Notre Dame clinched a thrilling, last-second 27-24 victory over Penn State in the College Football Playoff semifinal on Thursday.
With a victory in the Orange Bowl, Marcus Freeman and his Fighting Irish clinched a spot in the national championship game, where they will face either the Ohio State Buckeyes or Texas Longhorns on January 20.
Freeman, who has been Notre Dame’s head coach since 2021, will become the first Black coach in history to lead his team into a Division I college football national title game.
The win also comes with a huge financial reward for Notre Dame.
Per Front Office Sports, the Irish program will earn $20 million for making the national title thanks to its independent football status.
The purse for securing a national title berth is usually shared out among the conference, but the Fighting Irish are not part of a conference and so don’t have to share their postseason earnings with any other school.
Had Penn State won in the semifinal, the $20 million payout would have been distributed across the Big Ten conference.
“Teams that make the CFP national championship earn $20 million for their conference,” Front Office Sports posted on X after the win over Penn State.
“Notre Dame has now made $20 million—and with no conference to share it with, gets to keep it all.”
Notre Dame’s independence as a school has long been the subject of much debate.
Just this week they took shots from Penn State head coach James Franklin and ESPN pundit Paul Finebaum, with the latter calling the Irish arrogant for not joining a football conference.
“What I don’t like about Notre Dame is the arrogance that Notre Dame football is too good for everyone else,” Finebaum said on ESPN’s First Take on Wednesday.
“By the way, Stephen A. (Smith), you know where Notre Dame is in basketball? You know where they are in all the other sports? They’re in the ACC.”
Franklin, meanwhile, suggested that “every college football team should be in a conference.”
Notre Dame is independent because way back in the 1990s it opted to sign its own broadcast agreement with NBC to air home games. This was at a time when most other teams were part of conferences and were cutting TV broadcast deals for their games.
Notre Dame’s history and prestige in college football has ultimately afforded them more flexibility and independence than other programs, meaning the university can line up games against A-list teams from many different conferences.
Thanks to the 12-team College Football Playoff format, the Fighting Irish officially became the first team to win multiple bowl games in the same season, with the victory over Penn State.
They captured victories in the Orange Bowl and the Sugar Bowl and will now compete for a national championship for the first time since 2012.
Freeman, who served as Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator for one season before being promoted to head coach in the wake of Brian Kelly’s departure, has been a major reason for their recent success.
The 39-year-old is 34-9 in three full seasons as Notre Dame’s head coach, and will now become the first coach of Black or Asian decent to compete in the CFP final.
“I’ve said this before: I don’t ever want to take attention away from the team,” Freeman, whose father is Black and mother is South Korean, said after the Orange Bowl win.
“It is an honor, and I hope all coaches — minorities, Black, Asian, white, it doesn’t matter, great people — continue to get opportunities to lead young men like this.
“But this ain’t about me. This is about us.
“We’re going to celebrate what we’ve done because it’s so special.”