Notre Dame begins with 2,046 rushing yards and 29 rushing touchdowns missing from last season’s ledger. Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price produced those numbers before becoming the first two running backs selected in the 2026 NFL Draft.
The returning constant is CJ Carr. He started all 12 games last season, completed 66.6% of his passes for 2,741 yards and threw 24 touchdowns against six interceptions, according to Notre Dame’s final statistics. That continuity should let Notre Dame ask more of its quarterback while discovering which new backs can become dependable answers.
Wisconsin vs. Notre Dame: root for Notre Dame
Sunday, 7:30 p.m. ET, NBC, Lambeau Field
Notre Dame has a 95.4% win probability, so the appropriate posture is expectation, not anxiety. The Irish are making their first appearance at Lambeau as the designated home team in a Shamrock Series opener, but the useful evidence should come from the distribution of offensive responsibility.
Watch how often Carr creates the answer himself and how many backs earn meaningful work. The goal is not to find a one-for-one imitation of Love and Price in one night. It is to see whether the passing game and the new rotation give Notre Dame several trustworthy ways to move the ball when an opponent takes away the easiest option.
The model’s alternative outcomes show why the result still matters. With a win, Notre Dame’s playoff chance is 98.9%, its first-round-bye chance is 85.4% and its average seed is 2.8. With a loss, those figures are 95.3%, 65% and 4.0. A defeat would not erase the season, but it would cut the modeled bye chance by more than 20 percentage points. Root for the expected win; scrutinize whether the offense already looks broader than the departed backfield tandem.
San José State at USC: root for San José State
Saturday, 3 p.m. ET, NBC
This is pure bonus rooting. San José State has only a 2.1% chance to win, but that upset would raise Notre Dame’s modeled first-round-bye odds by 2.8 percentage points. The odds are 87.2% if San José State wins, compared with 84.4% if USC wins.
The mechanism is national top-seed competition, not a conference race or a future meeting. USC losing would remove a little competition around the top-four line. The payoff is real enough to enjoy if the game becomes interesting, but the probability is too small to make it part of what Notre Dame needs this week.
See every modeled branch in the interactive Week 1 guide, or read the methodology.