Notre Dame enters this season with the kind of buzz that can swallow a program whole. The Irish are being picked by plenty of people to win the national title, and CJ Carr is the preseason favorite for the Heisman Trophy. After last year’s College Football Playoff snub, the message around South Bend is simple: don’t leave the committee any room to argue.
That’s the goal, anyway. Notre Dame wants to be so clearly one of the country’s best teams that there’s no debate about its place in the playoff picture.
And on paper, the setup is there. The roster is packed with future NFL talent on both sides, with Carr leading the offense and cornerback Leonard Moore standing out as what might be the nation’s top defender.
The schedule helps too. The three biggest tests are clustered in the second half of the year - BYU, Miami and SMU - and the latter two are at home. In fact, Notre Dame could reasonably be favored in every regular-season game it plays.
That kind of path changes the math. If the Irish handle the games they’re supposed to win, everything may come down to a few heavyweight matchups that will decide whether this team’s ceiling really is a national championship. Notre Dame hasn’t won one since 1988.
Coach Marcus Freeman has tried to keep the conversation from drifting too far into September-to-December fantasy. Earlier this summer on the Triple Option podcast, he made it clear that the work has to come before the talk.
“You can talk about being a thing, or you can work to try to be that thing,” coach Marcus Freeman said on the Triple Option podcast earlier this summer. “And that’s what we have to do.”
Freeman said he doesn’t want championship chatter to drown out the day-to-day grind that actually wins games.
“It’s not daydreaming about these lofty expectations. It’s taking advantage of what you have, and that’s right today,” Freeman said. “That’s the work that must be put in - the intentional work.”
He also hasn’t shown much interest in turning last season’s CFP disappointment into a rallying cry. When asked about the idea of a revenge tour or using the snub as fuel, Freeman and his staff have mostly brushed it aside.
“Stop worrying about the Playoff,” Freeman said last month. “Stop talking about it.”
So the focus shifts to the opener against Wisconsin at Lambeau Field, a Sunday night NBC game that brings its own pressure. Notre Dame will have to deal with the Badgers’ new quarterback, Colton Joseph, who arrived from Old Dominion, and a Wisconsin team whose head coach is firmly on the hot seat and could use a huge upset.
There are other moving parts, too. Notre Dame has to replace two running backs taken in the first round of April’s NFL draft, and there will be more on Carr’s shoulders in his second season as the full-time starter. The receiving corps will need to answer as well.
Even with the College Football Playoff changing its policy so Notre Dame would be guaranteed a spot if it finishes in the top 12 of the final rankings, there’s still not much margin for error. With this kind of talent and a schedule that doesn’t offer many chances for signature wins, the Irish may not get the luxury of a messy résumé.
If they really want to leave no doubt, there’s only one way to do it: go unbeaten.
Freeman, of course, would rather keep the conversation smaller than that. One game at a time.
One day at a time. Stack the wins and see where it takes them in December.
For Notre Dame, that’s the only path that matters.
In Other News...
CJ Carr Just Raised The Stakes For Notre Dames Receiver Room
Notre Dames passing game has spent plenty of time under the microscope, but CJ Carrs recent comments offered a useful reminder that the quarterback room is not looking at the wide receiver group with caution. Carr pointed to Mylan Graham, Micah Gilbert, Bubba Frazier and Elijah Burress as players who have earned trust through their work and their grasp of the offense, which matters for a unit trying to become more than just a supporting cast.
For the Irish, receiver play is going to be a real measuring stick this season, especially with the offense carrying championship-level expectations. Carrs confidence does not settle anything on its own, but it does sharpen the stakes for a group that has to translate offseason promise into production when the games start to matter. [Read more 🡒]
Notre Dame Heads Into Wisconsin With One O-Line Question Unsettled
Notre Dame is still sorting out one of the quieter but more important pieces of its Week 1 plan, with the starting right guard spot for Wisconsin not yet settled. Offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock said Sullivan Absher and Styles Prescod have both competed well through camp, and Prescod has taken the majority of the reps in game preparation as the Irish continue building toward Saturdays opener.
For a line that will feature some new faces and position changes, the timing of the decision matters as much as the choice itself. Denbrock suggested the group may need a little time to fully come together, while quarterback CJ Carr has sounded confident in what the unit can do. Still, with Wisconsin up first, Notre Dame enters the game carrying at least one question that wont be answered until the lineup is official. [Read more 🡒]
Notre Dame Defense Faces An Early Test Wisconsin Could Exploit
Notre Dame will get an early read on just how much its defense has to grow in the 2026 season opener, when Wisconsin arrives with an offense that figures to look very different from the one the Irish studied a year ago. The Badgers are building around transfer quarterback Colton Joseph, whose presence gives them a more dynamic threat and adds a layer of uncertainty to a matchup that already figures to demand discipline from every level of the defense.
For Notre Dame, the challenge is straightforward in theory and tougher in practice: make Wisconsin prove it can live in long-yardage situations, slow the run game and force Joseph to work from inside the pocket. The Irish know they will have to be ready for new wrinkles right away, because if the Badgers can get their quarterback moving and their offense on schedule, it could turn into an uncomfortable opening test in South Bend. [Read more 🡒]