Notre Dame baseball is headed for the College World Series - and it all just feels right

SOUTH BEND - Wide awake before 6 a.m. on Monday morning with the house still quiet and the day barely dawned, it all still didn’t seem real. 

Then again, it did. Everything. 

A Notre Dame baseball team that was swept this season by Duke, that lost a key Friday home game to Boston College, that was deemed not good enough to host one of the 16 NCAA postseason regionals, is headed to the College World Series as one of the final eight teams still standing this season.

Believe it. 

Why these guys? Why not these guys? If anyone has the mental makeup, the determination, to plow through seven games away from home in June and come out the other side with six wins, it’s this crew. 

It wasn’t even a week ago – Wednesday afternoon to be exact – as two charter buses idled outside Eck Stadium when third-year head coach/wizard Link Jarrett capped a quick media session. He talked confidently about his club, which also didn’t lack for confidence. Left fielder Ryan Cole made sure of that. They were headed back out on the road, a place they’d been often over the last month, following the same routine. Get home on a Monday, have just enough time to unpack, do laundry, catch their collective breath on a Tuesday, then leave again on a Wednesday. That last time, Notre Dame set out for Tennessee to play the nation’s No. 1 team, a seemingly unbeatable/untouchable team. 

One media member mentioned to Jarrett that it sure would be nice if they could do it all again the following week – gather in the Irish lounge, talk baseball, take the next postseason step. Really, though, would they? Doing that would mean beating Tennessee at Tennessee and earning the program’s first trip to Omaha since 2002. 

The Irish did that. All that. 

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Notre Dame didn’t win Sunday’s decisive super-regional game so much as it just took it. Wrestled it away from a team and a fan base that honestly, really didn’t deserve it. Not the way these Irish played. Notre Dame jumped all over Rocky Top and the “Classless vs. Convicts” T-shirt crowd with a convincing win, a win that told everyone in orange to cancel their baseball plans for the rest of the month. 

The Volunteers talked a good game. The Irish played one.

The weekend wasn't just about attitude. It was about effort. 

We saw Tennessee flex its collective muscle Saturday with home run after home run. It was as if the Volunteers were saying, here, take that. Notre Dame took it, but never flinched. Even then, even in a 12-4 loss, there seemed a calm about that Irish club. Jarrett admitted early Sunday evening that he remained positive. Deep in that third-base dugout, Jarrett thought to himself, yeah, we’re winning Sunday. We’re winning. 

They won. 

Notre Dame erased a 3-1 deficit late, a time when Tennessee slams shut any door of opportunity on any and all opponents. Forty-nine times this season when Tennessee took the lead into a seventh inning, it left with a win. It never lost. Think about that. 

Notre Dame sure didn’t. It made it 49-1. 

Jack Zyska’s two run home run – an opposite-field rocket – tied it at 3. When Jack Brannigan, the next hitter, stepped in and, in Jarrett’s words, “stepped on” a Chase Burns fastball and drove that out as well, it basically drove Notre Dame to Nebraska. 

Hundreds of miles away in Indiana, you could feel the momentum shift. Notre Dame wasn’t losing that one. Nope. Not happening. Everyone in orange in the Lindsey Nelson Stadium stands, everyone in orange in the home dugout, sat there stunned. Like, that didn’t just happen. That can’t happen. 

It happened. The guys from South Bend, a program that was given up for average or something well below it for so many seasons – decades, really made sure of it. 

When Sunday’s score went final, it sent certain shock through the college baseball world. Notre Dame did what? Really, though it shouldn’t have been a surprise. 

It wasn’t to the Irish. 

Since 1999, 80 percent of teams that win the first game of the best-of-three super regional advance on to the College World Series. Notre Dame had Tennessee right where it wanted it. Had it backed into a corner and the Volunteers never could scramble out. 

Where Sunday ranks in terms of biggest wins/days/moments in program history is hard to say. It’s easy to put it right at the top, mainly because it’s the most recent. Given everything Tennessee was this season – 37-3 at home, 31-2 overall against non-conference opponents – it’s certainly right there. 

As time has a tendency to do, we forget about what happened way back when. In 2002, Notre Dame earned its second trip to Omaha by beating a Florida State team – also playing a super regional on its home field – that came into that series winners of 25 straight games. 

Florida State looked just as unbeatable as Tennessee. Notre Dame won then. Notre Dame won now. 

Another busy baseball week awaits. That return charter flight home. Another out to Nebraska. Early Monday morning, earlier than this column was crafted, Notre Dame (40-15) learned of its opening-game opponent in Omaha. Come Friday (time TBD later Monday, but a 1 p.m. start would be sweet), it will be Texas (47-20), which worked through a lengthy weather delay (sound familiar?) to win a super regional at East Carolina in a game that ended just before. 2. 

A.M. 

Up steps yet another program – like Florida State in 2002, like Mississippi State last season, like Tennessee last weekend – with more history and tradition than the one from South Bend. The Longhorns may not have something the Irish have now in waves. Confidence. A belief that they belong.

The Irish packed for Statesboro with plans of winning. Then they did. They packed for Knoxville with plans for winning. Then they did. 

This week – and maybe deep into next – will be no different. Pack and plan accordingly. 

Almost done cranking out this column – sometimes, the words just won’t wait – and the sun’s about up over the eastern horizon. A new day, a new week, beckoned. 

And Notre Dame is still playing baseball. Seems about right. 

Hey, Omaha, here come the Irish. You ready?