Notre Dame enters Week 6 with everything lined up the way a favorite likes it: a 5-0 record, a home date with a struggling Stanford team, and a quarterback in CJ Carr who keeps stacking numbers while the Irish keep rolling.
Stanford, meanwhile, comes in at 2-3 and has taken some real hits against ACC competition. The Cardinal did open with a win over Hawaii, and they also beat Georgia Tech, but the rest of the resume has been ugly. They’ve dropped three of four against ACC opponents, and last week’s 57-3 loss to Wake Forest only sharpened the mismatch heading into Saturday.
That kind of gap is exactly why oddsmakers have made Stanford a huge road underdog.
Notre Dame hasn’t exactly been easing through games by accident, either. The Irish haven’t won any of their five games by fewer than 11 points, and they’ve already shown they can separate from weaker teams with blowout wins over Rice and Purdue by 38 points or more. Even after a less dominant showing against North Carolina in Week 5, they still sit at 3-2 against the spread.
Carr is still the name driving the whole thing. He opened the season as one of the Heisman favorites, and after a slower start he’s climbed to +750, tied for third in the odds.
Against North Carolina, he threw for 234 yards and four scores, giving him a 13-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio in 2026. He’s completed 71 percent of his passes for 1,197 yards, and Notre Dame’s manageable schedule should keep him in the Heisman mix for a while.
This matchup gives him another chance to pad the stat line. Stanford is 125th in the country in adjusted EPA/Play on defense and 118th in success rate, which is a dangerous place to be against an Irish offense that ranks in the top five nationally in EPA/Play. Notre Dame is No. 1 in net adjusted EPA/Play, third in offensive success rate and 13th in defensive success rate.
The Cardinal’s offense doesn’t offer much reason to expect a surprise. Stanford ranks 118th in net adjusted EPA/Play, 107th in offensive success rate and 118th in defensive success rate. Davis Warren has completed just 59.0 percent of his passes, and the team is averaging only 2.9 yards per carry.
That’s a rough combination against a Notre Dame defense that ranks sixth in EPA/Pass and 10th in rush success rate.
There is one wrinkle worth watching: Notre Dame has taken Carr out of both games it won by more than 30 points this season, so a backdoor cover is at least a possibility. But Stanford has shown little against quality defenses, scoring six points against Miami, seven against Duke and three against Wake Forest.
With No. 8 BYU waiting in Week 7, Notre Dame has every reason to keep this one clean and move to 6-0.
The Fighting Irish should win in a rout on Saturday.
In Other News...
Stanford Faces Its Biggest Early Test Yet At No. 3 Notre Dame
Stanford heads into its annual rivalry game with No. 3 Notre Dame carrying the kind of early-season pressure that can sharpen a team fast. It is the 40th meeting between the schools and the 25th time the Legends Trophy will be on the line, but this trip feels bigger than the usual calendar marker. The Cardinal are trying to stabilize an offense that has yet to find its footing, and the tone around the program has centered on improving execution and giving the staff something cleaner to build on.
Notre Dame brings the opposite energy into the matchup, unbeaten and backed by a defense that has given opponents little room to breathe. Quarterback C.J. Carr has also helped make the Irish look as complete as their ranking suggests, which leaves Stanford facing a demanding test in every phase. For the Cardinal, the challenge is not just keeping the game respectable, but finding enough answers to turn a tough road trip into a useful measuring stick. [Read more 🡒]