If there is 1 factual takewaway from Marcus Freeman’s 1st season opener as Notre Dame’s head coach, it is this: For most of the evening Saturday in front of announced crowd of 106,594 at Ohio Stadium, Notre Dame was every bit the equal of No. 2 Ohio State.

How you frame or spin that fact, given Ohio State won the game 21-10, is left to the eye of the beholder.

Let’s begin with the “Notre Dame is not a place for moral victories” lens.

Viewed in that light, Saturday night’s 45 minutes of tough and 15 minutes of not quite good enough was more of the same for the Fighting Irish. Former coach Brian Kelly established that this program could, despite all the changes in the sport, win at a level to return to the national prominence the program enjoyed for the sport’s first century. Kelly, who won 54 games during the last 5 seasons, only outpaced by Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma, and you guessed it, Ohio State during that span, already had shown Notre Dame fans, and a cynical national media, that the Fighting Irish could stay close to a national championship-caliber opponent.

In a world where Notre Dame can’t claim moral victories, nothing the Fighting Irish did Saturday night at “The Shoe” would be new and most important, the result would be the same. A Notre Dame loss to a national power with national championship contender bona fides.

Freeman appeared to view the defeat through this lens, at least in the game’s immediate aftermath, with the embers of the Fighting Irish’s defeat still slowly burning.

“We don’t do moral victories” Freeman said after the game. “We weren’t going to outscore them. We were going to have a plan to try to control the ball, run the ball, keep the clock running and limit their offensive possessions. We executed until we fell behind and had to get into the passing game. And then we go 3-and-out and we just didn’t finish the way we wanted to.”

Grinding out a low-scoring, ball-control win at Ohio State wasn’t the plan some might have gone with, considering the Buckeyes came into the game returning 3 stars from an offense that finished 2021 ranked 1st in SP+ offensive efficiency and total offense. Stopping Ohio State for 3 quarters, let alone 4, seemed unlikely. The better tact seemed to be for Notre Dame to be aggressive on offense, take chances, and see if it could build, and then hold, a lead.

That wasn’t Freeman’s plan, though, and perhaps that’s because he knew something none of the media or fans, at least the ones without shamrock-tints to their glasses, didn’t.

This Notre Dame defense is nasty.

It’s the excellence of Notre Dame’s defensive unit that shapes the 2nd lens in which to view Saturday night’s defeat. Sure, the Fighting Irish lost another high-profile game to an elite opponent. But when is the last time you saw a Notre Dame defense look this salty against a star-studded offense? If you are thinking back to the Manti Te’o days and the 2012 Fighting Irish, that’s probably fair, though even that group was overwhelmed by AJ McCarron, Eddie Lacy and Amari Cooper of Alabama. This Ohio State team, playing with its own 3-headed trip of CJ Stroud, TreVeyon Henderson and Jaxon Smith-Njigba (who left early with an injury), sputtered most the night. Holding an offense that averaged 27 points in the 1st half in 2021 to 7 at halftime? That’s big-time stuff. Holding an opponent whose average margin of victory during 2021 was 29 points to 21 in an entire football game? That’s an impressive building block. An Ohio State team that ranked 3rd in explosive plays generated in 2021 managed only 3 plays the entire game that gained more than 20 yards, and while 2 came for touchdowns, Notre Dame had a chance to win the game during the 4th quarter because the Fighting Irish made Stroud and Ohio State drive the length of the field for 2 of their 3 touchdowns.

What’s more, Notre Dame received outstanding performances from the players it expected to receive outstanding performances from, like Jack Kiser, who steadied the defense with 6 tackles, or defensive end Isaiah Foskey, who fought off double teams all night to generate 3 pressures and held the edge well to help limit Ohio State’s run game to a pedestrian 4.9 yards a carry. But the Fighting Irish also received surprising performances from defenders no one was certain about entering the game. Freshman corner Benjamin Morrison was magnificent, breaking up a pass and bottling up Marvin Harrison Jr. in multiple 1-on-1 situations all night. Key depth pieces that are ahead of development schedule? That’s how you build champions, and Notre Dame showed it was doing that Saturday night.

Of course, when you play as well as the Fighting Irish did defensively, you’d hope to lead by more than 3 points at halftime. Coordinator Tommy Rees’ offense, however, appears to be a work-in-progress. Was it easy for Tyler Buchner to make his initial start at Ohio State? No, it wasn’t. Easy, though, is a word not associated with deciding to play quarterback at Notre Dame. Buchner wasn’t poor — he protected the football and extended plays with his legs — but he wasn’t good enough to win, either, which he’ll need to be in the future.

He’ll also need more help from what surrounds him. The Fighting Irish run game, expected to be a team strength, was toothless against Ohio State’s front 7, who bullied Notre Dame at the point of attack all night and held the Fighting Irish to 2.5 yards per rush and 76 yards total on the ground. The ground issues were compounded by an aerial attack that couldn’t generate a consistent vertical threat, and too often seemed to need a spectacular catch like one made by Matt Salerno just to create explosives.

By the time Notre Dame surrendered the lead with 17 seconds left in the 3rd quarter, Ohio State had solved almost every riddle Rees’ offense presented. A long pass to Braden Lenzy gave Notre Dame the ball in Ohio State territory and hope, but Buchner and the Fighting Irish would gain only 12 yards after that play, finishing off any hopes of a glorious rally.

What lens you view the game through likely dictates how much you think the offense is a prohibitive problem for Notre Dame’s 2022 goals or how much it is simply a sign of where the program needs to go to get stronger as Freeman builds on Kelly’s sturdy foundation for winning.

For now, Marcus Freeman is 0-2 as a head coach, losing close games that Notre Dame spent the bulk of playing ahead.

To win big games like those in the future, Notre Dame will have to finish.

They’ll also have to build a complete football team, with playmakers like TreVeyon Henderson and CJ Stroud on offense and one that can force 10 stops on 13 third-down conversion attempts when the offense is struggling to find a rhythm.

There’s no shame in losing a tough, close game to a more balanced, more complete, more talented football team. That’s what Notre Dame did Saturday night.

It’s what you do to become the more balanced, more complete, more talented football team that is the task ahead of Marcus Freeman.