JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Notre Dame won an epic Gator Bowl on Friday, outlasting No. 20 South Carolina in front of a packed crowd at TIAA Bank Field.

In a rollicking, back-and-forth affair that featured 4 ties and multiple lead changes, it ultimately was Notre Dame’s ability to impose its will on both lines of scrimmage that won the day. The 19th-ranked Fighting Irish pounded South Carolina’s defensive front for 264 yards rushing and 5.7 yards per carry, establishing and sticking to the run throughout the game. Defensively, Notre Dame bullied South Carolina up front, pressuring quarterback Spencer Rattler 15 times and producing 3 sacks, despite playing without All-American defensive end Isaiah Foskey, who opted out of the game.

The Gamecocks kept it close, thanks largely to 2 interception returns for touchdowns, including a 100-yarder by O’Donnell Fortune late in the 4th quarter as Notre Dame pushed for a clinching 2-touchdown lead. The South Carolina defense didn’t stop Notre Dame much Friday, but as they were all season, the Gamecocks were opportunistic, producing 3 turnovers and turning each into points.

All 3 turnovers came on Tyler Buchner mistakes, as the Fighting Irish quarterback showed rust in his 1st start since an injury late in the Marshall game ended his regular season during September. But Buchner rallied from the 4th-quarter pick by orchestrating a 5-minute, 80-yard scoring drive to claim the win. Buchner, who accounted for 335 yards passing and rushing, capped the drive with a 16-yard touchdown pass to tight end Mitchell Evans.

Buchner, who returned to his starting role after 3 months, along with Evans, who started his 1st collegiate game thanks to All-American Michael Mayer electing to opt out of the Gator Bowl and prepare for the NFL Draft, were just 2 of the Irish stars Friday who flexed their muscle ahead of a spring that will see Notre Dame return at least 14 starters and a host of highly recruited talent, along with a top-10 recruiting class, ahead of the 2023 season.

On offense, a healthy Buchner and a dominant run game, led by the bruising Audric Estime (93 yards) and surprisingly productive Logan Diggs (89 yards), helped Notre Dame gain a school bowl-record 558 yards Friday. That’s the type of production the Fighting Irish lacked most the season with portal-bound Drew Pyne under center, and the fact Notre Dame did against a quality SEC defense should answer any questions lingering about coordinator Tommy Rees, who remains among the sharper young offensive minds in college football.

Defensively, Notre Dame did enough to win. The Fighting Irish pressured Rattler, slowed the South Carolina run game, and were good enough in coverage to hold a hot Gamecocks offense to 24 points. Freshman All-American Benjamin Morrison was brilliant again, holding All-SEC wide receiver Antwane Wells to just 2 catches on 7 one-on-one targets, adding a pass deflection in the process. Notre Dame will need to rebuild up front, but it recruited well on the defensive line and if it successfully adds a safety in the portal, the back end of the defense has a chance to be spectacular next autumn.

Best of all? Notre Dame added yet another quality win to Marcus Freeman’s ledger in Year 1. In beating South Carolina, the Fighting Irish toppled an SEC team as a hot as any team in the country. The Gamecocks arrived in Jacksonville confident, with wins against then-No. 5 Tennessee and then-No. 7 Clemson to close the regular season. They left with a loss to a Fighting Irish squad that won 5 of its final 6, with the lone loss coming at a top-10 Southern California team. Notre Dame defeated 4 ranked opponents as well, the most for any 1st-year Notre Dame head coach since Ara Parseghian in 1964. That’s heady stuff, and it’s part of why the win helps cement Year 1 of the Freeman era as a successful one in South Bend, Ind.

Year 2 expectations will be greater, of course. That’s part of life as the football coach at Notre Dame. Questions again will arise about Notre Dame’s ceiling, especially if a Sept. 23 date with Ohio State at Notre Dame Stadium goes south.

But any lingering doubts about Freeman should be put to bed. The Fighting Irish team that dominated both lines of scrimmage against a physical South Carolina team isn’t the same team that lost to a bad Stanford team at home during October. It is a far better squad, and the future is even brighter, given the starters slated to return and the influx of talent on the way to campus. Freeman’s also showing he can close out big games, a problem that reared its head during last season’s Fiesta Bowl collapse against Oklahoma State and reemerged early this autumn when Notre Dame crumbled late against Marshall and again in the Stanford game.

The Fighting Irish who left Jacksonville winners Friday night? They showed no quit and no quarter, especially on South Carolina’s final drive, when they pursued and chased Spencer Rattler on every play, forcing a vital intentional-grounding penalty on 2nd-and-long that all but sealed the win.

When Freeman took the job, he brought swagger and youthful confidence to the sideline, but he also promised “Notre Dame wouldn’t be outworked, or bullied, or the least physical team on any given Saturday.”

Early in the season, that piece of Freeman’s cultural build looked lacking. As Friday afternoon in Jacksonville turned to evening, Freeman looked like a man of his word. At a minimum, he looked like a man ready to lead an even better team during 2023. Freeman also looked like a winner, soaked in Gatorade and grinning from ear-to-ear, rewarded for a year when his football team faced immense adversity and never gave up. That’s a trademark of tough programs, and Freeman seems to be building one in South Bend. Friday night’s Gator Bowl win and celebration? That was the just the beginning of the smiles that toughness ultimately will bring to Notre Dame.