

And yet, as the Irish prepare for their third kick at the CFP and a chance to win their first national title since Holtz's 1988 team, a curious thing might be unfolding. Has the team that's refused to change with the times finally seen them change back in its favor?

The first test of that theory begins Friday night when the No. 7-seeded Irish host No. 10 Indiana in the first round of the expanded 12-team playoff. Their next test would be a second-round clash with No. 2 Georgia, which is the kind of matchup that's haunted Notre Dame in recent decades.

But this season has been unusual for a bunch of reasons. All of the preseason favorites have lost multiple games, except for undefeated Oregon. Texas, Georgia, and Tennessee all lost twice. Alabama, the most successful team in the CFP era, lost three times. Big Ten powers Ohio State and Penn State each lost twice. Michigan, the defending national champions, lost five times. Clemson, the ACC champion, lost three times. Every team in the Big 12 lost at least twice.

The parity era has finally descended on college football. Different mechanisms are encouraging it. The transfer portal allows players to change schools without penalty, and rule changes have allowed teams to indirectly pay players for their name and image rights. Programs that used to be able to stockpile talent at all the important positions have subsequently found it harder to do so as of now. A player who used to be happy being the fourth-string running back at Alabama can now go elsewhere in the SEC, get paid, and be a starter.

All of this would appear to create an opportunity for Notre Dame. The Irish generally play a softer schedule: a mix of games against ACC opponents, their many traditional rivals, and the odd one-off against an SEC team or some other lesser power. That gives them a good chance of running up an impressive record, such as their 11-1 mark this season. (Notre Dame's only blemish was significant. Losing to 7-5 NIU, which finished seventh in the Mid-Atlantic Conference, is how an 11-1 team ranked No. 3 in the AP Top 25 finishes No. 7.)

So, Notre Dame should generally have a good chance of reaching the expanded playoff every season. There's also now a lesser chance that it'll run into a loaded SEC or Big Ten opponent. Plus, thanks to the transfer portal, there's the ability to swoop in and grab some other school's proven player. The program did exactly that with starting quarterback Riley Leonard, who came to South Bend after three seasons at Duke. Everything's coming up Irish!

Unless it isn't. The problem with the theory that everything is breaking their way is that the games still have to be played. Indiana is historically terrible but was downright frisky in 2024. The Hoosiers are a new-era team also buttressed by a pile of transfers that only lost to Ohio State on the road.

Notre Dame is a healthy 7-point favorite, but it wouldn't be a terrible shock if Indiana managed to bloody the collective Irish nose.

You don't go 36 years without a national championship while being one of the most storied teams in college football without a few painful losses along the way.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.