Going into fall camp last season, technically the team was bringing back more starters on offense overall (compared to 2026) and you could’ve made the case for decent stability. However, the program was coming off an insanely short off-season after making it all the way to the National Championship Game and would spend the first couple weeks of camp sorting through an intense quarterback competition that left the media and fans out of breath when it was finished.

Now, the return of budding star quarterback CJ Carr colors everything differently for a Fighting Irish team that is expected to open up with a top 5 ranking and dreams of a 12th title in school history.

Coordinator: Mike Denbrock, 3rd Season

The return of Mike Denbrock has been a major positive for the Irish as he works through another stint with the program. He’s led back-to-back top 10 offenses according to FEI (9th in 2024, 4th in 2025) but as we know the margins between great advanced stats and heavy criticism is thin at Notre Dame. One bad game, even one bad half of football on offense, is enough to derail a season.

Denbrock heads into his 13th overall season with ND across 3 stints. 

Expectations are going to be extremely high for 2026 as many expect CJ Carr to be among the favorites for the Heisman. This will be a camp to develop weapons around Carr and solidify personnel losses from a year ago.

Returning Starters: 5/11

As always, this number doesn’t always tell the full story. For sure, Notre Dame is not returning a starter at running back! Last year’s second and third options at receiver are gone–although one could argue a healthy Jaden Greathouse is like getting a starter back, sort of. Tight end has a lot of players in the mix, some with decent experience, but there’s a new starter there too.

Jagusah has started a playoff game. 

Offensive line is always tricky. Both Billy Schrauth and Aamil Wagner are gone and with them tons of starts. But, Sullivan Absher and Joe Otting filled in last year after injuries and a potentially healthy Charles Jagusah gives the Irish up to 6 linemen for 2026 who have started games in their careers. For the sake of clarity, Notre Dame has 3 linemen returning (Anthonie Knapp, Ashton Craig, Guerby Lambert) who opened up 2025 as starters.

Injuries

RB Aneyas Williams
RB Kedren Young
RB Javian Osborne
WR Jerome Bettis, Jr.
WR Quincy Porter
WR Brayden Robinson
OL Charles Jagusah
OL Ashton Craig
OL Tyler Merrill

We’re hoping for lots of good news among these injuries from the spring. Aneyas Williams has dealt with an elbow injury for months but looked about 85% during the spring and should be rounding into full health for fall camp. Kedren Young tore his ACL during last year’s fall camp so he’ll be approaching 12 months since surgery. Javian Osborne’s spring wrist surgery recovery was supposed to take 10-12 weeks which puts him into a timeline where he’s back during this month of July.

Jerome Bettis suffered a foot injury during the latter half of spring practice, I’m unsure about his return and we know sometimes foot issues can linger a lot longer than we hope. Brayden Robinson hurt his knee during his high school senior year and then enrolled early with the Irish while he wasn’t full go throughout spring. Maybe he’ll be close for this fall camp.

Bettis during the spring before his injury.

Quincy Porter hurt his patellar while at Ohio State and had surgery in December, keeping him out of spring practice with Notre Dame. More on him below.

Ashton Craig will be approaching 10 months since he injured his knee against NC State. Tyler Merrill is an enormous freshman (330 pounds, tied for the heaviest player on the team) and should be ready following shoulder surgery coming out of his senior year of high school.

Charles Jagusah’s injury history has been well documented. He had his fifth surgery in March and it would be great to have some positive news as we inch closer to camp.

Camp Questions

#1 Offensive Line

A bevy of options on the offensive line is always a good thing, although it won’t be easy for the coaching staff to figure out their best five, or five best. When we left off in the spring two-year starting left tackle Anthonie Knapp was moved to left guard, Joe Otting was at center for the injured Ashton Craig, and 2025 right guard Guerby Lambert was working at right tackle.

Redshirt freshman Will Black being the starting left tackle, if it sticks, could change a lot. Knapp (27), Lambert (12), Craig (12), Absher (5), and Otting (6) have combined for 62 starts. Plus, Jagusah (2 starts) lingers in the shadows. Black being a cornerstone is keeping someone with experience off the field, plus there’s talk that the staff is very high on fellow redshirt freshman Matty Augustine, too.

#2 Boundary Receiver 

Not since Jayden Thomas in 2023 has Notre Dame gone into a season with a returning boundary receiver who had starting experience. This will be the third straight season trying to figure things out and the first, with apologies to Quincy Porter (more on this below), that there really isn’t a huge clubhouse leader like the transfers over the last two years in Beaux Collins and Malachi Fields. As things stand, this position is THE biggest question for the offense going into the season. And perhaps on the entire roster.

Can Gilbert hold down a starting position?

Micah Gilbert should be working with the no. 1 offense to open camp although whether he hangs on to that spot we couldn’t predict. He’s had some impressive moments in his career and looked solid in the spring but simply hasn’t played enough to believe he’s a lock to be a top 3 receiver on this team.

#3 Running Back

From the outside looking in, replacing Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price is a huge obstacle to a successful Notre Dame season. I’m sure from the inside there’s a lot more confidence in what the Irish running back room can achieve in 2026, although there’s an awful lot to prove. I’m personally feeling pretty good about the situation but an emerging CJ Carr taking on more of the offense has a lot to do with that belief. Many will be looking to a more efficient passing game to take some pressure off the running backs.

New Faces to Watch

WR Quincy Porter

As mentioned above, Notre Dame brought in a pair of transfers for 2024 and 2025 who had combined for 93 receptions in their respective seasons before coming to South Bend. Quincy Porter was a massive recruit for Ohio State (5-star and the top player in New Jersey per the Composite) but he only caught 4 passes last year before getting banged up and saving a year of eligibility. Obviously, the Irish are betting big that he’s going to develop here and his potential could be massive.

WR Devin Fitzgerald

If any of our readers weren’t real locked in during the spring, we’re here to say that Devin Fitzgerald was probably the most thoroughly impressive true freshman to enroll early on offense. Followed closely by Bubba Frazier but Fitzgerald at least showed more in the public viewings and might have a chance to make an impact early as a boundary receiver. I don’t think a starting position is in the cards just yet, although there could be plenty of opportunity to see the field in these September games with a solid camp.

TE Ian Premer

Nearly every freshmen enrolled early this past spring but one who didn’t just happens to be a 5-star and the no. 1 tight end recruit in the country. There has been talk about Premer looking really, really impressive during Notre Dame’s summer workouts and that he’ll be ready to make a statement when the pads are strapped on in August. That is pretty exciting.

From Great Bend to South Bend.

LT Will Black

We need to be talking more about the audacity and bold decision taking in the spring to unseat and move a two-year starter at left tackle (who has been at minimum pretty good so far in his career!) for a green redshirt freshman. This is potentially a massive storyline to the season that could blow up in the face of the coaching staff. On the flip side, if they are convinced this is the right decision, Will Black (an elite recruit with big time pedigree) must be impressing so much that this had to be done now.

5 Quick Thoughts

#1 

This has to be the most wide receivers Notre Dame has carried into a fall camp in 30+ years. There’s just crazy depth all over the place and I can’t wait to see how things shake out during camp. It’s been a long time since the Irish really went 6-deep or more at receiver and maybe with Carr’s emerging ability this is going to be a season where we’re not running just 3 or 4 guys into the ground while everyone else sits on the bench.

#2

Of course we’ll be keeping an eye out on the snap counts (as much as it’s possible during practices) and how the depth chart is going to look for all of the quarterbacks not named CJ Carr. Many people were pleasantly surprised by Noah Grubbs during the spring and now the more highly touted Teddy Jarrard gets to show himself for the first time in college after reclassifying.

Not one but two new quarterbacks making their fall camp debut. 

#3

Do we think anyone at tight end is capable of grabbing the undisputed no. 1 role after a couple of weeks of camp? Flanagan, Washington, and Larsen have played enough but never showed they were developing into that type of player. Flanagan, coming off the Achilles injury which is now quite far away, is the one veteran who might have enough to be the top choice in September. But, I couldn’t bet money on it. Things could be wide open at this position.

#4

Eight players were working during the spring in the return game. From that group, we had two tall defensive backs (Dallas Golden and Ayden Pouncey). Freeman has shown he won’t shy away from a defender in the return game so I won’t rule either of them out. Then we have the shorter guys in Aneyas Williams, Nolan James, Jordan Faison, Bubba Frazier, and Jonaz Walton. I like Faison to win the punt return job. Mylan Graham was the other athlete practicing as a returner in the spring and his profile as a taller, longer athlete seems to fit the kick return game pretty well.

#5

If he’s healthy my pick on offense to surprise people is Kedren Young. He’s by far the heaviest running back on the roster (234 pounds!) and his body-type could be useful in this offense. Plus, he was an impressively quick athlete in the limited mop-up duty he had back in 2024. He should be excited to return to the field and might be an early “this guy is built different!” shoutout from the media.

Freshmen Numbers

Notre Dame’s brutal 2004 recruiting class was 16 members strong. Notre Dame has welcomed 17 players for 2026 just on offense. A reminder that Jarrard, Premer, Nichols, and Patrick were the only freshmen who did NOT enroll early.

QB Noah Grubbs #10
QB Teddy Jarrard #9
RB Javian Osborne #26
RB Jonas Walton #20
WR Dylan Faison #16
WR Bubba Frazier #4
WR Kaydon Finley #18
WR Devin Fitzgerald #11
WR Brayden Robinson #15
TE Preston Fryzel #84
TE Ian Premer #24
OL Ben Nichols #51
OL Sullivan Garvin #50
OL Tyler Merrill #66
OL Gregory Patrick #67
OL Grayson McKeogh #65
OL Charlie Thom #68