Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM JANUARY 2026 11 UNDER THE DOME ✦ BY THE NUMBERS 0 Decommitments in Notre Dame's 2026 football recruiting class. Every other Power Four team in college football had at least one decommit- ment during this recruiting cycle. The last time the Fighting Irish completed a recruiting cycle without a commitment exiting its class was 2016. 1st ACC/SEC Challenge win for the Notre Dame men's basketball team was a 76-71 home victory over Missouri Dec. 2. The Irish lost in road games at South Carolina (65-53) in 2023 and at Georgia (69-48) in 2024. 2 Notre Dame signees were rated by Rivals as five-star recruits on Na- tional Signing Day Dec. 3: offensive tackle Grayson McKeogh (No. 9 overall player) and defensive lineman RODNEY DUNHAM (No. 17). Cornerback Khary Adams (No. 26), tight end Ian Premer (No. 28) and safety Joey O'Brien (No. 31) were also ranked in the range that could get them elevated to five-star status when Rivals makes the final decision on their star status. Defensive lineman Ebenezer Ewetade (No. 28) and safety Ayden Pouncey (No. 96) gave the Irish seven Rivals 100 recruits in their class. 7th Is where The Athletic slotted Notre Dame in its end- of-regular-season offensive line rankings. Ahead of the Irish were Indiana (No. 1), Utah (No. 2), Ohio State (No. 3), Oregon (No. 4), North Texas (No. 5) and Miami (No. 6). Geor- gia Tech (No. 8), Southern Cal (No. 9) and Georgia (No. 10) rounded out the top 10. "How does a team go 10-2 with Notre Dame's sched- ule and a redshirt freshman quarterback? Its offen- sive line gives up just 5 sacks all year," The Athletic's Nick Baumgardner noted. "Plenty of credit here goes to QB CJ Carr, of course, but Notre Dame's offensive line has been very consistent during a 10-game win streak that followed losses to Miami (by three) and Texas A&M (by one). "Athletic junior right tackle Aamil Wagner took a major step forward in his protection this season — he's allowed just 1 sack and 7 pres- sures over 12 starts (down from 29 pressures allowed last season). The Irish have been hit by injuries up front more than most, but their depth has really shown up. Sophomore center Joe Otting has yet to allow a sack in nine starts as a replace- ment for the injured Ashton Craig." 13 Times the ACC Network re-aired the replay of the Miami-Notre Dame game — a 27-24 win by the Hurricanes Aug. 31 — during the week leading up to the College Football Playoff field being selected Dec. 7. 21 Interceptions for Notre Dame through 12 games, tied with Southern Miss for the most interceptions in the country during the regular season. Ten different players intercepted at least one pass for the Irish this season. Sophomore cornerback Leonard Moore led the way with 5 picks. Others with multiple interceptions were redshirt freshman safety Tae Johnson (4), junior safety Luke Talich (3), junior cornerback Christian Gray (2) and redshirt sophomore safety Adon Shuler (2). 35:54 Out of 360:00 minutes was the total amount of time the Notre Dame football team trailed in the second half during its 12-game season. The Irish faced a second-deficit three times all season — against Miami, Texas A&M and Southern Cal, with their 14-point deficit (21-7) against the Hurricanes in the season opener being the largest. The Irish also were tied or leading by one score in the second half for a total of 85:56 while finishing the season with a scoring margin of +24.6 points per game (42.0-17.6). 38 Goals in 41 career matches for Izzy Engle through her sophomore season at Notre Dame. The career record for goals at Notre Dame is 84 by Kerri Hanks in 103 matches from 2005-08. Engle's current pace would put her at No. 2 on the Irish career list, just ahead of Jenny Heft, who tallied 80 goals in 96 games from 1996-99. In her second season in South Bend, Engle scored 44 points across 19 matches, which was the third-best in the nation in points per game (2.32) as of Dec. 4. She tallied 19 goals, which was fifth nation- ally, for the second consecutive season. She was named the ACC Offensive Player of the Year, first-team All-ACC and first-team All-Atlantic Region, plus was tabbed as one of 15 semifinalists for the 2025 MAC Hermann Trophy, which is given to the nation's best player. 70.9 Percent stop rate — the percentage of a defense's drives that end in punts, turnovers or a turnover on downs — for the Notre Dame defense during the 12-game regular season. The Fighting Irish allowed only 1.53 points per drive, which ranked 18th in the country. 110 Steals for the Notre Dame women's basketball in its first six games this season. The Fighting Irish led the nation with an average of 18.3 steals per game through Dec. 3. Junior point guard Hannah Hidalgo was responsible for 6.2 steals per contest — also No. 1 in the country —but was not alone in her thievery. Four of the top seven steal-getters in the ACC were Irish players as of Dec. 3 — Hidalgo was first, graduate student guard Vanessa de Jesus (3.0) was fourth, senior guard Cass Prosper (2.7) was fifth and graduate student forward Malaya Cowles (1.7) was seventh. The Irish have already posted multiple games with 20 or more steals for the first time since 2012-13 and have three games with at least 25 forced turnovers for the first time since 2011-12. 119 Points scored by Notre Dame in its final two regular-season football games against Syracuse (70) and Stanford (49). That is the most points scored by the Irish in a two-game stretch in the Associated Press poll era, per ESPN. 185 Points, 37 assists and 16 steals for junior point guard Markus Burton, before he suffered an ankle injury 10 minutes into Game 10 of the Notre Dame's 2025-26 season at TCU Dec. 5. That marked just the fourth instance since 1996 that a Fighting Irish men's basketball player has compiled at least 180 points, 30 assists and 15 steals through his first 10 games of a season. The others to do it were Jerian Grant in both 2014-15 (190 points, 61 assists and 17 steals) and 2013-14 (187 points, 61 assists and 21 steals), and Chris Thomas in 2002-03 (182 points, 75 assists and 20 steals). — Tyler James PHOTO COURTESY MYERS PARK HIGH SCHOOL