Special teams coach Marty Biagi’s perseverance is emblematic of this Fighting Irish team — they don’t quit.
NEW ORLEANS — The tears flowed. Marty Biagi couldn’t stop them. He tried, of course. At times, we all try to hold back our emotions but they usually get the best of us.
On Thursday night, as his Notre Dame Fighting Irish won a 12th straight game by beating Georgia to advance to the playoff semifinals, emotions got to Biagi.
And that’s perfectly fine and understandable considering the circumstances.
Biagi, Notre Dame’s special teams coordinator, has endured an inexplicable last 14 days. He became a father to a set of twins a day before the Irish’s first-round playoff win two weeks ago, lost his father the morning after that victory over Indiana, and then had a wife in the hospital until just two days ago.
Then came Thursday in the New Orleans Superdome, when Biagi’s unit accounted for three field goals, a touchdown and pulled off one of the biggest plays in the game — a fourth-quarter trickeration that duped the Georgia Bulldogs into a drive-extending penalty.
“It’s been a roller coaster,” he said through tears, pointing toward the dome’s roof and then gesturing to the legion of fans before him. “I know dad is up there watching down from heaven.”
If so, Stephen Biagi watched his son lead his alma mater — Stephen is a 1973 Notre Dame graduate — to its biggest victory in more than three decades.
This win cannot be overstated.
In a 23-10 knuckle fight of a game, Notre Dame, college football’s only remaining blue-blood independent and perhaps its most polarizing program, beat the SEC champion to win its first major bowl game in 31 years, advance to the Orange Bowl semifinal against coach James Franklin’s Penn State team next Thursday and assure that a Black head coach will compete in the national championship game.
In his third year leading the Irish, Marcus Freeman, as mild-mannered and humble as any in his profession, shoved aside the praise. “Your color shouldn’t matter. Your evidence of your work should,” he said, before later adding, “This isn’t about me. I want to make sure that’s clear.”
But shouldn’t it be? Freeman has managed to steer a Notre Dame team that lost to Northern Illinois in Week 2 to college football’s Final Four. Despite significant defensive injuries, the Irish’s defense — Freeman’s baby — suffocated the Bulldogs after doing the same to the Hoosiers.
And he delicately handled this week’s tragic events in New Orleans. In a somewhat unusual move on Wednesday — day before a playoff game — he permitted his players three hours to meet with their family members here in the city. In times of tragedy, Freeman said he wanted to bring comfort to his players and their parents.
But, alas, give him no credit, he claims.
Some didn’t listen, like Biagi who attributes his special teams to the freedom that Freeman gives him.
“We’ve got a head coach who is bought in to making the third phase very important,” he said. “Our staff and players are bought into special teams.”
It certainly looked like it.
Mitch Jeter made field goals of 44, 47 and 48 yards, Jayden Harrison returned a kickoff 98 yards to begin the second half and the Irish picked up a key third down after a bit of trickery.
Let’s talk about that play. Leading by 13 points with seven minutes left, the Irish faced a fourth-and-1 at their own 18-yard line. The punt team lined up. And then, suddenly, in a quick burst, all 11 players raced off the field to be replaced by the Notre Dame offense. As per substitution rules, Georgia was allowed to replace its punt coverage team with its defense, hurriedly exchanging most of their players in such a frantic effort that a couple of linemen fell into the neutral zone as quarterback Riley Leonard received the snap of the ball.
The offside penalty gave Notre Dame a first down to extend a drive that, in many ways, secured the victory. The Irish ran five more minutes off the clock.
“Been working on that s*** for weeks,” said Biagi with a laugh. “We had to really, really be attentive to detail. It was great execution. It takes so much practice.”
Afterward, Freeman brushed off any credit for the punt-swapping play. His quarterback, however, interrupted the coach’s answer, telling media members that it was Freeman’s idea to first insert the punt team and then the offense instead of the other way around.
“Great call,” Leonard said. “Great execution.”
During his postgame news conference, Georgia coach Kirby Smart suggested the play was illegal as it violated a rule prohibiting a team to substitute all 11 players when the “ball is in play.” However, replay showed that the long snapper never set over the ball to make it “in play.”
Either way, the play sent the Irish faithful roaring with delight. Soon, they celebrated amid falling blue confetti, sang as the band played its famous fight song and chanted the name of their QB.
Leonard passed for just 90 yards but ran for 80 of the most important yards of the game, at one point picking up a first down by leaping over a would-be tackler and somersaulting to the turf. Coaches insist that Leonard avoid such moves. He doesn’t listen.
“Everybody keeps telling me to stop doing that but it worked out today,” he said.
But for all of Leonard’s excellence on Thursday, Notre Dame’s defense and special teams took center stage.
Georgia’s last three drives ended on downs. The Irish forced four punts, recovered two fumbles and, at one point, scored 17 points in a span of 54 seconds, capped by Harrison’s second half-opening kickoff return.
It all left in tears Biagi, a 39-year-old former kicker and punter at Marshall who’s worked his way up through the ranks from his starting point in 2011 at tiny Arkansas Pine-Bluff.
He’s endured a lifetime of emotions and major life events in the last two weeks.
Before Notre Dame beat Indiana on Dec. 20, his wife, Rachael, gave birth to twins Brooke Renee and Stephen Jacob. After the game, at 4 a.m. on Dec. 21, he got the call that his father, Stephen, had lost his battle with a rare form of genetic lung cancer. And then, on Dec. 28, a day before the team was scheduled to leave for New Orleans, Rachael was readmitted with post-birth complications.
She spent about three days in the hospital and was released on New Year’s Eve. Marty is happy to report that mom and the babies are now doing well. They all watched from back home.
And dad? Well, he watched from up above.
The Biagis are a big Notre Dame family. Both of Marty’s parents attended the school and so did his brother. When he landed the job on Freeman’s staff, he remembers proudly calling his old man: “Your other son is going to Notre Dame,” he exclaimed to him, “as a coach!”
Stephen fell ill months ago and was in hospice, in and out of coherence in his final days. He made it just long enough to see the Irish win its first-ever playoff game. From the field in South Bend, Marty held the phone up high so his dad could hear the alma mater play to celebrate the victory.
“Got the call at 4 a.m. the next morning,” Biagi said, fighting back the emotions.
So many were left in tears after this one.
Like the thousands of fans who endured a hellish week — a terrorist attacked this city’s famous French Quarter — only to see it end with a historic victory for the ages. Or the millions of Irish fans scattered across the country that witnessed, for the first time since 1993, the team claim victory in a major postseason bowl (they’d lost 10 straight).
Irish eyes, they are certainly crying — and that includes the Biagis too.
