Notre Dame football's 2017 turnaround could lead to bigger things in 2018

ORLANDO, Fla. – Brian Kelly has been pounding away on this for weeks now.

The most important thing for Notre Dame in Monday’s Citrus Bowl against LSU was get that elusive 10th win.

With their 21-17 victory over the Tigers, the Fighting Irish finally got it — one year after going 4-8.

The win also signifies the first time since 1994 that Notre Dame has won on New Year’s Day.

Now, with that accomplished, what does success look like heading into 2018?

“Every year our mission is to play for a national championship, but we've built this to continue that process and work towards being one of those four teams that are part of the playoffs,” Kelly said. “But as I was reminded (Sunday), we hadn't won a New Year's game in like 752 years, so we've done that.

"We won a close game, so we've done that. So there's strides that you make as you're building yourself toward being a playoff team, and today was a nice stride toward that.”

There was a point in time during the regular season where that goal seemed within reach. Heading into November, Notre Dame was ranked in the top four by the College Football Playoff selection committee. But following a brutal road romp to Miami and another loss two weeks later to Stanford, Notre Dame was quickly out of the conversation. It still landed in a New Year’s Day bowl game against a top-15 opponent from the SEC though.

And the game came down to the final play. Notre Dame won on its final possession when backup quarterback Ian Book — who replaced first-year starter Brandon Wimbush in the second quarter — found Miles Boykin for a 55-yard touchdown bomb. Boykin, who hadn’t gotten much playing time during the regular season but led his team with 102 receiving yards on Monday, made a one-handed grab to clinch the win.

It was not a moment Irish players had a chance to be part of a year ago.

“We were in a bad spot last year,” said senior left tackle Mike McGlinchey, who played his final game for the Irish on Monday. “We all knew it. We decided that after the last game last year that wasn’t going to happen again. It’s not what Notre Dame deserves, it’s not what our coaching staff deserves, it’s not what our players deserve. We made a decision when we came back last January to make a change.

“I couldn’t be prouder of the way our guys took that challenge and our senior class has been so great. We had such great leadership. I think we did a pretty good job laying the groundwork and I think the sky is the limit and I’m excited to see where it goes.”

When Notre Dame’s season ended last year in a dreary Los Angeles Coliseum, Kelly’s job status was under heavy national scrutiny and fans were unveiling ads blasting the coach and athletic director Jack Swarbrick in the local newspaper for an unacceptable year.

Following one-on-one interviews with all 93 of his players and a brainstorming session with Swarbrick, Kelly gave his program a facelift. He made significant changes to himself and accepted failure, overhauled his staff and hired new offensive, defensive and special teams coordinators — plus a new strength and conditioning coach. And he shook up the culture — no one would earn playing time purely based on talent. They had to show necessary traits that Kelly laid out and repeated over the last 12 months.

After all that, the Irish successfully completed the turnaround from the abominable 2016 season.

McGlinchey is a projected first-round NFL draft pick, but he could have left for the league last year. He came back for his fifth year to work on pass protection and become more dominant as a run blocker, but he also couldn’t leave Notre Dame after a four-win season.

He won’t be here to physically see things through, but has an idea of what success will look like for this program moving forward.

“I think it’s just a building block,” McGlinchey said. “It went from more of a year to see the tangible results to, we really transformed this program. We had four wins a year ago and to go back from four wins and turn it into not only 10 wins, but we beat some really good football teams this year.

“Obviously want to finish a little stronger down the stretch (in November), but I couldn’t be prouder of our guys.”

Follow IndyStar Notre Dame Insider Laken Litman on Twitter and Instagram at @lakenlitman.

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