Notre Dame didn't accomplish its biggest team goal of 2024, but did take huge steps in moving the program forward despite a national championship game loss.

Will Howard, Jim Knowles and Al Golden are just some of the ties the College Football Playoff National Championship has to Philadelphia.

But evolution is also a choice. The dinosaurs didn't have to walk into the tar pits. And college football programs -- even old-timers such as Ohio State and Notre Dame -- don't have to walk into the quicksand of mediocrity, led there by the blinders of obligation to keep on keeping on the same way that Knute Rockne and Woody Hayes did.