Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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6 SEPT. 26, 2026 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY ERIC HANSEN A t this stage last season, none of the eventual four Heisman Trophy finalists had received a vote in On3's weekly poll. Of the 17 players who did, Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer led the pack, followed by Florida State quarterback Tommy Castellanos, LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier and Utah quarter- back Kevin Dampier. That gives Notre Dame quarterback CJ Carr's placement as the 15th-high- est vote-getter in this past week's 2026 Heisman poll some n e e d e d c o n te x t . Notre Dame coach M a rc u s Fre e m a n didn't even offer a shoulder shrug at that non-develop- ment heading into the Sept. 19 home game between the third-ranked Irish and exhumed rival Michigan State in the first clash be- tween the two schools since 2017. "Look, I don't pay much attention to it — any," Freeman said during his Sept. 17 call with the local media. "And I don't want to speak for CJ, but I know he's more concerned with doing what it takes to be the best player he can be and ultimately winning than he is based off the Heisman. "We've got to do what's best for the team, and that's a byproduct of a lot of different things. We dealt with it a little bit with Jeremiyah Love last year. As you get close to the very end of the season and you have an opportunity to be in- tentional about doing certain things to, one, win the game, but two, to help that person have a better opportunity to win the Heisman, we will. "But right now our focus is on doing what it takes to be the best players, the best team, and ultimately win. He's do- ing an excellent job." Love, now a rookie running back with the Arizona Cardinals, finished third in the Heisman voting behind Indiana quar- terback Fernando Mendoza and Vander- bilt quarterback Diego Pavia. Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin was fourth. Love was Notre Dame's first player to be invited to New York as a finalist since linebacker Manti Te'o in 2012, when he was the Heisman runner-up to Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel. Heisman ballots will be distributed Dec. 3, with voting closing and the fi- nalists announced Dec. 7. The winner will be unveiled Dec. 12. Notre Dame intentionally started its own Heisman push for Love in the regu- lar season's final month. "I told him that we shouldn't be push- ing him with that sort of labeling as like a Heisman candidate until everybody else is saying it," said Katy Lonergan, Notre Dame's associate athletics director for strategic and football communications. "Because it just seems to go better. "I thought USC did a really good job with Caleb Williams [in 2022]. They really didn't launch anything until the week they played us. And that was the last game of the year. "So, they kind of let him earn it com- pletely on the field before they started. It's just the nature of the world right now. If people are hearing about you too much, they're going to start to try to find reasons to not be happy with your performance. So anyway, he was com- pletely on board with that. "I told him that I thought it was im- portant that we knew what it would look like, so that when the moment comes, we're ready for the moment. We were not then, at that moment, getting stuff put together. So, we needed to have our plan." In other words, Notre Dame's strat- egy isn't to ignore a potential Heisman campaign in Sep- tember. It's to pre- pare for one with- o u t p re m a t u re l y creating it. Meanwhile, Carr through his first two games had thrown for 492 yards and 6 touchdowns with no interceptions. His 196.18 pass efficiency rating ranked 11th nationally and was al- most 30 points higher than the school- record 168.1 rating he posted as a first- year starter, which ranked fifth nationally. Beyond what Carr is doing for Notre Dame's present, the junior from Saline, Mich., is investing in the Irish quarter- back room's future, spending extra time with backups Noah Grubbs, Teddy Jar- rard and Blake Hebert. Grubbs and Jar- rard made their collegiate debuts Sept. 12 in Notre Dame's 52-0 rout of Rice. "He often meets with those guys out- side of the normal position meetings with [quarterbacks] coach Gino [Guidugli]," Freeman said. "I always see them to- gether. I always see them watching film. "Those young guys are having an op- portunity to learn from one of the best and see the game the way he sees it, see his routine for what gives him the best opportunity to have success. I think it makes them better. "They take notes. They figure out what they do well and what they could take from his game and his routine that could truly help them." ✦ UNDER THE DOME PLAYING THE LONG GAME The Irish learned from Jeremiyah Love's 2025 run that timing matters when promoting a Heisman contender When others start touting CJ Carr as a Heisman Trophy candidate late in the season, Notre Dame will be ready to capitalize. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER