The popular narrative out of Notre Dame right now is that the Fighting Irish would not be playing for the national championship Monday night if Brian Kelly was still their coach.

They may be right.

It’s not that Marcus Freeman is a better coach than Kelly. He may be — the Irish sure seem to love him and rightfully so — but he hasn’t had enough time to prove it yet.

Kelly is at LSU but he will be the Irish’s all-time winningest coach for a while.

It’s not even because perhaps  Kelly had to leave South Bend to wake up the Irish echoes long enough for them to hear and heed his complaints about the school on the way out.

It’s a school that had always been somewhat aloof, bordering on snooty, about its recruiting and roster management.

For the longest time, the Irish wouldn’t even allow players to redshirt. Not even Rudy.

In Kelly’s tenure they frowned on the kind of riff-raff that might be available as a transfer to the exalted Golden Dome.

It would not have boded well for the school once the transfer portal came into fashion following Kelly’s departure.

To be honest, it took Kelly a while to warm up to it at LSU, but he’s come around and this year has the No. 1-ranked “portal class” the country.

Under Freeman, who played for Ohio State in LSU’s 2007 BCS national championship win over the Buckeyes, the Irish have changed their tune, too. Big play after big play in these three playoff game wins have been made by transfers from the portal, including, among others,  quarterback Riley Leonard and  linebacker RJ Oben.

That’s players who likely would have been turned away at the gates during Kelly’s tenure.

We’ll never know.

But Notre Dame is playing Ohio State for the national championship because of two somewhat fortunate and very timely game-changing sequences during their postseason playoff run.

The Irish beat Georgia in the quarterfinal round because they scored 17 points in a 54-second span to end the first half and start the second.

Thanks to a turnover, they got 10 points in the final 39 seconds of the first half on a field goal, followed quickly by a Georgia fumble that the Oben recovered for the Irish, who turned it into an instant 12-yard touchdown pass with a few seconds left.

Conveniently, the Irish received the second half kickoff — and promptly returned it 98 yards for a touchdown.

The following game against Penn State, Notre Dame was down 10-0 and was getting drummed late in the first half when the Irish finally put up a field goal.

Again, they got the second-half kickoff and marched 74 yards for a touchdown — 10-10, game on.

The Irish eventually won with a field goal with seven seconds remaining.

Neither probably would have happened if Kelly at been on the Notre Dame sideline.

If he had been, it’s likely that Notre Dame would have been kicking off to open the second halftime, negating the kind of double-dipping you can sometimes finagle with offensive possessions.

Other than defying a fashionable school tradition to way-too-often dress LSU like clowns for their chores, it’s been the biggest head-scratcher of the Kelly regime.

It’s infuriating.

To wit: Why, when LSU wins the pregame coin toss, does he most often choose to take the ball first?

LSU lost their last four coin tosses this season to finish 5-8 on their flips. On three of those wins Kelly chose to take the ball.

It’s infuriating.

The prudent move, of course, is to defer your choice to the second half— to receiver the second half kickoff.

It’s a no-brainer.

Most times it’s a small thing, usually not a big factor. But with the way coaches are always searching for the least bit of minutiae for any small edge, how could you pass up that one?

The football moons still have to line up and orbit just right. You still have to execute it. But if there’s any chance to get scores on consecutive possessions without your opponent getting a rebuttal, wouldn’t you take it?

Why do you think in the waning moments of the first half, particularly if a team is driving, the announcers always point out who gets the ball to start the second half?

The football orbits might be aligning, that’s why.

Of course, you still have to win the pregame toss to put the wheels in motion.

Admittedly, that’s still more of a coin flip.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics fo the American Press. You can email him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com