~the most mandatory musical accompaniment we’ve ever had~
It has become podcast tradition to do a full run-through of all 12 teams on the Fighting Irish schedule before the season kicks off. That leaves me with a giant file of notes and random thoughts bouncing around, so in addition to the episode — to which you can and should give a listen (Spotify) (Apple) — here is a slightly refined but really more rambling list of roster additions, coaching changes, remembering some guys, relevant stats, schedule watching and useless nonsense.
Two of these teams played in Week Zero so there will be a pair of extended blurbs on those games (these were written after everything else). Some of these sections are longer than others for no real rhyme nor reason. I’m including the preseason F+ ranking courtesy of Brian Fremeau and Bill Connelly as well as the preseason win totals courtesy of the tallest towers in the desert.
Heads up: This is a long one because I started putting things down a few weeks ago and then just kept adding more and more.
Congrats to the 2026 captains: Drayk Bowen and Adon Shuler get the “C” for a second time, joined by C.J. Carr and Jordan Faison.
Upcoming: Excitement Draft podcast on Thursday, kickoff newsletter on Friday, Notre Dame opens the 2026 football season at Lambeau Field on Sunday. Giddy up.
vs. Wisconsin
2025 record: 4-8
2026 preseason win total: 6.5
2026 preseason F+ ranking: 45th
Wisconsin’s offense was woeful last year, achieving the fewest 20+ yards plays of any FBS team. (Their 23 was three behind the runner-up for futility, North Carolina.) For comparison, Oregon led the sport with 100.
New Badger quarterback Colton Joseph played pretty well against Power 4 teams last year at Old Dominion. He had 179 yards rushing in Bloomington to open the season in a loss and then two weeks later won in Blacksburg, putting up 45 points by going 16 for 22 for 276 yards passing, 63 yards rushing and three total touchdowns. He takes some sacks and makes some very dangerous throws so whether he can keep that in check long enough to make things interesting is the big swing for this game. Iowa State transfer Abu Sama III has a lot of promise at tailback (was good after contact and forcing missed tackles last year).
Jeff Grimes is in his second year as offensive coordinator. He was responsible for the 2020 Zach Wilson offense at BYU (COVID year caveats, but was still third in F+) then went to Baylor and they immediately went 12-2 with the No. 28 offense (up from 79 the prior year). Two years later, the Bears had slipped to 3-9, the offense fell to 84th and Grimes was let go. After a solid year at Kansas, he moved from Lawrence to Madison.
For as snakebitten and woeful as the Badger offense has been under Luke Fickell (dropped from 59th in F+ in Paul Chryst’s final season with Graham Mertz in 2022 to 115th in 2025), they’ve stayed good at defense. They were 28th in F+ last year and 16th in 20+ yard plays allowed. Fun incoming transfer with Liam Danitz, a 6’4” outside linebacker who comes up from Division III Hope College where he had 21 TFLs and 15 sacks last year, but he seems like more of a depth piece at the moment.
Some halftime scores from last season: Indiana 10 Wisconsin 7. Oregon 7 Wisconsin 0. Michigan 10 Wisconsin 7. Ohio State 17 Wisconsin 0. Alabama 21 Wisconsin 0.
Additional Wisconsin info from Michael Bryan.
Rice
2025 record: 5-8
2026 preseason win total: 3.5
2026 preseason F+ ranking: 125th
Second-year head coach Scott Abell brought the option to Rice and has a new quarterback to run it in Jacurri Brown, a 6’4” four-star prospect who began his career at Miami then moved onto Central Florida.
Abell played minor league baseball before starting his coaching career as a high school coach in his native Virginia. He eventually worked his way up to Washington and Lee and then Davidson before getting the Rice job.
In his first year at Davidson, Abell’s Wildcats rushed for an FBS and FCS record 789 yards against San Diego. They lost 56-52.
Preston Zinter, who played at linebacker and defensive line for the Irish, is set to play tight end for the Owls.
Former Notre Dame assistant Kerry Cooks is the safeties coach for the Owls. Their defensive coordinator Jon Kay won four 6A state titles in Houston before joining the staff as linebacker coach under the previous regime. Unfortunately for both Cooks and Kay, the Rice defense got picked over in the portal and they’re basically starting from scratch.
I understand on paper “Playing an option team on a short week” could be tricky, but I don’t think the Owls are quite there yet. Eyeballing the SP+ ratings, the spread could be around 40. They play the Houston Christian Huskies to open the season.
Michigan State
2025 record: 4-8
2026 preseason win total: 4.5
2026 preseason F+ ranking: 61st
Sparty fired Jonathan Smith after two seasons to hire Pat Fitzgerald, whose final three non-COVID seasons in Evanston yielded a 7-29 record.
Fitzgerald is doing a complete offensive overhaul. Gone are all their top receiving options from last year due to expiring eligibility, receiver Nick Marsh becoming one of the top portal targets (he ended up in Bloomington) and a tight end to Texas. Their two big acquisitions came from UConn: Tailback Cam Edwards, who had 16 touchdowns and nearly 1500 yards from scrimmage last year, and Ben Murawski, who started 12 games at left tackle for the 9-3 transitive ACC champion Huskies. They seem high on the new-look line overall.
Pretty good coordinator hires across the board: Nick Sheridan for offense (coached under Kalen Deboer at Indiana, Washington and Alabama), Joe Rossi retained for defense (did good work at Minnesota) and LeVar Woods for special teams (nearly two decades at Iowa). Woods brought the Hawkeye punter with him in a coup.
Alessio Milivojevic is set to run things at quarterback. The junior started the final four games of the season and did okay in the final two (a close loss at Iowa, a 38-28 win against Maryland). PFF rated him as having five big-time throws to six turnover-worthy plays.
Some familiar faces in green and white: Wide receiver K.K. Smith is set to start, Max Bullough is coaching linebacker and John McNulty is the quarterbacks coach.
Sparty won’t go winless but it could be an ugly first season for Fitzgerald. Their non-conference is two teams from the top half of the MAC (Toledo, Eastern Michigan) plus Notre Dame. They miss Ohio State and Indiana but it’s still some tough sledding, with league home games against Nebraska, Illinois, Northwestern, Washington and Oregon and then road trips to Wisconsin, UCLA, Michigan and Rutgers.
at Purdue
2025 record: 2-10
2026 preseason win total: 3.5
2026 preseason F+ ranking: 77th
Purdue opens with Indiana State and Wake Forest at home before a trip to Pasadena to face the Bruins. You wouldn’t know it from their 2-10 record (ten-game losing streak to close season), but the Boilermakers were much better than they were in 2024 under first-year head coach Barry Odom, going from 122nd to 83rd in F+.
Only 29 incoming transfers this time around, after 56 last season.
Joey Tanona is set to return as a starting tackle. He was originally in Notre Dame’s 2022 recruiting class but medically retired before playing a down following an offseason car accident. Tanona’s recovery was such that he eventually gave it another go at Purdue and succeeded in a very cool story.
Ryan Browne is back at quarterback after nine touchdowns and ten interceptions in 2025 (not any better under the hood, with 11 big-time throws to 17 turnover-worthy plays). If you’d like another data point on how bad the Irish defense was to start the season, Browne’s second-best QBR of the season came against Notre Dame (only Ball State did a worse job against him).
Couple of all-name options: Mister Clark comes in after a very productive season at Florida International to join Smiley Bradford in the secondary. Defensive end Elo Modozie had 6.5 sacks at Army in 2024, transferred to Georgia, couldn’t crack the rotation there and is now set to start for the Boilers. Seems like this could be a happy medium for him?
In Phil Steele’s preview magazine, he goes through every conference and ranks them by position group. Purdue is tied for last in almost everything and its highest rank is 12th (linebacker).
Odom has a couple winnable league games in West Lafayette, but it’s tough sledding. Home games: Minnesota, Washington, Maryland, Wisconsin Road games: UCLA, Illinois, Penn State, Iowa, Indiana. It’s unfortunate Sparty and Purdue don’t play so one is guaranteed a conference win.
at North Carolina
2025 record: 4-8
2026 preseason win total: 4.5
2026 preseason F+ ranking: 73rd
Interesting start for Bill Belichick’s second year, as they opened in Dublin in Week Zero. They follow that up with a bye week, East Tennessee in Chapel Hill, a trip to Clemson and then another bye week before Notre Dame comes to town.
This is where I will note that Notre Dame plays six ACC opponents this fall. Of that half dozen, they play two projected by the preseason media poll to be at the top of the standings as well as the projected bottom four. Mike Ehrmantraut would be proud because zero half measures are involved.
Couple of guys to flag: 6’4” receiver Mason Humphrey is in from Lehigh after averaging nearly 19 yards per catch last season. They retained defensive end Melkart Abou Jaoude, who had double-digit sacks last year and has all-league potential. Former Terrapin and Badger Billy Edwards, Jr. is set to start at quarterback.
Defensive coordinator Steve Belichick took an indefinite medical leave of absence and it’s unclear when he’ll return. Bobby Petrino is in as offensive coordinator after putting together the No. 13 F+ offense in Fayetteville last season. Bob Diaco is still there as defensive line coach. The legend Natrone Means is their running backs coach. General manager Mike Lombardi is on administrative leave while the university investigates him.
WEEK ZERO WRAP: The Dublin game was a very silly and very gross 15-10 Tar Heels victory. Don’t want to take too much from this because TCU looked like they hadn’t practiced/had bad vibes because the coach banned a paper from covering the team for covering the team. Some positives for the Heels: After struggling to contain outside runs in the early going, the defense adjusted and played quite well (the lone Horned Frogs touchdown came on a short field after a bad punt; TCU was 6th percentile in yards per play, 16th percentile in success rate). Belichick called the plays after collaborating on game prep with Diaco and they held their opponent to one of five on fourth down.
Not much to write home about as far as running the ball but Edwards was okay and he found a couple potential targets in tight end Jelani Thurman who transferred in from Ohio State and wide receiver Jordan Shipp (both top 100ish recruits). Special teams were a mess but the Heels were the more disciplined team overall (maybe TCU just trash, but hey a win is a win). Diaco defenses have now given up exactly 10 points in two Aviva games.
Stanford
2025 record: 4-8
2026 preseason win total: 3.5
2026 preseason F+ ranking: 82nd
After Stanford fired Troy Taylor in March 2025, general manager Andrew Luck had the rest of the year to conduct a coaching search. He looked far and wide and landed on…his former backup quarterback and friend, Tavita Pritchard. Pritchard’s resume is solid — was offensive coordinator for the Cardinal under David Shaw, three years as the Washington Commanders quarterbacks coach — so we’ll see how this goes.
Sorry, Pritchard isn’t the head coach, he’s the “Director of Football,” and instead of coordinators, Stanford has a “Director of Offense” and a “Director of Defense.” Yet they have a regular old special teams coordinator? A truly evil and demonic place.
Michigan transfer Davis Warren is set to be the starting quarterback for the Cardinal. A former walk-on, Warren ended the 2024 season defeating Ohio State and Alabama, but tore his ACL in the bowl against the Tide. He has seven career touchdown passes to ten career interceptions.
Notre Dame is set to face three quarterbacks with more career interceptions than touchdowns: Warren, Rice’s Jacurri Brown (six touchdowns, nine picks) and Purdue’s Ryan Browne (13 touchdowns, 14 picks). This does not include Navy’s Braxton Woodson, who has three of each.
Absolute nightmare travel situation for the Cardinal, who travel to Duke, host Georgia Tech, travel to Wake Forest and then travel to Notre Dame. That’s a tremendous amount of cross country flights, but at least they get to host Elon when they get back to Palo Alto.
WEEK ZERO WRAP: Some good to take from a win over Hawaii for the Cardinal, as they suffocated the Rainbow Warriors for the first three quarters. The bad to take from the opener is the fourth quarter started with Micah Alejado dicing them up for three straight touchdown drives to take the lead. At that point, some more good, though, as Warren calmly led them down the field — with some help from the refs on a catch — to retake the lead before a strip sack/scoop and score to seal it. Warren and the running game were both capable the whole game. Was that fourth quarter failure fatigue, a tactical adjustment and/or the Hawaii offense that had to replace a ton figuring things out? We’ll have a better sense of Stanford’s upside against a top-tier team after this weekend, as they host Miami on Friday night.
at BYU
2025 record: 12-2
2026 preseason win total: 8.5
2026 preseason F+ ranking: 21st
After taking a moment to establish themselves in the Big 12, BYU has been really good the last two years, going a combined 23-4 and being a bubble playoff team both years. They lose defensive coordinator Jay Hill who had been doing an awesome job but they bring back so much talent across the defense — sixth in returning production on that side of the ball — there shouldn’t be much of a drop. They add linebacker Cade Uluave from Cal after a first-team All-ACC season (100 tackles, 12 for loss).
The new defensive coordinator is an internal promotion in Kelly Poppinga, who was an all-Mountain West linebacker as a player under Bronco Mendenhall. Poppinga was on Mendenhall’s staff at his alma mater and then joined him when he went to Charlottesville (he was co-defensive coordinator when the Irish faced the Cavaliers in 2019 and 2021).
The big question for BYU is how does the passing game evolve. Bear Bachmeier was originally going to attend Stanford but following Taylor’s firing pivoted to Provo, showing up in the summer and starting as a true freshman. He was a threat with his legs but a mess in the passing game (11 big-time throws and 20 turnover-worthy plays.)
Camp reports on Bachmeier have been very positive, including, “Bachmeier also looks to be in better shape, having dropped about 13 pounds during the offseason by avoiding sweets and adhering to a fairly strict regimen laid out for him by BYU’s strength and conditioning staff.” Who he’s going to be throwing to come mid-October remains a question although this is a fun headline: “Is this [the] tallest batch of receivers the Cougars have ever had?”.
Tailback L.J. Martin is awesome (nearly 1600 yards from scrimmage in 2025) and they added two quality tight ends in the portal from Oregon and Southern Cal.
The Cougars don’t have a bye before Notre Dame comes to town but they do host Iowa State (projected to be Quite Bad) on a Friday night the week before, so a pretty good deal for them. We’ll have a sense of how they measure up against quality competition as they’ll host Arizona and travel to TCU before Oct. 17. (ed. note: This was written before watching TCU play a game, but we’re keeping it.)
The Cougars have been very fortunate in one-score games the last two seasons. Is that coaching, or are they due for some regression that knocks this floor lower than we anticipate?
While we don’t expect many of the games to be particularly stressful, this is the Irish’s seventh straight contest before their bye.
vs. Navy
2025 record: 11-2
2026 preseason win total: 7.5
2026 preseason F+ ranking: 62nd
Navy is a popular pick to win the American this season, as last year’s other top teams (Tulane, North Texas, South Florida, Memphis) all have new coaches and new rosters.
It’s Brian Newsberry’s fourth year with the Midshipmen, and after a 5-7 start he’s a smooth 21-5 since, finishing 23rd in the 2025 AP poll.
Braxton Woodson (who brings size to the position at 6’3”) replaces Blake Horvath at quarterback, but he’ll be familiar to the Irish staff and defensive front after starting in South Bend last season. The Midshipmen also have to replace super productive backs Alex Tecza and Eli Heidenreich (who was a seventh round pick and made the Steelers roster), as well as stud defensive tackle Landon Robinson, who also went in the seventh round of the NFL Draft.
After a tight one in his first game against the Middies, Marcus Freeman has won the last three by a combined score of 142-27.
This game is in Foxborough on Halloween and will be Navy’s sixth straight after an early bye. While the Midshipmen might be stable, I question their conference-winning/playoff-making upside having to replace stars like Horvath, Tecza and Heidenreich. Maybe Woodson takes a leap and balances out those losses but it’s a tremendous amount of talent out the door.
Miami
2025 record: 13-3
2026 preseason win total: 10.5
2026 preseason F+ ranking: 7th
Miami could very well have the best receiving corps in the country. Malachi Toney is incredible and they went to the portal to add three guys who averaged at least 15 yards per catch last season in Duke’s Cooper Barkate and South Carolina’s Vandrevius Jacobs. (West Virginia’s Cam Vaughn also qualified for that designation, but was dismissed from the team during camp.)
Blue Devil transfer Darian Mensah (reigning ACC champion!!) is a really good quarterback. It’s interesting that in 2025 Mensah had six interceptions to Beck’s 12, but 21 plays rated as turnover-worthy by PFF versus just 12 for Beck (was every single Beck turnover-worthy play turned over?). As far as upside: Mensah had 28 throws rated as big time and 34 touchdowns, to 16 big-time throws and 30 touchdowns for Beck (in more games).
The biggest question for Miami is going to be how big of a dropoff they’ll have along the lines. They’re going to be good, but their left tackle and both defensive ends were first round draft picks. They got defensive end Damon Wilson II from Mizzou (nine sacks, second-team All-SEC) to help blunt the losses of Rueben Bain and Akheem Mesidor. They have tremendous upside at the interior of the defensive line and a lot returning on the back end as well. Offensive line has a lot to replace, as top ten freshman Jackson Cantwell spent spring at left tackle but is now competing at guard while two guys who played guard last year are set to start at tackle.
Miami’s October before the Nov. 7 date in South Bend: at Clemson, bye week, Florida State, Miami, at North Carolina. They miss both SMU and Louisville on their ACC schedule and if Mario Cristobal fails to make the ACC title game again (something upon which the Notre Dame game will have no effect) it will mean their season was an unmitigated disaster.
Boston College
2025 record: 2-10
2026 preseason win total: 3.5
2026 preseason F+ ranking: 79th
It’s year three for Bill O’Brien at Boston College and it’s become quite bleak. In 2024, the Eagles started 4-1 before finishing 7-6 with a Pinstripe Bowl loss. They went 2-10 last year, bookending a ten-game losing streak with victories over Fordham and Syracuse to establish dominance over the state of New York. If you do the math, that makes them 5-15 over their last 20 games.
One of the lone bright spots in 2025 was tight end Kaelan Chudzinski, who had 24 catches, 313 yards and four touchdowns during his freshman year. He tore his Achilles over the summer and will miss the season.
Quarterback appears like it’s going to be Saginaw State transfer Mason McKenzie (a dual threat, which hasn’t traditionally been O’Brien’s thing) or Grayson Wilson, a high three-star recruit who spent his freshman year at Arkansas (hey, at least he’ll be comfortable being present for a Notre Dame blowout).
They lost Turbo Richard to Indiana but did at least nail their portal replacement in Liberty’s Evan Dickens (1339 yards, nearly 6 yards per carry and 17 total TDs). Safety KP Price is very good. Former Irish linebacker Bodie Kahoun will likely start for them.
Prior to coming to Notre Dame, the Eagles host Pittsburgh, travel to Georgia Tech and Duke, then host Florida State.
Is it a bad sign for the football program that the Eagles hired Luke Murray (son of Bill) away from UConn’s staff to be their new basketball coach? Presumably Murray would have other opportunities and wouldn’t sign on without a commitment to spending on his roster. Maybe there’s enough money to go around but I’d guess this is not a positive for the football program.
SMU
2025 record: 9-4
2026 preseason win total: 8.5
2026 preseason F+ ranking: 31st
Year five for Rhett Lashlee at SMU and he’s been very good. In 2023, the Mustangs won 11 games and the American. In 2024, they won 11 games, almost won the ACC in their debut season and made the playoff. Last season, they were on the precipice of a second straight ACC title game appearance before losing in Berkeley, but still finished with nine wins.
Quarterback Kevin Jennings has had some nightmare turnover games but he’s made plenty of winning plays as well. Last year he was banged up and taken off the board as a rushing threat (0.8 yards per carry, after averaging over three yards per tote the prior two years; six designed rushes of 15+ yards in 2024, none in 2025; triple the number of missed tackles forced in ‘24 versus ‘25).
SMU is going all in on the Dallas native, pushing him as a Heisman contender and announcing they were naming a new athlete recovery center for him. This honor at this time is a strange brew of well-intentioned, sweet and a little strange.
Jennings will have new faces around him at the skill positions (6’3” Yannick Smith is in from East Carolina after a 44-catch and 583-yard 2025 season with the Pirates) but should have the benefit of a great offensive line, with multiple all-conference-level players in the mix. Someone to keep an eye on: Wide receiver transfer Jalen Hale was a Top 40 recruit who showed promise in his first year at Alabama, but an ACL injury derailed his career with the Tide.
Phil Steele has the Mustangs rated with the best linebacking unit in the ACC. They might also be boosted by the return of All-ACC safety Ahmaad Moses for a fifth year. Moses never signed on with an NFL team and has been practicing with the Mustangs.
Lashlee lost both of his coordinators following last season and went wild with the replacements: There are three co-offensive coordinators, a run game coordinator and a passing game coordinator. There are also two defensive coordinators, including play caller Maurice Crum, Jr.
Two former Miami quarterbacks on the staff: D’Eriq King (one of those three co-OCs as well as quarterbacks coach) and Tyler Van Dyke (listed as offensive assistant).
We’ll have a great sense of where the Ponies stack up early, as they play at Florida State and at Louisville in their first three games. Win both of those and they’ll be a heavy favorite to play for the ACC title and almost certainly ranked come Nov. 21.
at Syracuse
2025 record: 3-9
2026 preseason win total: 4.5
2026 preseason F+ ranking: 81st
Fran Brown had a season from hell in year two at Syracuse after going 10-3 in his debut year. Not only did the schedule get much more difficult (they had to face a full third of the 2024 playoff field) but Steve Angeli’s September injury against Clemson sent them spiraling into an eight-game losing streak to end the season, including starting a walk-on lacrosse player at quarterback.
Angeli should be healed, but they buffeted the quarterback room. Out is LSU transfer Rickie Collins, who went to Kennesaw State. In is Amari Odom, who comes from Kennesaw State after leading the Owls to their first C-USA title and earning first-team all-league honors. They also brought in Malachi Nelson, the former five-star who’s on his fourth school in as many seasons (Southern Cal, Boise State, UTEP). Nelson was quite poor for the Miners last year, completing just 55% of his passes with nine picks to eight touchdowns.
Great defensive coordinator hire in Vince Kehres, who had been at Toledo since 2020 putting together solid units (I doubt anyone here has any memory of the 2021 Rockets). He’s joined by transfer Keyshawn Johnson at linebacker. He was an FCS All-American last year for the UT-Martin Skyhawks with 20 tackles for loss and 13.5 sacks.
Interceptions in 2025: Wisconsin, Michigan State and Syracuse had five. Purdue had four. Texas A&M, Rice and Stanford had three. Cincinnati was last in the nation with a pair.
I do not know how much juice the Orange (intentional) will have left by the time this game happens on Thanksgiving weekend. They have a bye to close out September and then play nine straight to end the season, with all of those games being on the road or at home against three ACC title contenders (Louisville, SMU, Clemson) and the Irish. Nasty, nasty stuff. The one reprieve is before the Irish come in they play at Boston College, so short trip against a team projected to be bad.
Syracuse has announced a number of “in-game enhancements” for the 2026 season. They include playing DMX on third downs (smart), a rapid-fire t-shirt cannon and student-only concessions offering $2 hot dogs, popcorn and non-alcoholic beverages.
The main issue with Notre Dame’s schedule is there’s no middle class of intriguing teams other than maybe Wisconsin. Usually you’ll have some options for teams that might be okay but have the potential to pop up and challenge for ten wins (think NC State and Pitt last year). This season, if a big chunk of the Power 4 competition — Michigan State, Purdue, North Carolina, Stanford, Boston College Syracuse — catch some breaks, it’ll mean they scrape into a bowl. Outside of Miami, SMU, BYU and Navy, no one else on the schedule has a prayer of sniffing a league title.
But that’s fine, and not really Notre Dame’s fault. They replaced Southern Cal with a BYU team that’s been better than the Trojans the last couple years, so credit where it’s due there. The Wisconsin game was scheduled a decade ago when they were coming off a Top 10 finish, and Sparty and Purdue are long-time dance partners who happen to be down real bad right now (Michigan State winning 11 games in 2021 feels like a lifetime ago). Stanford’s continued ineptitude, Mike Lombardi stealing money in Chapel Hill and Boston College letting go of the rope haven’t helped matters.
That’s all for now. See you on your podcast app again on Thursday, your email inbox on Friday and in Green Bay on Sunday. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other.
Pretty bleak, definitely our worst schedule ever. At least UNC and Stanford started 2-0.