Notre Dame's Marcus Freeman defeating Georgia in Sugar Bowl would prove he's no Brian Kelly

Marcus Freeman looks good on Notre Dame. Beating Georgia would make him look so much better.

The Fighting Irish’s first College Football Playoff victory in program history affirmed Notre Dame doesn’t miss Brian Kelly.

That’s a delicious comeuppance for Irish fans who for the past three years harbored two favorite teams: Notre Dame, and whichever team played Kelly's LSU Tigers. Sometimes, it seemed as if the pecking order might be flipped.

Notre Dame fans lost any love for Kelly, its winningest coach, when he bolted from the Irish for greener pastures three years ago.

Although he’s now a pariah, Notre Dame needed Kelly 15 years ago, when it hired him to save it from the doldrums it had slid into under a carousel of mediocre predecessors.

Kelly restored Notre Dame to prominence, but he struggled in the biggest games. He never busted through a stubborn postseason ceiling.

Notre Dame needed him once, but it needs Freeman now. He's the guy for this moment, because Notre Dame’s next opponent, Georgia, is exactly the type of team to which Kelly repeatedly lost.

Sugar Bowl against Georgia is game Brian Kelly would lose

During his tenure at Notre Dame, Kelly lost to Georgia in 2017 regular season and again in 2019. He got smashed by Alabama in the 2013 Bowl Championship Series national title game. He won just once in four tries against Clemson’s Dabo Swinney. In five New Year’s Six or BCS games, Kelly lost every time.

When he left for LSU, the Tigers hooked a big-name coach rather than a big-game coach.

Three years into Notre Dame’s coaching change, we can say the Irish are winning their divorce with Kelly, who hasn’t qualified for the playoff at LSU. By smashing Indiana, Notre Dame proved its 11-1 record during the regular season was not a mirage, while Kelly prepared LSU for an also-ran bowl.

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Beating Georgia, though, would provide a much more resounding statement that Freeman’s Irish are unlike Kelly’s Irish, because, truthfully, puffed-up Indiana is the type of team Kelly could have handled at Notre Dame if the 12-team playoff had been a thing back then.

When Kelly left Notre Dame in favor of an SEC program he deemed a better perch from which to pursue a national championship, his exit caused us to wonder: Now what for the Irish?

A step back toward mediocrity? Or, had enough groundwork been laid for sustainable success?

Notre Dame promoted Freeman to replace a proven veteran in a hire that either set up Freeman, now 38, to be a wunderkind or prove himself an untested coach in over his head.

For a while, Freeman alternated between those roles. He’d lose to Marshall but beat Clemson. Beat Texas A&M, then lose to Northern Illinois.

Freeman fares pretty well against Top 25 opponents, but this Sugar Bowl isn't parallel to beating a ranked service academy team. A Georgia takedown would become the most impressive pelt to go on Notre Dame’s wall in many, many years and rank as the Irish’s best postseason victory since Lou Holtz won the Sugar Bowl and consecutive Cotton Bowls in the early 1990s.

Beating Georgia would make Marcus Freeman more peak Lou Holtz than Brian Kelly

Nobody would confuse Georgia with Kirby Smart's juggernauts that won consecutive national championships. Georgia's offense faces added uncertainty behind backup quarterback Gunner Stockton. He’ll make his first career start after spurring Georgia to a comeback victory in the SEC championship game, following Carson Beck’s elbow injury just before halftime.

The ‘G’ on the side of Georgia's helmet, though, and the SEC logo patch on the jersey signals this as the type of opponent Kelly couldn’t beat.

Freeman’s Irish are, in a word, sturdy, but Georgia is a caliber of opponent they haven’t faced this season.

“This is a really good, solid (team),” Smart said of Notre Dame. “Fundamentally sound, don't beat themselves, play good defense, great defense, and really physical on the lines of scrimmage, and they got a really athletic quarterback.”

That all sounds pretty good, but similar praise could have been issued about some of Kelly's best teams, until they faced an opponent like Georgia. Here’s Freeman’s chance to prove he’s different than Kelly, to show he’s ready to tame giants in addition to crushing Hoosiers.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer. Subscribe to read all of his columns.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Notre Dame, Marcus Freeman face Georgia with big stakes