(Photo: Chad Ryan/Fighting Irish Preview)
First and Fitzharris: A Weekly Look at Notre Dame Football
Notre Dame enters the 2026 season with unfinished business.
After being left out of last year’s College Football Playoff, the Irish enter this season with championship expectations and very little margin for error. The schedule features rivalry games, tricky road trips and several opponents with legitimate postseason aspirations of their own.
So how will it play out?
First and Fitzharris breaks down every game on Notre Dame’s 2026 regular-season schedule and makes a prediction for each one.
Notre Dame vs. Wisconsin (2025: 4-8) — Lambeau Field
The season begins at Lambeau Field, and that alone makes this one fascinating.
Luke Fickell desperately needs a signature win after three disappointing seasons at Wisconsin. Fickell and Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman know each other well from their time together at Cincinnati, and the Badgers are expected to be improved from last season.
Wisconsin will turn to Old Dominion transfer Colton Joseph at quarterback, and his ability to make plays with both his arm and his legs gives Notre Dame something to worry about in the opener.
Still, Notre Dame simply has more talent on both sides of the ball. The Irish may take a quarter or two to settle into the season, but CJ Carr and the Notre Dame defense eventually take control.
The pick: Notre Dame 38-14 (1-0)
Notre Dame vs. Rice (2025: 5-8)
Notre Dame settles into a much easier matchup in its home opener against Rice, which struggled significantly in the American Conference last season.
Not much analysis is needed here. The talent gap is enormous, and the Irish should be able to do just about whatever they want on both sides of the football.
The pick: Notre Dame 48-7 (2-0)
Notre Dame vs. Michigan State (2025: 4-8)
Now we get the first real test at Notre Dame Stadium.
Michigan State is undergoing another rebuilding effort under former Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald, and the Spartans will be motivated in their first trip to South Bend in nearly a decade. This matchup has produced plenty of memorable games over the years.
Michigan State will turn to redshirt sophomore Alessio Milivojevic at quarterback and must replace its best receiver from last season, Nick Marsh. Notre Dame’s secondary, led by Leonard Moore, should be able to put Milivojevic under pressure and force him into critical mistakes.
The pick: Notre Dame 31-13 (3-0)
Notre Dame @ Purdue (2025: 2-10)
Purdue is trying to beat Notre Dame for the first time since 2007. Since then, the Irish have won 10 straight against the Boilermakers, including the last two meetings by a combined score of 122-37.
Purdue finished last in the Big Ten a year ago but is expected to be improved. The problem is that the talent gap between these two teams remains extremely wide.
Notre Dame walks into West Lafayette and takes care of business.
The pick: Notre Dame 42-17 (4-0)
Notre Dame @ North Carolina (2025: 4-8)
What an opening victory it was for North Carolina to begin the 2026 season.
Bill Belichick and the Tar Heels defeated TCU 15-10 in Dublin, holding the Horned Frogs scoreless for the final 49 minutes of the game. It was an impressive way to begin Belichick’s second season after a disappointing 4-8 debut in Chapel Hill.
The Tar Heels are led by veteran quarterback Billy Edwards Jr., who threw for 232 yards in the victory over TCU. North Carolina clearly has reason to believe it is improved, and a road trip to Chapel Hill now looks more dangerous than it did before the season began.
I expect this game to look a little like last year’s Boston College game for Notre Dame. At some point during a long season, even great teams have a week when they aren’t at their best. This feels like one of those spots.
North Carolina hangs around longer than Irish fans would like, but Notre Dame eventually puts it away.
The pick: Notre Dame 31-23 (5-0)
Notre Dame vs. Stanford (2025: 4-8)
Stanford continues to rebuild its football program, and this is a matchup Notre Dame should control from the start.
The Cardinal have significant questions defensively, and that is a bad combination against CJ Carr and an Irish offense loaded with weapons.
After surviving a tougher-than-expected game at North Carolina, Notre Dame returns home and makes sure this one is never in doubt.
The pick: Notre Dame 52-10 (6-0)
Notre Dame @ BYU (2025: 12-2)
Here is the first massive test for the Irish: a trip to Provo to face a very good BYU team.
There is also an interesting connection between these two programs. Notre Dame and BYU both finished on the wrong side of the College Football Playoff bubble last season. Notre Dame finished No. 11 in the final CFP rankings and BYU No. 12, leaving both teams out of the field. BYU then beat Georgia Tech in the Pop-Tarts Bowl to finish 12-2.
The Cougars have one of the best running backs in the country in LJ Martin. At 6-foot-2 and 225 pounds, Martin rushed for 1,305 yards and 12 touchdowns last season. He is an absolute freight train and presents a major challenge for a Notre Dame defensive front that will have something to prove against the run.
Notre Dame added Alabama transfer Keon Keeley and Pittsburgh transfer Francis Brewu during the offseason to strengthen its defensive line. We should learn a lot about that group against Martin.
And BYU isn’t one-dimensional. Quarterback Bear Bachmeier returns after an impressive 2025 season, giving the Cougars the kind of balanced offense capable of causing Notre Dame problems.
This feels like a four-quarter game. In the end, Carr and the Irish offense make a couple of crucial plays late, and Notre Dame survives its toughest road test of the season.
The pick: Notre Dame 31-27 (7-0)
Notre Dame @ Navy (2025: 11-2) — Gillette Stadium
Navy is coming off an impressive 11-2 season and could once again be a factor in the race for the Group of Five’s spot in the College Football Playoff.
The biggest question is how the Midshipmen replace star quarterback Blake Horvath. Those are enormous shoes to fill, but Navy has proven year after year that it can reload and remain difficult to prepare for.
Notre Dame has the added advantage of coming off its bye week, giving the Irish extra preparation time for Navy’s unique offense. Notre Dame takes advantage of its offensive opportunities and pulls away.
The pick: Notre Dame 37-13 (8-0)
Notre Dame vs. Miami (2025: 13-3, National Championship Runner-Up)
Potentially the game of the year — and definitely one of the most anticipated rematches of the regular season.
Last year’s opener between Notre Dame and Miami ended up carrying far more weight than anyone realized at the time. Miami won an instant classic in CJ Carr’s first career start, with several costly turnovers ultimately helping decide the game.
Months later, that loss proved enormous. Miami received a College Football Playoff bid while Notre Dame was left out, and the Hurricanes took advantage of the opportunity by advancing all the way to the National Championship Game before losing to Indiana.
Now Miami comes to South Bend.
The Hurricanes lost quarterback Carson Beck and two dominant defensive linemen, including Rueben Bain Jr., but they reloaded with one of the country’s best quarterbacks in Darian Mensah. He also has one of college football’s most dangerous weapons in Malachi Toney.
This will be a tremendous test for Notre Dame’s defense.
But the circumstances are dramatically different from last year’s meeting. This time Miami has to come north, into Notre Dame Stadium, in November, with an Irish team that will have spent an entire year remembering what happened in Miami and what that loss ultimately cost them.
In a game that could have major CFP implications once again, Notre Dame gets its revenge.
The pick: Notre Dame 28-24 (9-0)
Notre Dame vs. Boston College (2025: 2-10)
Boston College has seen better days.
The Eagles stumbled to a 2-10 record last season, although one of their better performances came when they gave Notre Dame a surprisingly difficult game in Chestnut Hill.
Still, the facts are the facts: Notre Dame has not lost to Boston College since 2008 and has won 10 straight in the series.
Coming off an emotional win over Miami, there is always some danger of a letdown. But this Notre Dame team has too much at stake to allow it.
Expect a very different game from last year’s meeting.
The pick: Notre Dame 42-3 (10-0)
Notre Dame vs. SMU (2025: 9-4)
Do not overlook this one.
SMU followed its 2024 CFP appearance with another solid season in 2025, and the Mustangs are led by experienced quarterback Kevin Jennings. This is also a program that has shown it can win big games, including a victory over Miami last season.
There is a very real possibility that SMU arrives in South Bend with only one loss and its own College Football Playoff hopes still alive. That could make this one of the biggest games anywhere in the country that weekend.
By this point, Notre Dame could also be 10-0, meaning the pressure surrounding this game would be enormous.
SMU gives the Irish everything they can handle, but winning in Notre Dame Stadium in late November is no small task. The Mustangs come up one score short of a massive victory.
The pick: Notre Dame 27-20 (11-0)
Notre Dame @ Syracuse (2025: 3-9)
One game left.
Notre Dame enters the regular-season finale with a chance to finish 12-0 for the first time since 2018, while Syracuse gets an opportunity to wreck an undefeated season in front of its home crowd.
The JMA Wireless Dome has been the site of some memorable upsets over the years, and Notre Dame cannot afford to look ahead to the College Football Playoff.
It won’t.
The Irish take care of business, complete an undefeated regular season and turn their attention toward the opportunity they’ve been chasing all year: winning Notre Dame’s first national championship since 1988.
The pick: Notre Dame 35-7 (12-0)
Predicting a 12-0 season is bold. BYU will be dangerous. Miami could be a classic. SMU may be much better than people realize. Somewhere along the way, Notre Dame will almost certainly find itself in a fourth quarter with everything on the line.
But game by game, I keep coming back to the same conclusion.
Notre Dame goes 12-0.
And a season like that will Leave No Doubt.