Notre Dame Fighting Irish: Keys to the 2026 Season
By Stiofán Mac Fhilib
It’s been nine months since Notre Dame made the long trek to Stanford for their final regular-season game and left with a facile 49-20 victory, their 2025 playoff hopes and dreams still in front of them. A Mississippi amount of water, however, has passed under the bridge since then.
The team that Vegas reckoned were joint third favourites to win it all the night before the selection committee’s final rankings ended up spending December and January at home, courtesy ultimately of the sweetheart deal the playoffs have for conference teams. Of the five highest-ranked conference champions, two were outside the top 12, leaving the Irish on the outside looking in.
In the moment, the players decided to eschew a bowl game with BYU, though the shock and anger would eventually transform into a focus in 2026 to ‘Leave no doubt!’ The extended break also allowed Marcus Freeman to take a deep dive into his potential future as an NFL head coach. Several attractive openings became available, but Irish fans were delighted and relieved in equal measure when he ultimately declined any interviews.
After four full seasons on the sidelines and on the recruiting trail, Freeman enters the 2026 season with the greatest weight of realistic expectations since the late Lou Holtz in 1993. Returning most of your defensive starters along with a returning QB who is among the Heisman favourites will tend to do that.
In a year where there appears to be no one standout team, and any one of perhaps six or seven schools can harbour realistic national championship hopes, the Irish will begin ranked #4 in the AP poll. Their ability to rise to the lofty expectations will depend on how they perform in a few key areas.
He doesn’t have to be Ron Pawlus…
If you meet him in his shirt and tie today, you might think Ron Pawlus cuts an impressive figure as Deputy Athletic Director of Football at the University of Notre Dame. Fans of a certain vintage, however, will know him better as the former Irish Quarterback in the mid-1990s. And they will recall how his ND career will always be inextricably linked to the great college football historian and commentator, Beano Cook.
Upon Pawlus’s commitment to the Irish in 1992, Cook famously opined that he would win the Heisman Trophy at least twice (and go on to become the greatest QB in Notre Dame’s long and storied history). Spoiler alert: he did neither. In fact, ND has not had a Heisman winner since, with Manti Te’o coming closest as runner-up in 2012.
Which brings us neatly up to 2026 and the hype around one of the pre-season Heisman favourites, CJ Carr. The redshirt sophomore has two years of eligibility remaining, but if he truly does have a Heisman-worthy year en route to victory in Las Vegas next January, then he’ll surely head for the NFL with his stock sky-high, rather than return to try to ‘do a Beano’. And after 38 years without a national championship, pretty much every Irish fan could happily live with that outcome!
Carr completed 67% of his 293 pass attempts for 2,741 yards and a 24-6 TD-INT ratio last season. He has yet to throw a pass in a playoff game, though, and his biggest struggles came against the tougher defences on the Irish schedule. The two harder encounters, however, were his first two ever starts, and in 2026 he should benefit from facing his biggest regular-season tests in the second half of the schedule.
He should have the luxury of playing behind one of the most talented offensive lines in college football. There is still some uncertainty around how soon Ashton Craig will return to the Center spot after injury, but Joe Otting has proved a very capable deputy. Will Black is a redshirt sophomore at LT but brings five-star talent to the position. Don’t be surprised if LG Antonie Knapp, after two years at LT, ends up an All-American moving inside. And Guerby Lambert at RT should help Carr sleep very soundly indeed at night.
Notre Dame’s national championship hopes will require an upgrade in WR production, and between the nationally underrated Jordan Faison, a Jaden Greathouse who has fully recovered from injury, and a pair of transfers from the Ohio State NFL WR production line in Mylan Graham and Quincy Porter, they appear to at least be in position to deliver.
When you lose your top two RBs to the NFL draft, and even the backup goes in the first round, it’s not unreasonable to expect a drop-off and perhaps also an increased emphasis on the passing attack. Allow me then to introduce you to Mr Aneyas Williams, Esq. The 5’10” 210 lbs Junior has bided his time, taken his snaps where and when they came, and quietly impressed every time he took the field, both as a runner and a pass-catcher.
‘He’s not Jeremiyah Love’ is no insult when you’re being compared to possibly the greatest RB in Irish history. But he IS Aneyas Williams, and by next January the college football world will be like the bar in Cheers; everybody will know his name.
Just Keep Doing What You’re Doing
For all the not unjustified anger and bewilderment around the playoff committee’s volte-face last December, there’s a reason Marcus Freeman is drilling the 2026 mantra of ‘Leave no doubt!’ Because last year they DID leave doubt, most notably by losing at home to Texas A&M despite scoring 40 points.
Between that ludicrous display and the embarrassing first half against Purdue a week later, whatever new DC Chris Ash was doing, it wasn’t working. By all accounts, there was something of a ‘Come To Jesus’ moment between the defensive staff and their boss, and whatever was said, the results from there on out were exceptional.
And the good news on that side of the ball is that almost all the key starters return, including the best defensive player in college football, CB Leonard Moore. All three levels have players with realistic All-American ambitions, from DEs Boubacar Traore and Bryce Young, to LB Kyngstonn Villiamu-Asa and Safeties Adon Shuler and Brauntae Johnson.
Notre Dame took their normal transfer portal approach of adding quality over large quantity, though one interesting and important nuance was that all but one of the new transfers have multiple years of eligibility. For Irish fans, this is hugely significant as it signals a clear change in approach from the school in terms of its admissions policies.
It is yet another sign of how ND is adapting to the modern CFB landscape and of the high-level alignment between the President, Board of Trustees, Athletic Director, Head Coach and key donors. The opening of the Shields Family Hall, the new $200m football facility, is a further testament to the alignment that is essential for success in the modern era.
Notre Dame’s DT recruiting in 2026 and 2027 has been absolutely stellar, but we are several seasons away from seeing the true fruits of that particular labour on the field. In the short term, Freeman brought in Francis Brewu from Pittsburgh and Tionne Gray from Oregon to beef up the interior of the defensive line, and much is expected there.
The plethora of talent at LB didn’t need any portal help, with Drayk Bowen and Villiamu-Asa among the best in the country at that position. But while ND has some prodigious talent in the defensive backfield, Jayden Sanders from Michigan and DJ McKinney from Colorado came in to fight for the field CB spot, allowing Christian Gray to focus on the Nickelback role.
How quickly the transfers gel may well determine if the defense can match or even exceed the 2025 version, which is what will be required to mount a deep playoff run.
A Kicker, a Kicker, my kingdom for a Kicker!
Notre Dame’s 2024 kicking game saw Mitch Jeter start and finish the season strongly, but with a disaster of a car crash in the middle when he was injured. 2025 was even worse. Noah Burnette battled a groin injury that limited him until he could kick no more, and after that it was a dumpster fire that served only to increase the number of ND’s fourth-down attempts.
This year’s transfer K is Spencer Porath, who remains in Indiana after arriving from Purdue. On paper, he looks excellent. He was 15-for-17 on FGs last year with only one miss inside the 50. And he has already enjoyed kicking success in Notre Dame Stadium on gameday, going 3-3 on both FGs and PATs for the Boilermakers last season.
James Rendell, the Australian punter, was unable to obtain eligibility for a third season, and his replacement is compatriot Jasper Scaife. Rendell began his Irish career at Kyle Field; Scaife will start in the storied grandeur of Lambeau Field, with hopefully a slighty less hostile crowd around him.
Special Teams coordinator Marty Biagi is known for his inventiveness in his third of the game, though it will be fascinating to see how the new punt rules impact his planning. But ultimately, most Irish fans will regard the efficiency of the FG kicking game as one of the most important keys to a successful season, especially in the playoffs.
STIOFÁN MAC FHILIB
COLLEGE FOOTBALL ANALYST
A VERY LONG-DISTANCE SUBWAY ALUMNUS OF NOTRE DAME, COUNTY ANTRIM-BASED STIOFÁN HAS BEEN A FAN OF THE FIGHTING IRISH SINCE 2000. FOLLOW HIM ON TWITTER @SMACFHILIB.