ND Signes Jersey Patch Deal with SoFi

ND got $18-20M a year by themselves.

Meanwhile, the Big 12 get to be the Monster Energy Big 12 for $20M total to be split among 16 schools for $1.25M each

Everyone is going to have one so you might as well just accept that

You clearly missed the Tyson deal.

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Safe to say we are all in

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From your lips to God's ears. For the first time in the 30 something years I have been watching ND football this is first time a championship or bust season doesn't feel like a pipe dream.

I grew up watching the Bear Bryant show sponsored by Coca Cola and Golden Flake.

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Safe to say we are all in


From your lips to God's ears. For the first time in the 30 something years I have been watching ND football this is first time a championship or bust season doesn't feel like a pipe dream.

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Assuming we stay relatively healthy, then yes. This will be the most talented Notre Dame team since the early 1990's.

We will have the second-highest blue chip ratio in the country behind only Georgia this season. I assume we'll likely be either #1 or #2 next year as well, again assuming the coaching staff and administration stays intact. The sport has flipped so quickly that it can boggle the mind a bit - we will have more honest-to-goodness American football talent than Alabama by almost any measure (recruiting rankings, projected NFL talent, etc.) for the first time since I was in probably in middle school or high school.

Obviously, we have the resources to play this game as well if not better than almost anyone else in America, so I like that about the current arrangement. I like how it is undoing the regionalization of the sport to the Southeast that occurred from about 2006 through about 2022. I don't know that I like how distant it is becoming from what college football used to be so quickly (the rivalries, the conferences, the traditions, etc., etc.).

I don't know where this is all going - still tend to think we'll eventually end up in a situation with a CBA, a salary cap and floor, and so forth.

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I felt that way last year. It's difficult for me to accept with Love and Price gone, but I will take your word for it.

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A missed holding penalty away last season IMO.

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I felt that way last year. It's difficult for me to accept with Love and Price gone, but I will take your word for it.

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Putting aside the schedule, which is terrible due to factors both within our control and outside our control...

That's kind of it - we didn't lose much of anything at all except for Love, Price, and Malachi Fields (3rd rounder to the Giants whom they are very high on). We returned effectively every other meaningful contributor on both sides of the ball - we are #1 in the country in returning production. Add in the #2 recruiting class and a small, but highly-touted portal class (2 former 5 star WR's from Ohio State who were stuck behind Smith and Tate, a DT from Oregon, a DT from Pitt, and a CB from Colorado who played opposite Hunter out there). Obviously take it with a grain of salt, but Steele has us with the #1 OL, the #5 DL, the #1 LB corps, and the #1 secondary to go along with Carr at QB.

As stated above, we are second in the country heading into this season in terms of blue chip ratio (behind only UGA) - I don't believe we've ever been in the top 5 since recruiting rankings became a thing in the early 2000's. Love cannot be simply be replaced, but there is plenty of talent at RB to step up; if there is a place where we need 1 or 2 guys to go out and prove themselves, it is at receiver.

Obviously, we need to stay healthy, but there is genuine depth at every level on both sides of the ball. They need to come out of the gate hot this year and keep the foot down on the pedal all the way through - if there is one criticism I have had of Freeman, it is that his teams have started slow (wasn't just last year, either - the NIU loss in 2024, the Marshall loss in 2022). That shouldn't be a problem this year with the playoff thing from last year and the amount of returning production, but these are still 18 - 23 year olds playing a high variance sport.

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2 former 5 star WR's from Ohio State who were stuck behind Smith and Tate


“Stuck” is generous. No idea what Porter will be but he was banged up most of the year.

Graham was losing snaps to a white walk in the later part of the season. If it didn’t click for him under Brian Hartline’s coaching, I’d be shocked if he becomes anything of note at ND.

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Sure - they might not amount to much, and Graham in particular is going to be competing against Greathouse (who is finally healthy again) and Faison for time and targets. We need a real boundary more than anything; maybe Porter is that guy, maybe not. They've also got Devin Fitzgerald (Larry's kid) and Jerome Bettis Jr. coming in competing for time and targets as well. A lot of unproven talent - we need 1 or 2 to make that leap.