The 2020 season will always be looked at through the prism of the pandemic. There is no other way to view it, or anything of the last 14 months. In many respects, that tint makes Notre Dame’s Playoff run even more impressive.
To work through the first major in-season shutdown in college football, to lose starters only hours before games, to maintain some semblance of sanity from June into January without any typical mental relief — none of that came easily for the Irish. Of course, none of this came easily for any of us.
Looking at individual players, rather than the whole team, this spring’s progresses may illustrate some development that was lost amid last year’s canceled spring practices, truncated and interrupted summer work and stuttering preseason camp.