By John Brice
Special Contributor
It was one of those moments, the ones that linger, a time when a text message from a friend stays on-screen a bit longer.
Tugs a string within, doubt inevitable and unavoidable as Notre Dame – THE NOTRE DAME – opens its season with consecutive losses for the first time since 2011, when Tommy Rees was executing plays and not calling them.
Stretches a mini-losing streak to three games dating back to the Fiesta Bowl last New Year’s Day and represents the first three games of a new era.
Marcus Freeman remembers such a message; knows it was received after what only could have been one of three Notre Dame games this fall.
Had to be a loss; not any of the eight games through which the Fighting Irish have evolved, persevered and, quite regularly, been forced to hold things together like a wet paper towel.
“It was a sermon somebody sent me,” Freeman says. “It was after a loss. It kind of just hit me and I said, ‘OK, the pastor was talking about the bumpy road to better.’ And, really, what it was — was for us to look at ourselves as a program. I say, ‘OK, we’re on this bumpy road, but this bumpy road is life. The bumpy road to better is life.’
“And it’s also a reflection of this season. It’s also a reflection of a game.”
Renowned pastor T.D. Jakes first delivered the “Bumpy Road To Better” sermon inside his Dallas, Texas, church, where membership rolls swell beyond 30,000, in early-March of this year, and since it was posted March 10, 2022, on YouTube, it has been viewed more than 1.5 million times.
“I’m going to talk about the bumpy road to better,” Jakes tells his congregation. “A lot of people teach about better as if it were magic, as if it would happen simply or easily. Like you could come up for prayer and somebody could anoint you with oil or lands on you and convey their spirit upon you without going through the process they went through.
“In reality, it’s not that simple.”
Jakes, his Potter’s House messages stretching around the globe and carrying with them not an insignificant amount of notoriety, is ready when folks plea for his blessings.
“I want a double-portion of your spirit,” the pastor says he is asked. “Do you want a double-portion of my trouble? Because you can’t get a double-portion of my spirit until you get a double-portion of my trouble.”
Freeman likely delivered the “bumpy road” metaphor to his team in mid-September, after the loss…