Notre Dame Among National Championship Favorites Next Season

South Bend, IN — A winter of what-ifs has hardened into a spring of conviction inside the Guglielmino Athletics Complex. After watching the 2025 playoff field assemble without them, Notre Dame will enter 2026 as a consensus national-title favorite, armed with a rare commodity in the modern era: continuity at quarterback.

CJ Carr’s return has become the catalyst for championship chatter. The junior, already listed as a Heisman co-favorite in early markets, will direct an offense that returns every principal assistant, including coordinator Mike Denbrock. ESPN analyst Greg McElroy, speaking on the Always College Football podcast, called the stability “a built-in schematic head start” for a program that has cycled through one-year graduate transfers under center in each of the past two seasons.

“While other contenders are installing new terminology and feeling out portal quarterbacks, Carr and Denbrock will be playing chess,” McElroy said. “This isn’t a manage-the-game attack anymore—it’s a vertical nightmare, and the fastest receiver room we’ve seen in South Bend in a decade.”

That corps features Jordan Faison and Jaden Greathouse, both 1,000-yard candidates, plus Ohio State transfers Mylan Graham and Quincy Porter, whose eligibility waivers were approved last month. Behind them, a deep backfield and an offensive line that annually ranks among the nation’s most efficient should keep the Irish balanced.

The defense’s backbone resides in the secondary. Jim Thorpe Award finalist Leonard Moore and Christian Gray anchor the cornerback spots, while captains Adon Shuler and Tae Johnson return at safety. The unit allowed fewer than 190 passing yards a game last season and is expected to improve with another offseason in coordinator Al Golden’s press-quarters scheme.

Schedule analysts point to a manageable path. Notre Dame opens at Lambeau Field against Wisconsin before hosting BYU (No. 12), traveling to Miami (No. 13), and welcoming SMU (No. 23) in late November. An 11-1 or 12-0 regular-season record would almost certainly secure a first-round bye in the expanded 12-team playoff, a structural shift that diminishes the traditional independent disadvantage.

Marcus Freeman, 34-8 since taking over in 2022, has stopped short of public title guarantees, yet players have adopted “leave no doubt” as an offseason mantra—an unmistakable reference to last year’s 10-2 campaign that ended one spot outside the playoff cutline.

Vegas books have responded. The Irish currently sit 5-1 to win the 2027 national championship, trailing only Ohio State and Georgia in most futures markets. McElroy is even more bullish: “I’m going into August with them at No. 1. Freeman has his roster, his quarterback, and now the format to capitalize.”

Spring practice opens March 10. The chessboard, as McElroy noted, is already arranged; Notre Dame believes the next move is finally its own.