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Notre Dame Fighting Irish 2026 Season Preview

FBS Independents · Marcus Freeman, year 6 · 10-2 last season · No. 3 in our FBS ratings

Carr's Turn

With CJ Carr now the projected starter behind an offense that scored 42.0 points per game a year ago, the ninth-ranked talent roster in the country has no excuse for anything short of a return to the sport's top tier.

Carr's Supporting Cast

Can CJ Carr produce at a high level when only 49% of the offense around him returns? The line and skill spots are largely rebuilt, but Carr has already logged a full season as the starter, and with 69.5% of the defense back to keep games close, this offense should round into form as the season goes rather than stumble out of the gate.

Miami Looms Largest

The schedule sets up as a soft landing until the Miami visit, the one game on the slate that looks like a true toss-up and the clearest measuring stick for where Notre Dame actually stands. BYU on the road is the other real scare, a trip that has tripped up plenty of favorites, while SMU's visit rounds out the closest thing to a gauntlet outside those two. Everything else, from the neutral-site tests against Wisconsin and Navy to home dates with Michigan State and Boston College, sets up as the kind of games a team projected for an 11-1 season is supposed to win, meaning Miami and BYU carry the whole story of whether that projection holds.

Carr Sets the Ceiling

An 11-1 projection with a soft-touch No. 52 schedule and Marcus Freeman's program going 6-1 at home reads as the floor, not the upside case. The only path to something below that runs through Carr himself stalling behind a retooled offense, and nothing in his standing as the settled starter points that direction. Independent scheduling quirks aside, this is a team built to finish first of two in its own classification and bank the bowl bid the projection already promises.

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Freeman's Margins Lied

Notre Dame went 0-2 in games decided by one score, yet the model reads that as understating this team, not exposing it, since close-game results are the least reliable predictor. The bigger flag runs the other way: a plus-13 turnover margin and defense that gave up points too cheaply for its yardage allowed both look due for regression, meaning the ten-win season leaned on breaks that won't all repeat. Marcus Freeman still has a top-three power rating and a winning record working for him entering year six, but 2026 is about whether Notre Dame can win without the turnover luck that padded 2025.

Explosive by Design

Notre Dame's offense was a top-two national scoring machine in 2025, ranking 2nd in points per game and 2nd in yards per play, and none of that engineering room walks out the door. CJ Carr returns after throwing for 2,741 yards, 24 touchdowns and just 6 interceptions, giving Freeman's staff the rare luxury of building on 1.44 explosiveness per successful play rather than searching for it. The bigger swing factor is whether the defense, middling at 56th in passing yards allowed and 74th in run-stuff rate despite a strong +13 turnover margin, can tighten enough to match the offense's ceiling rather than lean on it.

CJ Carr's 24 touchdowns against just 6 interceptions anchored an offense that scored 42.0 points per game, and Notre Dame handed him the keys again rather than opening anything up. The bigger swing is what left with Kenny Minchey and Anthony Rezac out the door, replaced not by immediate competition but by a pair of blue-chip freshmen in Teddy Jarrard and Noah Grubbs sitting behind Carr and Blake Hebert. With that explosive passing attack (1.44 explosiveness, 3rd nationally) intact around him, Carr's ceiling is less about winning a job and more about how far he can push an offense that was already elite.

Notre Dame isn't replacing Jeremiyah Love's 1,372 yards and 18 scores with one back, it's replacing him with a committee and a couple of four-star freshmen. Aneyas Williams, who flashed for 224 yards and 5 touchdowns in a complementary role, now becomes the clear veteran of the room, with Nolan James Jr. behind him and Forney product Javian Osborne and Central's Jonaz Walton arriving as the two headline additions. The passing game and offensive line carried a 2nd-ranked scoring attack last season, and this ground game now has to prove it can hold up its end without either Love or Jadarian Price, who also took his 674 yards and 11 touchdowns elsewhere.

Jordan Faison's 49 catches and 640 yards return as the clear foundation, but Notre Dame has to replace Malachi Fields' 630 yards and Will Pauling's six touchdowns from a passing game that ranked just 37th nationally in yardage despite all that scoring. Ohio State transfers Mylan Graham and Quincy Porter arrive with real production already on tape, while blue-chip freshmen Kaydon Finley and Devin Fitzgerald give Freeman more raw talent at receiver than the room had a year ago. The explosiveness was there in 2025, so the swap of proven volume for new juice at receiver is the bet this offense is making for 2026.

Eli Raridon's 32 catches and 482 yards walk out the door, and no returning tight end comes close to replacing that workload, with Ty Washington's 5 catches the best mark on the roster. Notre Dame answers with pedigree instead of production, landing five-star Ian Premer and four-star Preston Fryzel to eventually restock the room, but neither has caught a college pass. Cooper Flanagan and the rest of the returning group carry zero stats into 2026, so this offense that ranked 2nd nationally in scoring will likely lean even harder on its receivers and backfield until someone at tight end proves he can be trusted with targets.

Notre Dame allowed just 12 sacks and cleared 7.45 yards per play behind this group in 2025, and the bulk of that production walks back in for 2026 even with Billy Schrauth and Aamil Wagner off to the NFL. Ashton Craig anchors the room as its most experienced hand, with Joe Otting, Sullivan Absher, Max Anderson, Matty Augustine and Will Black all back to keep the interior churn low. A four-star haul led by tackles Grayson McKeogh and Charlie Thom and interior additions Ben Nichols and Tyler Merrill gives Marcus Freeman depth to develop rather than starters to find, which should keep this line trending toward strength, not scramble.

Boubacar Traore's 6.5 sacks and 10 TFL made him the disruptive force on a front that helped Notre Dame hold opponents to 100 rushing yards a game, and he returns as the clear centerpiece. But the group that produced that run defense loses Joshua Burnham, Jared Dawson, Jordan Botelho and Junior Tuihalamaka in one offseason, so Freeman went to the portal for Francis Brewu (34 tackles, 6 TFL at Pittsburgh) and Tionne Gray from Oregon to plug immediate gaps up front. The bigger swing is the high school haul, five-star edge Rodney Dunham and four-star Ebenezer Ewetade arrive without a snap of college tape, meaning the pass rush that finished just 22nd in sacks nationally is banking on unproven talent to eventually pair with Traore rather than an established second option in 2026.

Every meaningful piece of this linebacker corps comes back, and that continuity is the whole story. Drayk Bowen (67 tackles, 4.5 TFL) and Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa (7.5 TFL, 3 sacks) anchor a group that also returns Jaiden Ausberry and Jaylen Sneed, with only fringe depth pieces like Preston Zinter and Bodie Kahoun gone. The losses are negligible, so four-star Weddington product Thomas Davis Jr. arrives as developmental depth rather than a needed fix, and the run defense that ranked 11th in yards allowed per game should stay the identity of this unit again in 2026.

Notre Dame returns its entire safety room in Adon Shuler, Brauntae Johnson and Luke Talich, plus corners Leonard Moore and Dallas Golden, so the 56th-ranked pass defense in yards allowed has no excuse for a repeat given the continuity on the back end. The real story is depth and ceiling additions: five-star signees Khary Adams and Joey O'Brien and four-star Ayden Pouncey join Jayden Sanders from Michigan and DJ McKinney from Colorado, giving Freeman a deeper, more talented room to work with than the one that finished 9th in yards per play allowed. Losing Jalen Stroman's 37 tackles stings, but with this much returning experience layered under elite incoming talent, the secondary should push from good to a true team strength.

Spencer Porath made 15 of 17 field goals with a 53-yard long last season and returns as the established placekicker, a rare luxury given how many programs are guessing at that spot in 2026. The bigger question is at punter, where James Rendell's 44.6-yard average departs and Erik Schmidt, who has no field-goal makes on his own ledger, is the returning option before incoming punter Jasper Scaife factors into the job. With snapper duties covered by holdovers Joseph Vinci and Andrew Kros, Notre Dame's special teams stability in 2026 rides on Porath's leg while the punting job gets sorted out.

Carr Loses His Weapons

CJ Carr returns off a 2741-yard, 24-touchdown season, but the entire cast he threw to and handed off to is gone: Jeremiyah Love (1372 yards, 18 TD), Jadarian Price, Malachi Fields, Eli Raridon and Will Pauling all departed. Ohio State transfers Mylan Graham and Quincy Porter arrive to rebuild the receiving corps, while the heavier investment went to the defensive line, where Francis Brewu (34 tackles, 6 TFL) and Keon Keeley (13 tackles, 3 sacks) join a class ranked 5th nationally. Notre Dame's identity in 2026 runs through Carr's arm carrying a retooled skill group, not the ground game that defined last year's 10-2 run.

Winning Ugly, Betting Even

Notre Dame went 10-2 straight up but broke exactly even against the spread at 6-6, the kind of gap that shows up when a team wins games it was supposed to win by less than expected. Marcus Freeman's group actually cost bettors money against ranked competition, covering just once in four tries, while its home-favorite record of 4-3 against the spread shows a team that protects its record more than it protects a number. That split, reliable straight up against the projections, shaky against the number itself, is the profile of a team the market has started overpricing.