Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1539020
52 SEPT. 13, 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED N otre Dame's potential path to a national cham- pionship in the 2025 sea- son could be unprecedented in the College Football Playoff era. That's because no national championship winner since the playoff system crowned a champion at the end of the 2014 season has begun their season against consecutive ranked opponents. Notre Dame's mini-gauntlet of Miami and Texas A&M — both of which were ranked in the Associated Press Preseason Top 25 — to start the season is quite different than the paths the last two national champi- ons took to start the season. Ohio State, the reigning champions as the winner of the first 12-team play- off, didn't play an AP top-25 team until its sixth game last season, which was a 32-31 loss at No. 3 Oregon. Michigan, the sign-stealing champion of the last four-team playoff in 2023, didn't play an AP top-25 team until its 10th game of the season, which was a 24-15 win at No. 9 Penn State. Soft launching into a college football season has proven beneficial in the last two seasons, but that doesn't necessar- ily mean Notre Dame needs to recon- figure its future schedules. The Irish don't have to follow head coach Mar- cus Freeman's motto of "choose hard" at the start of every season. However, early season games will continue to be important to strengthen Notre Dame's schedules. When the SEC joins the Big Ten with nine-game conference schedules in 2026, the options for Notre Dame to add schools in those conferences will be limited even further. The SEC, which announced its conference schedule ex- pansion last week, allowed Notre Dame to remain a feasible option for its con- ference members by requiring programs to schedule "one additional, high qual- ity non-conference" game against the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 or Notre Dame. Not only should that allow games against Texas, Arkansas, Alabama and Florida to remain on future Notre Dame schedules through 2032, but it should encourage other tough matchups against opposing conferences. All six of the national champions from the SEC in the CFP era played at least one ranked team in their first two games of those respective seasons. Ala- bama opened against No. 20 Wisconsin in 2015. It opened against No. 3 Florida State in 2017. LSU played its second game against No. 9 Texas in 2019. Alabama played against No. 13 Texas A&M in its second game of 2020. Georgia opened against No. 3 Clemson and No. 11 Oregon in the 2021 and 2022 seasons, respectively, on the path to national titles. Maybe the Big Ten will follow suit with some nonconference requirements to strengthen its cause for College Foot- ball Playoff automatic qualifiers in the future format that remains unsettled. But the past two seasons have seemingly made the conference only more brazen in flexing its power and doing whatever it wants. Notre Dame's September schedules in 2026 and 2027 are slated to be heavy with Big Ten opponents — Wisconsin in 2026 and Michigan State and Purdue in both seasons. Though those three programs aren't at their strongest right now, it's com- mendable that Notre Dame scheduled the games. The Irish should continue to push the envelope with Sep- tember scheduling. It might not make life easy for Notre Dame's coaching staff, but the ACC hasn't provided enough ranked teams on Notre Dame's sc h e d u l e i n re ce n t yea rs. Of Notre Dame's 20 games against ACC opponents in the past four seasons, only five of those teams were ranked in the AP Top 25 at the time of the games. That means it's hard for Notre Dame to count on two ranked matchups from its annual ACC schedule allotment of roughly five games. Maybe Notre Dame's aggressive scheduling to start this season will come back to haunt them. Fortunately, the off week between Miami and Texas A&M gives the Irish extra time to prepare to host the Aggies. It won't take long to learn if Notre Dame's runner-up finish last season was a turning point in the evolution of the program under Freeman. If Freeman is truly elevating Notre Dame to the heights the Irish are his- torically used to, Notre Dame's playoff hopes won't be nearly wrecked again be- fore mid-September. The loss to North- ern Illinois last season proved to be but a speed bump for accelerating the team's growth. But Notre Dame likely doesn't find the silver lining in that loss if it hadn't risen to the occasion at No. 20 Texas A&M the week prior to disaster. The expanded playoff forces teams to earn a national championship in De- cember and January. That shouldn't make September less interesting. The Irish are fighting for their right to get back to the playoff from the jump, and that could pay dividends in a few months. ✦ Head coach Marcus Freeman preaches the motto "choose hard" to recruits and players. The Irish don't have any easy path to start the 2025 season. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER Notre Dame Choosing Hard In Scheduling Tyler James has been covering Notre Dame athletics since 2011. He can be reached on X (Twitter) @TJamesND. FIRST AND LAST TYLER JAMES