Notre Dame football opened fall camp this past Thursday, July 31st as preparations are underway for the upcoming season of Fighting Irish football. Coming off by far his most successful season, Marcus Freeman has the program rowing together in a positive direction but the national spotlight remains bright on a team that will open 2025 with a high ranking and a couple of big early season challenges. This is a fall camp where there’s no time to mess around.

Here are the top 20 storylines surrounding the football team:

#1

We wondered if the quarterback competition would see Minchey and Carr split 1st team reps within the same practice or opt for the strategy of one guy stays with the 1st team for the entire practice before going back to the 2nd team the next. With Thursday’s workout, the answer seems to the former as Minchey stayed with the starters for the whole practice.

#2

A brief freak out was caused (football is back!) when both quarterbacks were deemed to look just okay during the full media viewing for practice number one. Carr also threw 3 interceptions, although in his defense a pair of those were incredible individual efforts (by Tae Johnson and Karson Hobbs, respectively) and the defense should be winning the majority of the team battles this August with inexperienced quarterbacks at the helm.

#3

Tyler Buchner is back at quarterback. He’s also wearing #10 so make a mental note. Buchner began his career in South Bend with #12, wore #8 at Alabama, switched to #26 last year back with the Irish, and is now back with the quarterback aura-farming #10.

#4

As expected, the physical talent of the running back room was apparent by all in attendance, led by none other than Jeremiyah Love. Also worth a shout is true freshman Nolan James being built like a small apartment building. Listed at 5’10” he’s the same height as sophomore Aneyas Williams but 10 pounds heavier. And it looks like it’s all muscle everywhere.

#5

The leaders in the wide receiver depth chart look like this:

Field: Jordan Faison, KK Smith, Elijah Burress
Slot: Jaden Greathouse, Will Pauling
Boundary: Malachi Fields, Micah Gilbert, Cam Williams

 

It’s early days but it’s possible redshirt freshman Logan Saldate is being passed up and true freshmen Jerome Bettis Jr. and Scrap Richardson are very likely redshirting.

#6

I swear to God every fall camp has wide receiver hype that usually never fulfils its promise. If there was something the offense really needed to see quickly it was one veteran and one youngster shining and both Fields and Burress look to be obliging. Are we actually going to see a skilled and deep wide receiver corps!? Fields looks massive and moves very well for his size and Burress is already comfortable out there coming off a nice spring.

#7

Not a whole lot going on with the tight end group at present. This is a tough position to critique without team work in pads. I thought it was interesting that incoming transfer Ty Washington is going through his first practices at Notre Dame and already felt comfortable enough to throw this hand grenade of a quote towards Fayetteville:

My early feeling is that the trip to Arkansas has trap game vibes all over it that’s either going to be a super close nail biter or Notre Dame in fact sends the crowd home early with a dominant performance in SEC land. Either way, Washington’s comments raise an eyebrow.

#8

Not a ton of surprises with the offensive line during camp so far, but there are a few interesting nuggets worth mentioning. But first, the 3-deep from the beginning, from left to right across the line:

Knapp–Schrauth–Craig–Absher–Wagner
Prescod–Jones–Otting–Terek–Lambert
Augustine–Black–Herron–Houstan–Strebig

#9

We don’t get as many rumors from the beat media as we used to but I like to watch the language everyone uses with certain position competitions. I get the sense not many expect Sullivan Absher to be challenged during fall camp for the right guard spot.

#10

Guerby Lambert is back! Apparently he’s fully healthy coming off shoulder surgery to repair a torn labrum back in late March or early April. I wasn’t expecting this and it’s a huge deal for the depth and talent of the offensive line to start the season.

#11

Top 2025 Irish recruit Will Black practicing at guard as the no. 4 Composite tackle prospect might seem weird but as we mentioned in the fall camp offense preview there was a lot of attrition on the interior from 2024 and this might be the quickest way for Black to see the field early in his career. I don’t think it’s crazy to think by October he’s the next man in behind Schrauth and Absher at either guard position.

#12

Jordan Botelho wasn’t in sweatpants. He also wasn’t half dressed in gear and lightly jogging off to the side with a trainer or two. Nope, he was dressed in his football gear (no pads on day one of course) with helmet and even went through some drills. Amazing stuff. He tore his pectoral around 2 months ago and at least appears much closer to seeing the field in a game than previously reported.

#13

Former middle linebacker and redshirt freshman Preston Zinter has moved to defensive end. It’s a small surprise as Zinter wasn’t exactly buried beyond belief at linebacker but the truth is probably that Drayk Bowen, KVA, Jaylen Sneed, and Jaiden Ausberry are going to gobble up so many of the snaps. This move also clears the path a little more for star freshman Madden Faraimo.

#14

The top 2 units along the defensive line pretty much went chalk against expectations coming into camp:

Traore–Hinish–Rubio–Burnham
Tuihalamaka–Onye–Dawson–Young

While the quick healing nature of Botelho was great to see it’s perhaps bigger news that Boubacar Traore is close to full health. He’ll be experiencing plenty of load management during August and that’s just smart. In all likelihood, these will be the top 8 guys the defense is rolling with when they get off the bus in Miami and the depth chart looks a lot different without Traore in the mix.

#15

If additional bodies make their way up the depth chart and into playing time it’ll likely be defensive end Loghan Thomas, plus defensive tackles Armel Mukam and USC transfer Elijah Hughes. From a size and ability standpoint, I’d expect Mukam to be the best of the bunch out of this group.

#16

Notre Dame is now showing 114 roster spots this August, an increase of one player from the spring. Senior defensive lineman Kobi Onyiuke is back on the roster after leaving the program during the spring.

#17

Our friend Jamie Uyeyama at Irish Sports Daily pointed out that freshman linebacker Anthony Sacca looks too big at 240 pounds on his 6’3″ frame. Many, like our 18S report on the 2025 class, mentioned Sacca was reminiscent of 2024 class linebacker Teddy Rezac who also transitioned from safety during his high school career. The different was Sacca rapidly gained weight as a high school upperclassman and apparently might be a bit too big for linebacker at the moment!

#18

Cornerback depth was a concern heading into fall camp and all 3 of the freshmen are being thrown into the fire…for now. Neither Mark Zackery or Dallas Golden were here for the spring so we’re getting our first look at them. The former gained a little weight (up to 175 pounds!) and has a nice, long frame. I think Golden moved up a little bit into the favorite for the best non-EE defender in this class by catching the eye of many in the beat media. Plus, they’ve also put Golden on the punt return team with Greathouse and Aneyas Williams.

#19

Judging by the reactions early in fall camp the battle at safety is over. This is Tae Johnson’s time now. While in reality it remains to be seen if he’s actually savvy enough to be a no-doubt starter going into the first game, the hype is real for the redshirt freshman from Fort Wayne.

#20

Fingers crossed that the health situation continues. With Jagusah out (and helping with some coaching as he heals up) there’s only tight end Cooper Flanagan working off to the side recovering from his Achilles tear. Defensive lineman Brendan Vernon is still coming back from his knee injury and spends some time with the training staff while on Saturday safety Taebron Bennie-Powell was also in the Pit getting some attention from the medical team.