Notre Dame’s message for 2026 is simple enough to fit on a whiteboard and sharp enough to hang over the entire season: leave no doubt.
That’s the phrase quarterback CJ Carr used this week while talking with Rich Eisen, and it sounds like it has become the shorthand for how the Irish are approaching the fall after last season’s disappointment. Notre Dame opened 2025 by losing its first two games, never fully recovered, and eventually missed the playoffs. Carr made clear that the team is treating that as a lesson, not a talking point to dwell on.
“ That was last year's team,” The Notre Dame star said. “And, you know, this year.
We have the phrase, 'leave no doubt.' And so we're going to try and come into the building every day and be the best version of ourselves, our 2026 Notre Dame football team.”
Carr said he doesn’t expect Marcus Freeman to spend much time revisiting the playoff miss from 2025. In his view, the coach wants the focus on what comes next, not what already happened. Still, Carr said the pain from last season is part of the fuel now.
“ We're going to use some of the pain that we had from last season and being left out and losing two rough games at the beginning of the year, tough ones to lose.”
“You know, we're going to use all those lessons that we have learned to propel us forward this next upcoming year. And we're really excited for it.
We've been working. We're in summer ball right now, just trying to get, you know, one percent better every day.
So we'll see. We'll see when that time comes.”
The slogan itself has been a recurring theme around Freeman this offseason, but Carr said it also fits the language coming from other members of the staff. He pointed specifically to strength coach Loren Landow, who brought a fighting background into the room and has used that to hammer home the same point.
“I think our strength coach, head strength coach, Coach Landow, was big into the fighting game early in his career. And sometimes he'll bring us in the huddle and talk about how the best fighters never left it to the judges.
And in a way, that's kind of what we did last year. We left it up to chance.
And so, yeah, I think 'Leave No Doubt' kind of encapsulates all that.”
For Notre Dame, the idea is bigger than a slogan. Carr said the team is trying to build the habit of showing up every day as the best version of itself, and the message from top to bottom is that the Irish intend to be ready. If there’s a stumble in 2026, it won’t be because they weren’t prepared for it.
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