HE’S BACK - OUR OWN ND FOOTBALL WIZARD BILL WEBB
Again this football season, our own Bill Webb will be sharing his Notre Dame Football wizardry with us! Here is Bill’s prediction for the upcoming Irish season.
Notre Dame 2025 Season Preview: What to Expect When You're Expecting Championships
TL;DR: Notre Dame enters 2025 with CJ Carr named as the starting quarterback, beating out Kenny Minchey in what might be the most scrutinized quarterback competition in recent Notre Dame history. Everything else looks pretty great. The running game could cure cancer, the offensive line thinks it can win national awards, they have actual proven receivers (including a "Gug rat" who literally sleeps at the facility), and the defense reloads and refuses to rebuild. Special teams has turned into organized chaos with running backs returning kicks, a 6'6" Australian punter plotting fake runs, and Tyler Buchner back as QB depth/holder/fake play mastermind after the wildest college career journey in history. Oh, and Freeman is absolutely crushing recruiting with a top-5 2026 class anchored by a 6'5" quarterback who wants to "bring a National Championship to Notre Dame." Bottom line: 11-1 regular season with Carr under center, because Marcus Freeman has built something sustainable and championship cultures don't lie.
Your loyal correspondent attempts to make sense of what the Irish have been up to since they broke our hearts in January
Well, Denver Domers, here we are again. Another August, another season full of hope, optimism, and the nagging fear that we're going to find new and creative ways to disappoint ourselves. But this year feels different, doesn't it? This year, we're coming off a trip to the national championship game. This year, we have legitimate expectations. This year, we might actually be good; really good.
Of course, I said something similar in 2017 before Miami beat us 41-8, so perhaps we should take my optimism with the same grain of salt you'd use on a margarita at Casa Bonita. But let's dive in anyway.
The Quarterback Decision, or "How CJ Carr Won the Most Important Job in South Bend"
Let's start with the news that changes everything: CJ Carr is Notre Dame's starting quarterback. The redshirt freshman from Saline, Michigan (yes, that Michigan) has won what might be the most scrutinized quarterback competition in recent Notre Dame history.
Riley Leonard is gone. The man who led us to the promised land has exhausted his eligibility and moved on to the great beyond, meaning the Indianapolis Colts (hard to imagine he would have thought moving to Indiana would be a life sentence).
In his place, we now have Carr, a quarterback who has never thrown a college pass but apparently convinced offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock that he's ready to run an offense with championship aspirations. According to Denbrock, both Carr and Kenny Minchey "had their moments of catastrophic decision-making" in camp, but what separated Carr was his "resiliency" - the ability to bounce back from mistakes and "make an explosive pass or made a good read or jumped right back into the fray and made good decisions."
That's exactly what you want to hear about a redshirt freshman taking over an offense that needs to compete for national championships. It's also terrifying, but we'll focus on the positive.
Carr believes the key to winning the job was building trust with Denbrock: "I think the big point of emphasis was just building trust before we continue to fix plays that we might see an issue with, or might see the defenses react in a certain way to a play we have called. I think having Denbrock's trust that we're going to make the right play, we're gonna be smart with the football, we're gonna keep the offense rolling."
The good news is that Carr doesn't think he needs to be Riley Leonard. "We're not the same player Riley was, for good and for bad," Carr explains. "We have to continue to take what he gave us with leadership and how to play the game, and then also build upon what he brought as the foundation."
Even better, Carr has been working with former Notre Dame quarterback Ian Book, who now lives in South Bend and understands what it's like to be "the quarterback at Notre Dame, especially in a quarterback battle." Book has provided guidance on "the ups and downs" of the position, which is invaluable for someone stepping into one of college football's most pressure-packed jobs.
The offensive system should help Carr's transition. This is year two under Denbrock, and Carr believes they're "much further along in our offensive scheme than we were last year." The spring practice period and summer workouts with receivers gave the offense a chance to "test some things out" without coaches "yelling in the back of your ears."
READ MORE
VIC’S PICKS
Emmy winning sportscaster and Notre Dame Club of Denver member Vic Lombardi has again graciously agreed to share his Irish Game picks each week. Thanks Vic!
FIGHTING IRISH PREVIEW RETURNS
Rounding out our group of football experts, we will once again be publishing the weekly predications and recaps from our friend Phil Houk at Fighting Irish Preview. Thanks Phil!
