5 questions for Notre Dame football, including Jeremiyah Love’s replacement and CJ Carr’s encore

As Notre Dame wrapped up training camp in late August, coach Marcus Freeman said he wanted his players to be aware of the noise they allow in their heads.

During the summer days of preseason award watch lists, polls and predictions, the Irish received a lot of love. Every couple of days a player was named a candidate to be one of the best players in the country at his position.

On Aug. 4, coaches ranked the Irish as the No. 5 team in their preseason poll. On Aug. 17, they checked in at No. 4 in the Associated Press preseason poll. They’ve been included on analysts’ lists of teams with legitimate chances to win the College Football Playoff.

Freeman hopes all of that talk is drowned out as his team prepares for the Sept. 6 opener against Wisconsin at Lambeau Field.

“The noise the coaches put in their heads has to be louder than something they’re reading on social media,” Freeman said. “It’s great to hear people talking about us. But we have to be obsessed with being that thing. … We can waste (our time) by listening to social media or what other people say about us, or we can go to work and really be obsessed with improvement.”

The Irish always receive national attention, but expectations are heightened in Freeman’s fifth season at the helm. Quarterback CJ Carr returns to lead coordinator Mike Denbrock’s offense, while a host of stars fuel coordinator Chris Ash’s defense, including preseason AP All-Americans Leonard Moore (first team), Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa and Brauntae Johnson (both second team).

Will they help the Irish finally end their 38-year national championship drought? Here are five questions as they begin their quest.

1. How will the Irish fare in the running game without Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price?

Notre Dame running backs coach Ja’Juan Seider saw what Aneyas Williams could do from the opposing sideline during the 2024 College Football Playoff. Seider was coaching for Penn State in that semifinal, when Williams totaled five catches for 66 yards, including a 36-yard reception near the beginning of the third quarter.

“Sent my ass home crying,” Seider said of Williams’ performance in Notre Dame’s 27-24 win.

Williams spent most of his first two seasons at Notre Dame playing behind 2026 first-round NFL draft picks Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price. He totaled 679 yards from scrimmage and seven touchdowns in two seasons and was limited last year by an elbow injury that required offseason surgery. But Seider said Williams has shown he can rise to big moments.

“He may be the most confident kid I’ve ever been around,” Seider said. “Even coaches get in front of the room and speak that first time, there are some confidence (testing) moments until you get going. From the first get-go, he’s already confident.

“Those are the traits you look for because, game on the line, I know I can count on that kid in that situation. Why? Because he has proven it already.”

Williams is tasked with helping to fill the massive void left by the departure of Love, who finished third in Heisman Trophy voting last season, and Price. Seider said Williams has earned the trust of coaches and teammates with the way he practices, always chasing the ball when he’s not a part of the play.

The group behind him, including sophomore Nolan James Jr., junior Kedren Young and freshmen Jonaz Walton and Javian Osborne, is even more inexperienced, but Seider believes in them.

“If we (as a team) want to go play the way we want to play at the end of the year, we’ve got to do our job,” Seider said. “And I’m confident saying that room will show up. It will not be the weak link.”

2. Will CJ Carr make a run at the Heisman Trophy?

Carr is in a much different spot from a year ago.

At the end of 2025 training camp, he had just been named the starting quarterback over Kenny Minchey. Now he’s coming off a season in which he completed 66.6% of his passes for 2,741 yards and 24 touchdowns with six interceptions and a program-record 168.1 passing efficiency rating.

Heading into Carr’s second season as starter, Notre Dame coaches say he operates like another coach on the field because he has such a strong understanding of the game. And Carr said both the experience he gained last season and the experience he gets going against the Notre Dame defense in practice have elevated his game.

“You’re going against one of the best defenses in the country,” quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli said. “At times it can be frustrating. You’re going to see every look possible as we work through training camp, and when we get to the season, it’s going to become easy. There’s not going to be anything that you haven’t seen already or that we don’t have to have an answer for as we progress through training camp. So all this is going to benefit them through the end.”

Carr enters the 2026 season on numerous preseason award watch lists and NFL draft board projections. By mid-August, he was among the favorites in Heisman Trophy odds along with Texas quarterback Arch Manning and Miami quarterback Darian Mensah.

Guidugli said Carr is ignoring the hype, as Freeman has preached.

“It’s about CJ improving, about our offense improving,” Guidugli said. “He wants to understand defensive football. He wants to understand offensive football. He wants to understand situational football.

“And I don’t think he hears the noise. I think he’s so concentrated on what tomorrow brings and what’s right in front of his nose that he ain’t looking too far down the road like that. It’s about training camp, and it’s going to be about Wisconsin.”

3. What’s the ceiling for the Irish defense?

Safety Adon Shuler likened playing the Notre Dame defense to playing video games against an older brother. He wants every opponent to think, “Oh, I’ve got to play them?”

“We’ve got to play Notre Dame this week? No matter where we go with the ball, there’s going to be a guy there that’s about their business,” Shuler said of opponents’ mindsets. “That’s the goal for the defense. No matter where you go, there ain’t no weak points in the defense. We’re going to attack you.”

The Irish defense is indeed littered with difference-makers, including three on the watch list for the Bednarik Award as the defensive player of the year: Shuler, cornerback Moore and defensive end Boubacar Traore.

Moore, who had five interceptions, seven pass breakups and a forced fumble in 10 games last season, leads an experienced secondary that also includes safety Johnson, nickel Christian Gray, Colorado transfer DJ McKinney and Michigan transfer Jayden Sanders.

The Irish invested in their defense through the portal, adding to a line that’s anchored by returning ends Traore (6½ sacks, 10 tackles for a loss, eight quarterback hits and a forced fumble in 11 games last year) and Bryce Young. Pittsburgh transfer Francis Brewu and Oregon transfer Tionne Gray were two of the biggest additions at tackle.

Linebackers Drayk Bowen and Viliamu-Asa, who combined for 115 tackles, 12 tackles for a loss and 6½ sacks last season, man the middle.

The defense in Ash’s first season as coordinator faced some scrutiny early in 2025 after back-to-back losses to open the season, so it should be driven to perform against the biggest tests this season.

4. Who will emerge as Carr’s top targets beyond Jordan Faison?

Faison became one of Carr’s top two go-to receivers in 2025, totaling 49 catches for 640 yards and four touchdowns. With Faison stepping away from lacrosse to focus solely on football this offseason, there’s reason to believe that can continue in 2026.

“He just has an unbelievable feel for everything he does,” Carr said. “You see it on the lacrosse field, you see it on the ping-pong table, you see it on the football field, you see it playing golf. He understands spacing and he has such good body control and awareness that there’s nothing he can’t do.

“So you trust him when you throw a screen out there. We watched the tape from last year and the year before. Like, no one defender is tackling him. He’s going to get an extra 5 (yards). He’s going to make two guys miss. Four yards from a normal guy is going to turn into 10 with him.”

But beyond Faison, Notre Dame lost its next four pass catchers — Malachi Fields, Eli Raridon, Love and Will Pauling — to the NFL. The Irish do return Jaden Greathouse, who was limited to four catches for 73 yards in 2025 because of a hamstring injury. He was Notre Dame’s leading receiver in 2024 with 592 yards during the run to the national title game.

Carr said he watched film of Greathouse that season and realized how he was hampered by his injury last season. He said Greathouse was “unbelievable” in his return to training camp.

“You come out here and he does a couple things that he does, and it’s like, ‘Oh, my gosh,’” Carr said. “It’s another blanket for me. I wouldn’t play man against us. Doesn’t matter who you have out there. You get Faison, JG — we have explosive weapons all over the field.”

Micah Gilbert also returns after totaling nine catches for 93 yards, and Freeman said he has “stepped up tremendously.” The Irish picked up former Ohio State receivers Mylan Graham and Quincy Porter in the transfer portal, but Porter has been recovering from knee surgery and had a “minor procedure” in August that’s expected to keep him out a while longer, according to Freeman.

Freeman expressed belief in the depth beyond those players too.

“We have a deep wideout room that maybe hasn’t made those plays on the field yet in a real game situation,” Freeman said. “But they’ve really shown us as a coaching staff that they’re progressing.”

5. Will the Irish turn last season’s disappointment into a run at a national title?

Bowen said it was tough watching the College Football Playoff in the winter, knowing the Irish could have been competing if things had played out a little differently. But Freeman has impressed upon his players all offseason that the Irish need to take getting back into the CFP this season into their own hands.

Notre Dame lost its first two games last season to Miami and Texas A&M by a combined four points. The Irish then won 10 straight by an average of 29.7 points against lesser competition.

That winning streak wasn’t enough as the CFP committee put Notre Dame at No. 11 in its final rankings, one spot out of the final at-large bid for the 12-team playoff.

“At the end of the day, like Coach Freeman said, we didn’t put ourselves in a position to earn that,” Bowen said. “And so while it’s tough, you can’t blame anybody else besides yourself.”

Notre Dame has an easier path this year because of an agreement that gives them a spot in the CFP if they finish ranked in the top 12. But a playoff berth alone probably won’t satisfy the Irish. They have the talent and experience among their players and coaches to infuse belief they can make a run.

The major hurdles likely won’t come early, though the Irish will want to be wary of overlooking Wisconsin in the opener. The circled matchups start Oct. 17 with a trip to No. 14 BYU, followed by home games against No. 7 Miami on Nov. 7 and No. 19 SMU on Nov. 21.

“Just don’t leave it to the judges,” Shuler said. “We know every play, every opportunity we get to go on the field and practice or go to meetings, we have to be intentional about it.”