Unpacking offensive breakouts, independence debates, and future QB talent. Plus, analyzing night game predictions and ranking top coaches.
Another week of the 2026 offseason has come and gone; we are now only 198 days away from Notre Dame kicking off against Wisconsin. We've covered a lot of great topics this week including some offensive breakouts, why Notre Dame should remain independent and what 2027 quarterback recruits to keep your eye out for. It was another loaded slate this week for us here at IB and the offseason content will continue to roll.
Spring practice is right around the corner and will begin here in the next few weeks. Like we do every week during the offseason, we ended with our Friday Free-For-All Mailbag and our daily listeners did not disappoint today. We answered a bunch of different questions covering a wide variety of topics. You can catch all of that and more in today's episode on the Irish Breakdown Podcast.
You can watch the entire show here:
Here are some of the questions we answered in today's free-for-all mailbag:
On What Games We Think Will Be Night Games In 2026...
"Outside of the Miami game, I think you have options for a couple. For some of the home games, there's a chance that one of, if not both, of Michigan State and Stanford will be at night. Historically, when Notre Dame has hosted Stanford over the last couple of seasons, really since 2018, the game has been at night. Michigan State might be a higher incentive for it to be a night kickoff. Any of their road games could be a night game, but I'd probably guess that BYU will likely be a night game kickoff."
On If We Would Rank Marcus Freeman Ahead Of Dan Lanning In Head Coach Power Rankings...
"Personally, I would. I understand the debate and it's a lot closer than what some people might think. Lanning has beaten Ohio State once and made the 12-team playoff in both seasons. He also won the Big Ten Championship the first year he was in the conference. He's also been bounced from the playoffs in emphatic fashion and fails to live up to the hype in bigger games. I'd take Freeman for what Notre Dame looks like in big games. The margin for debate is close, but if I'm looking to build a program from scratch and need to hire a head coach, I'm hiring Marcus Freeman over Dan Lanning."
On If We Think Alabama Misses The Playoffs In 2026...
"It'll be close, but I think that they will. There's a lot of room for variance on their schedule this year. There's two teams in the SEC that they will have to face that I wouldn't want to see on my schedule in November and that's LSU and Auburn, two teams with new head coaches. Luckily, they get Kentucky the second week of the regular season. I don't think their out of conference schedule is overly difficult, but Kalen DeBoer and offensive coordinator Ryan Grubbs will have to re-engineer that offense, specifically in the run game if they have hopes of making the playoffs this season."
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