Notre Dame Football: The first two games of 2019 will tell fans all they need to know

Notre Dame football has been rebuilding since an embarrassing 4-8 season in 2016. The first two weeks will tell if the Irish have taken the next step.

After an abysmal 4-8 season, the Notre Dame football program was, in some ways, entrenched in a rebuild. Head Coach Brian Kelly re-vamped his coaching staff with some of the best assistant coaches in the country and began the efforts to bring Notre Dame back to where it was following the 2011-2012 season when they competed for a National Championship.

Today, the Irish are back to where they were following that blowout loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide: Close, but not quite good enough.

Certainly, the Irish have exceeded expectations, if your expectations for them were relatively low following a 4-8 season. But now, the high expectations are back. There are no excuses for the Irish to regress.

All signs point to the program continuing to prove in the right direction, but the question remains: Is this the Notre Dame team that takes relatively high expectations and exceeds them?

The Irish open the season with games against Louisville and New Mexico before traveling to play Georgia on September 21st. And those games will begin to tell fans whether or not this version of Notre Dame football is truly different.

The Irish struggled early last year to beat lesser teams such as Ball State and Vanderbilt. It’s fair to suggest, however, that had Ian Book entered the season as Notre Dame’s starting quarterback, the Irish would have had less trouble in those games.

But the Irish don’t have the luxury of claiming ignorance in 2019. The quarterback is a known commodity. With the exception of the linebacking corps, the Irish coaching staff generally knows who will be getting the snaps next season. The main questions about personnel revolve around depth.

Weeks one and two for Notre Dame should result in nothing short of domination. There should be no more of this “barely getting by” stuff to start the season. If the Irish dominate like they should, it’s safe to assume they’ve arrived.