Notre Dame's 2026 schedule looms large. Discover which opponents must step up and how the Irish will finish spring practice strong.
There's been a lot of talk this offseason about Notre Dame's 2026 schedule. Is it a gauntlet? No, but there's very few teams across the country that play that type of schedule. Is it what Texas Tech and Penn State play this upcoming season? Also no. Today, we dive into what Notre Dame's schedule really looks like, the teams they need to play like top level teams and the expectation for the remainders. Will a team like Wisconsin, Michigan State or Syracuse excel? Can teams like Stanford and Purdue play above expectation?
We also dive into their upcoming 12-year home and home series with Clemson. The Tigers need to return to being a perennial playoff contender and build up a rivalry with the Irish. We also talk about the final Notre Dame spring practice we'll have access to prior to the Blue Gold game and what we would like to see. This has been a productive offseason so far. How has this team progressed over the last month? We talk about all of that and more in today's episode of the Irish Breakdown Podcast.
You can watch the entire episode here:
Here are some of the main topics we discusses on today's show:
On What We Want To See From The Final Major Practice Of The Spring...
"When we entered the spring, there was a lot of questions that we didn't have answers to about this football team. What would be the starting offensive line? How would the newcomers like the freshman and transfer players look like and how quickly would they catch on? Is this team still hungry? We have answers to some of those questions, but for others, it's going to be an on-going evaluation over the rest of the offseason. Will someone start to separate themselves at tight end? How is the wide receiver development going? How is the depth developing in the defensive front? I'm hoping to see progress in all of those categories in Saturday's practice."
On The Top Teams On Notre Dame's Schedule Remaining At The Top...
"It's similar to the conversation we have on our pre-game shows when we say 'you need your dudes to be dudes.' When you look at Notre Dame's schedule, they need the teams at the top like Miami, BYU, SMU and Navy to be what we think they can be this season. There's a good chance that half of those teams, and potentially more, are playoff teams, but we don't want to be sitting here on Selection Sunday talking about how Miami under performed, BYU wasn't what we thought and SMU had a let down season. The Irish need the top-level teams on their schedule to be what we think they can be and be what they should be."
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