Rose Bowl post-mortem: Is Notre Dame football closer to Alabama or Pitt?

How does Notre Dame football close the gap?

This comes down to recruiting better talent, scouting better under the radar talent, and developing talent better. For Notre Dame, there needs to be an emphasis on recruiting speed at the skill positions too. Of course, this is easier said than done.

Several factors, such as academics, campus life, and location tend to make it challenging to recruit at Notre Dame. After all, the benefits of the past, like always being on TV, are standard expectations in the modern-day.

One other former expectation of Notre Dame’s past was an ability to go and compete for a National Championship. However, there is still too big a gap for the Irish to even win a Playoff game. The elite talent consistently chooses Ohio State, Clemson, and Alabama, because that’s where they can go and win a National Championship with consistency.

It’s cyclical. You have to break that cycle in some way to either knock one of those teams from the elite ranks, or join them yourself. LSU did that as a one-year wonder.

A chance for more teams to make the Playoff might help redistribute talent, as more teams can make the Playoff and get that shot. This would benefit G5 teams, and a lot of P5 teams, who can’t quite get elite talent, but for Notre Dame who can make the Playoff, it won’t help them recruit.

Where they could benefit from a redistribution of talent is that those elite teams won’t have as much elite talent, limiting their depth. The future of NIL, name and image likeness, rights for athletes could also benefit in a redistribution of talent as well. However, until these elite teams recruit worse, or Notre Dame recruits better, there is no changing the reality that they’re too far away from their goals, even a decade into Brian Kelly’s tenure.