Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM SEPT. 20, 2025 11 UNDER THE DOME 2 True freshmen saw game action for the Fighting Irish in Notre Dame's season-opening 27-24 loss at Miami Aug. 31. That group — a surpris- ingly low number — was comprised of linebacker Madden Faraimo and cornerback Mark Zackery IV. No. 3 Is where Pro Football Focus ranked former Notre Dame and current Baltimore Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton among its top 25 players under 25 entering the 2025 NFL season. Hamilton's three-year grade from PFF is 92.0, just behind the top two play- ers in the rankings: offense tackle Penei Sewell (92.8) of the Detroit Lions and wide receiver Puka Nacua (92.5) of the Los Angeles Rams. Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels (90.6) and Kansas City Chiefs cor- nerback Trent McDuffie (90.1) rounded out the top five. 7th Was where Notre Dame director of athletics PETE BEVACQUA was ranked on USA Today's list of college football's 25 most power- ful people in 2025. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey was No. 1, followed by ESPN president of content Burke Magnus, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, FOX Sports president and COO Mark Silverman, antitrust attorneys Steve Berman and Jeffrey Kelly, federal judge Claudia Wilken and then Bevacqua. "Notre Dame remains one of the biggest brands in college football, and Bevacqua's influence on the sport matches it," USA Today noted. "Notre Dame's value on the national landscape gives Bevacqua a valuable seat at the table with major conferences and TV networks when the future of the sport is being molded." Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, NBC Sports president Rick Cordella, coaches' agent Jimmy Sexton, United States President Donald Trump, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, Mississippi State president Mark Keenum, Texas Tech booster and board regents chair Cody Campbell and Learfield CEO Cole Gahagan rounded out the top 15. 8 Consecutive years Notre Dame has collectively outscored its opponents in the fourth quarter over the course of a season. The last time it did not was 2016, when the Irish finished with a 4-8 overall record. The Irish got off to a good start in 2025, outscoring Miami 17-6 in the fourth quarter of their season opener. 9 Is Notre Dame's current winning streak in its series with Purdue. The last loss to the Boilermakers came in 2007, by a score of 33-19, and in a year in which the Irish lost a school-record nine games. 35th Year for NBC's TV partnership with Notre Dame football this season. The most-watched game in that span was the No. 1-versus-No. 2 matchup between Florida State and the Irish in 1993, with a TV audience of 22.02 million. A distant second was Notre Dame's 2023 matchup with Ohio State, which drew 10.6 million. Heading into this year's home opener with Texas A&M, Notre Dame was a collective 171-57-1 in NBC games during the contract and its subsequent extensions. 39 Former Irish players began the NFL regular season on a team's 53-man roster, which was tied with LSU for the fifth most among all colleges. Only Alabama (62), Georgia (57), Ohio State (57) and Michigan (44) had more. 60 Is the number of victories registered by Notre Dame against Purdue, the most against any Big Ten opponent, including the four recent Pac-12 additions. The Irish edge in the Purdue series is 60-26-2. Overall, Notre Dame is 317-170-22 collectively against the 18 Big Ten teams. The Irish have played at least two games against every league team and have not lost a game to seven of them — Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Rutgers, Oregon, UCLA and Washington. 63 Is the number of Notre Dame assistant coaches in program history who went on to become college head coaches. Two were inadver- tently left out of the Irish media guide and they faced each other Sept. 13 in Notre Dame Stadium — Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko, one of five current college head coaches, and current Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman. The other active head coaches from the Notre Dame coaching tree are Clark Lea (Vanderbilt), Lance Taylor (Western Michigan) and Gerad Parker (Troy). .756 Winning percentage in games immediately following bye weeks by the Notre Dame football program since the Irish invested in Jesse Harper as its first full-time head coach in 1913. That was heading into the post- bye week matchup with Texas A&M Sept. 13. Overall, Notre Dame football is win- ning at a .732 clip over the same time frame. Marcus Freeman was Notre Dame's only unbeaten post-bye coach (5-0) among those who presided over more than two. Legendary coach Knute Rockne and his successor, Hunk Anderson, are the only two Irish coaches to have losing records in post-bye week games, both 0-1. 1,169,634 People were in attendance for Notre Dame foot- ball contests during the 16-game 2024 season, the most in school history. It marked just the second time in program history more than one million people watched Fighting Irish football in person, with the other occurring during a 10-3 campaign in 2002 (1,008,793). — Eric Hansen ✦ BY THE NUMBERS PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER