We saw a Notre Dame offense this season that was extremely explosive, and unlike last season, not all explosive plays were in the run game. Obviously, Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price would get theirs, and they most certainly did in 2025. Even Aneyas Williams rattled off a handful of long runs this season for touchdowns. But the most promising sign of this offense taking a big step in the right direction was the performance of red shirt freshman quarterback CJ Carr and his ability to push the ball vertically down the field. 

As a whole, the offense finished the season ranked No. 4 in the country in plays 30 yards or longer from the line of scrimmage with 40. They also ranked No. 9 in the country in plays of 20 yards or longer from the line of scrimmage with 76. Now, the Fighting Irish coaching staff considers explosive plays being 20-yards or longer in the pass game and 10-yards or longer in the rush game. With that in mind, let's dive into this explosive Notre Dame offense and where they can find improvements. 

Consistency is the name of the game for this unit in 2026, and this past season's numbers back that narrative up. When you finish ranked in the Top 10 in plays of 20-yards and 30-yards from the line of scrimmage, that's a sign of an explosive offense. But when you break the season in thirds, this offense showed signs of inconsistency that needs addressed this offseason. For example, Notre Dame ranked No. 11 in scrimmage plays of 20 yards or longer in their one game in August and the month of September with 30 total. However, they ranked No. 22 in the country in plays of 20 yards or longer in October with 18 total. 

They finished the season on a high note ending the month of November with 28 plays of 20 yards or longer from the line of scrimmage which ranked No. 6 in the country. Throughout the season, we talked about this offense becoming slightly predictable and these are some of the numbers that reinforce that idea. Now, I dug a little deeper to see if this trend continued when you break it down between the run game and the pass game and what I found was consistent with the overall scrimmage plays. 

Pass Game Numbers 

In the pass game, Notre Dame finished the season ranked 16th in the country in passes 20 yards or longer with 50 in 12 games. Mind you, that's a significant improvement from the 36 they had in 16 games in 2024. That being said, the trend still continued from above; the Irish ranked 7th in the country in pass plays of 20 yards or longer in the August/September window with 27 plays. That included games against Miami, Texas A&M and on the road against Arkansas. 

In October, the numbers dipped and they finished 59th in the country in passes of 20 yards or longer with 10 in games against Boise State, NC State and USC. They rebounded in the month of November with 16 plays pass plays of 20 yards or more with 16. But again, context matters, they only plays three games in October and five games in November so their rate of explosive pass plays per game in October and November were nearly identical. 

Run Game Numbers 

It wasn't as drastic, but the numbers in the run game also took a dip in October as well. Some of that was due to them only playing three games in October. In the August/September window, Notre Dame has 27 rushes of 10 yards or more which ranked 36th in the country. They had 22 in the month of October which ranked 13th but they finished the season on a high note with 31 rush plays of 10 yards or longer in November which ranked 10th in the country. 

So what do all these stats mean? I think it's two fold. First, this was an extremely explosive Notre Dame offense throughout the whole season compared to last year. Second, there's definitely still room for improvement when it comes to their level of consistency. How do you fix that? We talked a lot about the potential offensive adjustments in multiple shows on the Irish Breakdown Podcast. Offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock would have benefitted this season from getting more creative with his personnel packages and what he asked them to do on the field.  

Utilize more pre-snap motion, post-snap switches and get more diverse with your route concepts. By October, teams started to key in on field receiver Jordan Faison running deep comebacks and deep outs. They rarely moved boundary receiver Malachi Fields around and kept him predominantly in the boundary. There was also a level on inconsistency in the run game plan design week over week. Some weeks, it looked spectacular like it did against USC. Other weeks, it looked like they had two to three plays called throughout the entire game like it did against NC State. 

Some might view this as 'nit-picky', but this is a team that should be competing for a National Championship, but instead, they're sitting at home while this underwhelming playoffs is underway. Fixes like consistency in explosive plays is crucial to get Notre Dame back to the playoffs in 2026. This was a really good season and a strong foundation for this offense moving forward and if they can execute on the field and from a play calling standpoint at a more consistent level, this offense will be extremely hard to stop next season. 

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