Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1542428
BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM FEBRUARY 2026 11 UNDER THE DOME Jordan Faison To Focus On Football Junior wide receiver Jordan Faison is moving on from lacrosse and focusing solely on football for his senior year, a source told Blue & Gold Illustrated Jan. 2. Faison played both sports his first two years for the Irish. Faison has been mulling this move since his breakout freshman season with Notre Dame football in 2023. Despite first joining the football program as a walk-on, Faison emerged as one of quarterback Sam Hartman's favorite targets, catching 19 passes for 322 yards and 4 touchdowns. After earning MVP honors in the 2023 Sun Bowl, Faison, who was recruited by the Irish lacrosse program, quickly joined the team and helped them capture their second national championship. He started all 17 games, scored 22 goals and added 8 assists. Inside Lacrosse named him an honorable mention All-American. On the gridiron as a sophomore in 2024, Faison battled through an ankle injury but caught 30 passes for 356 yards and 1 touchdown. During the 2025 lacrosse season, he appeared in 12 games and recorded 14 points (9 goals and 5 assists). He also remained engaged with the football program, participating in multiple spring practices after Notre Dame's 16-game season. His contribution to the football program was a collaborative effort between head football coach Marcus Freeman and head lacrosse coach Kevin Corrigan. "We're working together well," Freeman said last spring. "He's probably get- ting more football in this spring than he did last year. I think it was important that we gave Jordan a significant time away from football or lacrosse after the season. It was important we gave his body time to rest before he got integrated in lacrosse." A fully healthy Faison helped make 2025 his best season yet. As the Irish's starting field wide receiver, he led the team with 640 yards on 49 receptions and scored 4 touchdowns. He also fielded 15 punts for 153 yards. Faison has even bigger aspirations for his senior season. A source told Blue & Gold Illustrated that in addition to wanting to elevate the Irish passing game, Faison is hoping to continue to showcase his skills to NFL scouts. He is expected to exhaust his football eligibility and declare for the NFL Draft after 2026. — Kyle Kelly Jeremiyah Love And Leonard Moore Named 2025 Unanimous All-Americans Jeremiyah Love and Leonard Moore etched their names amongst those in another category of Notre Dame football royalty. They're the 34th and 35th unanimous All-Americans in the program's proud and storied history. The inclusion of Love and Moore as 2025 unanimous All-Americans became official when the Football Writers Association of America added them to its first team in mid-December. The FWAA was the fifth and final accredited organization to release its All-America honorees, the others being the Walter Camp Football Foundation, the Associated Press, the American Football Coaches Association and Sporting News. A clean five-for-five sweep in terms of first-team nods makes one a unani- mous All-American. Love, the Doak Walker Award winner and the third-place finisher in Heisman Trophy voting, and Moore, who led Notre Dame with 5 interceptions in 10 games played, fit the description. Love and Moore are Notre Dame's first unanimous All-Americans since Joe Alt and Xavier Watts in 2023. Of the 35 in Notre Dame's history, four players accomplished the feat twice. Thus, Notre Dame has had 39 unani- mous All-America selections in total, which is second all-time behind Alabama (41). Love and Moore were two of 13 unanimous All-Americans across the country in 2025. Ohio State and Texas Tech were the only other two programs to have multiple this season. In addition, running back Jadarian Price was recognized by four of the five major organizations as a kick returner, including a first-team nod from Sporting News, and offensive lineman Billy Schrauth received a second- team mention from the AFCA. — Tyler Horka Notre Dame Drops Southern Cal From 2026 Schedule But Quickly Adds BYU Notre Dame declined an invitation to the Pop-Tarts Bowl, where it would have faced Brigham Young. But the Irish will welcome the opportunity to take on the Cougars in the regular season. Notre Dame scheduled a home-and-home with BYU, beginning next season in Provo, Utah. Dates for the pair of games in 2026 and 2027 are yet to be announced. The BYU matchup is a direct response to Notre Dame's negotiations with South- ern Cal falling apart. The Irish and Trojans will not face each other next season. Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger reported Notre Dame and Southern Cal are working to restart the series as early as 2030, but 2026 will be the first time the Irish and Trojans will not play each other — excluding the "COVID year" in 2020 — in nearly 80 years. Dellenger called the fizzling out of the Notre Dame-Southern Cal series a "stunning about-face" considering the two sides were on the verge of an agree- ment to keep the game going without pause. That went up in smoke because of an inability to get on the same page about an appropriate time of year to schedule the matchup. As replacement opponents go, Notre Dame did well with BYU. The Cougars are a program on the rise, and they recently pooled enough money together to retain head coach Kalani Sitake when Penn State tried to hire him. Sitake led BYU to a 11-2 season in 2024 and a 12-2 mark in 2025, including a Pop-Tarts Bowl win (25-21) over Georgia Tech Dec. 27. With BYU in the fold, Notre Dame has 11 games firmly on its 2026 schedule. The 12th could be filled by Stanford, another longstanding rivalry, but nothing is finalized on that front yet. — Jack Soble The Fighting Irish defeated the Cougars 28-20 at Las Vegas in their most recent meeting in 2022 and lead the all-time series between the two pro- grams 7-2. PHOTO BY DAVID BECKER