Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM OCT. 17, 2026 49 BY TODD D. BURLAGE S econd-year Notre Dame head coach Brock Sheahan faced a tall task last season when the rookie Irish skipper was trying to adequately replace leg- endary Irish head coach Jeff Jackson. After spending two seasons under Jack- son as the Notre Dame associate head coach before taking the top job, Sheahan was familiar with his surroundings and understood the Notre Dame way. But when trying to put his own stamp on the program and climb from Jack- son's long shadow — after the previous head coach won 419 games with Notre Dame, made four appearances in the NCAA Frozen Four, and twice finished national runner-up — the transition for Sheahan last season turned out to be more difficult than expected. "What I didn't realize in retrospect was how different things would be for our guys," said Sheahan, whose team finished only 9-23-5 last season. "We flipped the way we played to almost a completely different style. And that was a lot for every single guy in the locker room to have to learn a new way to play." Keeping in mind that Jackson went only 13-19-4 during his first season at Notre Dame in 2005-06, and then performed one of the great- est turnarounds in college hockey history when he went 32-7-3 in his second season with the Irish, maybe the same fortunes await Sheahan this year? Only time will tell for a Notre Dame team that's predicted to finish sixth in the seven-team Big Ten Conference. "Last year, everything was new," recalled Sheahan, who opened his second season on the Irish bench Oct. 8-9, with a two-game series against Ni- agara, "a new staff, new style of play, new schedule day to day on how we're practicing, watching video, all of it." The good news is that even after the struggles during his first go- around at Notre Dame, Sheahan was still able to hold most of his roster to- gether and returns 17 players in Year 2 while adding nine new guys (5 transfers and 4 freshmen). "We feel a lot farther along at this point than we were at this moment last year," he said. "It's been really nice to have the 17 guys back here that under- stand how we want to operate, how we want to play, just what everything looks like, and helping those nine new guys along to get adjusted." And in more good news, Notre Dame did show some improvement last season when it went 3-0-1 in its final two regu- lar-season series against Penn State and Ohio State, including a two-game road sweep of the Buckeyes. "The results weren't good [last sea- son]. But the day-to-day process from our staff and our players was a lot of what I expected, just go to work every day and get better," Sheahan said. Nine NHL draft picks dot the Irish roster, but the front-line talent remains a question mark on the team. Senior forward Danny Nelson returns as one of the team's leading scorer after he tallied 13 goals with 16 assists to finish fourth on the Irish with 29 points last season. Junior goaltender Nicholas Kempf also returns as a second-year starter in the Irish net. Sheahan explained that for this sea- son to be successful, improvement has to come offensively by better finishing possessions. Analytics show that Notre Dame was one of the best teams in the country last season in creating scoring opportunities. But it still finished last in the Big Ten with only 2.78 goals per game. "Last year, we generated a ton of offense, and so I expect us to do that again, if not better," Sheahan said. "But what I hope that flips is that we convert. We were last in the country in converting our offense." As for his defense, Sheahan said this team needs to better use its size and physicality to generate more takeaways and scoring opportunities. The Irish also finished last in the conference last year after al- lowing 4.08 goals per game. "Continue to work to get pucks back off of our physical play," Sheahan said when asked how to improve his defense. "We're not a small team. Our guys are in great shape. And so I'm hoping to see that physical element be more consistent for us this year." ✦ Hockey Looking For A Return To Glory N O T R E D A M E S P O R T S Brock Sheahan enters his second season as Notre Dame's head coach looking to build on a strong finish to a difficult 9-23-5 debut cam- paign, with 17 returning players and nine new- comers on the Irish roster. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS Irish Roundup MEN'S GOLF Finished third out of 14 teams with a 3-over-par team score of 843 in the annual Fighting Irish Classic Oct. 4-5 at the Warren Golf Course. WOMEN'S GOLF Tied for fifth place out of 15 schools with a 7-over-par 871 team score in the Ron Moore Invitational Oct. 2-4 at the Highland Ranch Golf Club in Colorado. MEN'S SOCCER (5-3-3 OVERALL, 2-2-0 ACC) Suffered a 2-0 league loss at the hands of California on Senior Night Oct. 3 in South Bend. WOMEN'S SOCCER (5-1-6 OVERALL, 3-1-1 ACC) The No. 18 Irish fell 4-1 at No. 1 North Carolina Oct. 2 … Defeated No. 14 Virginia 1-0 Oct. 8 at Alumni Stadium in South Bend. VOLLEYBALL (4-9 OVERALL, 1-3 ACC) Lost 3-0 to No. 3 Louisville at Purcell Pavilion Oct. 3 … Hosted No. 14 Stanford Oct. 9 and California Oct. 11.