Notre Dame finally gets a Top 10 test this weekend, and the setup is already giving critics an easy out.
BYU’s L.J. Martin will miss the game after suffering a lower-body injury in the Cougars’ 17-10 win over TCU last week, and head coach Kalani Sitake confirmed on Sunday that Martin won’t play against the Irish. He also sat out BYU’s 24-10 win over Iowa State.
That absence matters. FanDuel Sportsbook made Notre Dame a 10.5-point favorite, which is an unusual number when a team is facing a Top 10 opponent. Martin’s injury is a big reason the line looks that way, because BYU’s offense has already started to lean heavily on quarterback Bear Bachmeier.
Martin had been rolling to open the 2026 season, piling up 344 rushing yards and three touchdowns while averaging 7.9 yards per carry. That came after a 2025 season that earned him Big 12 Offensive MVP honors. Last year, he ran for more than 1,300 yards and 12 touchdowns and added 36 catches for 255 yards.
Without him, Bachmeier has been asked to do a lot. Against TCU, he threw for only 62 yards but rushed 15 times for 66 yards and two scores. He looked far sharper against Iowa State, completing 22 of 30 passes for 329 yards and two touchdowns while adding 109 yards on nine carries.
The challenge for Notre Dame is obvious enough: neither TCU nor Iowa State has a defense close to what the Irish bring to the table. If anyone can slow down BYU’s one-man attack, it should be Marcus Freeman’s team.
Still, the injury also hands the usual Notre Dame skeptics a convenient talking point. Even if the No.
2 Irish take care of business against a Top 10 opponent, some will be ready to wave off the result by pointing out that BYU was missing its best offensive player. That’s the kind of argument Notre Dame fans have heard before, and it tends to linger.
For now, the Irish probably won’t care much. But the part of the season when perception starts to matter is coming fast.
Last year, Notre Dame opened 0-2 against Miami and Texas A&M, then won 10 straight and looked headed for the College Football Playoff before the committee left them out. This season’s biggest measuring-stick game comes on November 7, when Miami comes to South Bend. Win that one, and the Irish are almost certainly in unless things go sideways late.
If Notre Dame beats everybody except Miami, it should still have a strong case. But the debate around the Irish would get louder, and now there’s a good chance one of the first objections will be that the BYU win didn’t mean as much because L.J. Martin wasn’t on the field.
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For a program that has stayed among the national powers by stacking talent well ahead of time, this is the sort of pickup that keeps the pipeline strong. It also comes at a busy stretch around campus, with the hockey team opening with a weekend sweep of Niagara and football turning its attention to BYU, where the line has shifted after an injury to the Cougars star running back. [Read more 🡒]