Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM PRESEASON 2026 77 I t's that time of year again: People have opinions about Notre Dame's sched- ule, and most of them are not positive. Plenty of college football fans love to hate the Irish, and said haters typically pounce on any opportunity to say Notre Dame plays nothing but cupcakes. The truth is, those who complain about Notre Dame's 2026 schedule are neither entirely wrong nor entirely right. Blue & Gold Illustrated parses fact from fiction regarding popular criticisms here. What The Haters Get Right: Notre Dame's 2026 Schedule Is Weak The most generous term you can use to describe Notre Dame's 2026 sched- ule is top heavy. Miami should be in the national championship mix again, BYU enters the season with legitimate play- off aspirations, and some believe SMU can make a dark-horse run as well. The rest of it? Oh boy. Eight of the remaining nine teams Notre Dame faces this season lost eight or more games in 2025. The ninth is Navy, whom the Irish defeated by an average of 41 points per game in their last three matchups. While 2026 is ob- viously a new season, it does not look like many of those eight-loss teams will experience immediate turnarounds. What The Haters Get Wrong: No t re Da m e 's S c h e d u l e I s No t Uniquely Weak Among Contenders Going off ESPN's FPI, Notre Dame's schedule is the second-worst among the top 10 teams in college football. It ranks 56th, ahead of Texas Tech (71st) and in the ballpark of Miami (45th). In- diana's schedule (33rd) and Oregon's (26th) also fall outside the top 25. Meanwhile, two other teams with College Football Playoff goals have schedules that rank either worse than or similar to Notre Dame's — Penn State at No. 62 and BYU at No. 55. If the Irish were in the ACC, their schedule would rank 14th out of 18 teams. If they were in the Big 12, it would rank 10th out of 17. The point is, while Notre Dame's schedule is certainly on the low end of Power Four teams, it's not an out lier by any stretch of the imagination. The idea that a proud program playing a bad schedule is a phenomenon unique to Notre Dame is complete nonsense. What The Haters Get Wrong: The Irish Do Not "Hand-Pick" Their Schedule The retort you often see when Notre Dame fans and writers make this argu- ment is, "Notre Dame deserves more criticism because it hand-picks its schedule. Everyone else's is created by their conference." That statement falls somewhere between extremely mis- leading and just not true. The Irish face an average of five ACC teams per season. This year, they play six. Two of their ACC opponents — Mi- ami and SMU — are the runaway favor- ites to play for the conference title. The other four, according to the preseason media poll, are the projected four worst teams in the conference. Those opponents are chosen by the ACC as part of an annual rotation. It is not Notre Dame's fault that the majority are supposed to be terrible. The remaining six games are indeed scheduled independently by the Irish, but that fact requires a great deal of context. When Notre Dame scheduled Wisconsin and Michigan State, it did not think those programs — both of which have five 10-win seasons over the past 15 years — would be at historical low points. What The Haters Get Wrong: Notre Dame's Schedule Does Not Automat- ically Make The Irish Overrated This should not be necessary to say out loud, but Take Culture does what it does. Obviously, you can only play the teams in front of you. According to the CFP rankings, the best team Notre Dame de- feated when it won 10 straight regular- season games after falling to Northern Illinois in 2024 was Army. Last year, In- diana only beat one team that finished the regular season ranked. None of that mattered in December and January. You might hear some noise to the contrary during the fall, so let me spell it out right here: A 12-0 or 11-1 Notre Dame team will make the College Foot- ball Playoff, no questions asked. And the Irish should be considered a real threat to make a run when they do. What The Haters Get Right: But It Does Reduce Their Margin For Error However, what if Notre Dame goes 10-2 with losses to Miami at home and BYU on the road? In that event, the schedule would have to come back into play. Think about what happened last year, ignoring the committee's wildly incon- sistent logic, the nonsensical swap at the end and the strange insistence to keep Alabama afloat. Strip all of that away and just look at Notre Dame's résumé. The Irish went 10-2 with losses to the two best teams they played — including their only direct, side-by-side comparison against a bubble team — and their best win came at home over No. 16 Southern Cal. That résumé absolutely put them at risk of missing the CFP, despite most metrics rating them as a title contender. A 10-2 mark with losses to Miami and BYU would give Notre Dame more or less the same résumé, assuming SMU lands somewhere in the back half of the top 25. That's where the schedule hurts be- cause the Irish have fewer chances to earn quality wins. Because their list of oppo- nents is so top heavy, they must take ad- vantage of the opportunities they have. ✦ A close loss to Miami left a College Football Playoff berth out of reach for the Irish in 2025, and the same thing could happen again in 2026 due to another top-heavy schedule. PHOTO COURTESY MIAMI ATHLETICS The Wrong And Right About Notre Dame's Schedule Staff writer Jack Soble has covered Notre Dame athletics for Blue & Gold Illustrated since August 2023. Contact him at Jack.Soble@on3.com. OFF THE DOME JACK SOBLE