Notre Dame football set for exciting Fiesta Bowl matchup with Oklahoma State
The Notre Dame football barely missed out on the College Football Playoff, but they have an exciting matchup with Oklahoma State on deck.
With Georgia losing to Alabama and both Cincinnati and Michigan winning during Championship Weekend, no one expected Notre Dame football to get bumped into the College Football Playoff. Still, finishing 5th can be difficult to stomach. A good consolation prize will be the Fiesta Bowl bid, where Notre Dame is set to play Oklahoma State.
The Cowboys are coming off what was a devastating loss in the Big 12 Championship Game, where Baylor kept them out of the endzone on a goal-line stand to end the game. Had they won, there was a good chance they could have made the top four in the Playoff rankings.
Notre Dame, without a conference championship game, didn’t have a chance to make one final statement. Instead, the Irish lost their head coach, kept him from poaching from the staff, and promoted Marcus Freeman to head coach.
Notre Dame last played in the Fiesta Bowl in the 2015-16 season, losing to Ohio State. All time, the Irish are only 1-4 in the Fiesta Bowl. That one win was a major win, though, beating West Virginia to cap off the 1988 National Championship season. As for Oklahoma State, the Cowboys are 2-0 in the Fiesta Bowl, with their most recent win coming in the 2011-12 Fiesta Bowl.
This will be the first-ever meeting between Notre Dame and Oklahoma State.
Notre Dame football misses out on the Playoff
While missing out on the Playoff is always going to be a disappointment, it’s fair to say Notre Dame and Irish fans knew that the team would need help to get in. They didn’t get that help, and the Fiesta Bowl is still a great opportunity for this team to make a statement. After all, Brian Kelly left this team because he didn’t think they were good enough to win in the postseason.
This is a chance to make a statement in how dominant they can be. It would also be Notre Dame’s first win in a major bowl game since the Cotton Bowl in 1994. That’s a major accomplishment.
In Marcus Freeman’s first game as a head coach at Notre Dame, this is a massive opportunity to do something his predecessor failed to do in more than a decade. On top of that as a coming-out party, this will give the Irish momentum going into next season.