Notre Dame leaned into the moment with a new hype video ahead of Saturday night’s showdown with Miami, and the school made sure the message was clear: this one carries the weight of history.
The No. 4 Fighting Irish will host top-ranked Miami at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday evening, with the College Football Playoff push hanging in the balance.
To build the buzz, Notre Dame’s weekly video went heavy on nostalgia, opening with the late Lou Holtz and his familiar line: “You gotta believe. This school was founded on faith and on belief.”
From there, the tone shifts to actor and comedian Jason Sudeikis, who is set to be the guest picker on College GameDay Saturday morning. He frames the matchup as something bigger than just another regular-season game.
“History is a funny thing,” Sudeikis said. “Years go by, names change, generations come and go.
But history has a way of repeating itself. These teams, these stakes, on the biggest stage...
Notre Dame and Miami: College Football’s biggest names, meeting with everything on the line. Maybe that’s why this all feels so familiar.
We’ve seen it before.”
That leads into one of the most famous clips in Notre Dame’s modern football history: the Irish’s 31-30 upset of No. 1 Miami in 1988. The video pairs the old footage with another Holtz quote, “If you believe it, you’ll feel it,” before Sudeikis spells out what that game meant.
“1988...that is history,” Sudeikis said. “It leaves a blueprint.
It shows what it took. It reminds us what’s at stake, but we’re not here to repeat history.
We’re here to make it.”
The video also includes coach Marcus Freeman rallying his team this season. “Do it for somebody else. Do it for these guys in this room,” Freeman said.
It closes with Sudeikis pointing toward the possibility of Notre Dame doing it again 38 years later.
“History doesn’t decide what happens next. That decision belongs to us,” Sudiekis said.
Notre Dame enters the game at 7-1, while Miami is 8-0. Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. Saturday on NBC.
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