Slap The Sign

With Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price gone, one of the big questions about Notre Dame in 2026 is who will take over as the starting running back, and will he have the success Love and/or Price had? Head coach Marcus Freeman believes they’ve already arrived at the answers: Aneyas Williams and yes. Obviously, Freeman doesn’t believe that Williams will automatically have the exact same kind of season that Love or Price will have.

Notre Dame running back commit Isaiah Rogers is one of the best prospects in the 2027 class. He proved that earlier this month when he was one of 120 high schoolers who attended Nike's The Opening Finals. In the process, he spent time with some of the other best players in his class, as well as NFL stars, which has put the talented back in a position to take the next step in his career. "It meant a lot being invited out of just 120 kids," Rogers told Irish Sports Daily.

Xavier Watts might someday be the best safety in the NFL, but he’s not there yet. That prestigious title instead rests with another former Notre Dame football star. Kyle Hamilton has been impressing folks since he got to the league; now ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler is demonstrating just how much he’s impressed onlookers, naming him the top player at his position in the league. In reality, it’s not Fowler or ESPN making the proclamation about Hamilton.

Notre Dame football’s success in the 2028 class hasn’t really kicked off, but it could any minute now. If and when the commits start piling up, it looks like one top offensive tackle could be among the first. Kajus Muralis has had plenty of nice things to say about his offer from the Fighting Irish, including a quote that shows he’s been a fan since way back in the day.

As the Notre Dame football team enters the next phase of building its future roster, it’s scheduled a couple of fall visits for gameday. Lord Malik Heru and Grant Bowen were both Irish Invasion standouts who clearly have their eyes on Marcus Freeman and Co. Bowen is a 4-star tight end who plans to follow up his Irish Invasion visit with a return to South Bend for the game against Michigan State.

One of the most interesting aspects of Notre Dame football's recruiting is that it tends to stay away from the state of Indiana. Most of the reason for that is that the Hoosier state never produces a ton of Power 4 talent. That doesn’t mean there’s never a player worth grabbing, but until recently, when there was, the Fighting Irish tended to snap them up. Knowing all of that, there are some times when Indiana players have somehow squeaked through the cracks.

Did Notre Dame commit Julius Jones Jr show that he might be having second thoughts about his pledge? The legacy commit seemed to almost immediately shoot down any rumors that he might be showing he was repping the Miami Hurricanes when social media posts exploded all over the internet. The supposed “hint” came in a video that 247Sports analyst Gaby Urrutia posted of the 4-star wide receiver working out.

The Notre Dame football team has had a very good late spring and early summer on the recruiting front. Unfortunately, the heater that Marcus Freeman and Co. have been on might have hit a cold front. While the Irish were once considered a favorite for the talented defensive lineman, it appears they’ve now fallen out of favor and have pretty much lost the competition for the Chicago-based 4-star prospect.

That the Notre Dame football team is likely a playoff team in 2026 is hardly a surprise. It’s also not a point on which there is much debate. The only disagreements are how the Fighting Irish will get into the field, what seed they’ll be once they get there, and who they might play. The path they’ll take once they get there is also up for debate, but considering the season hasn’t even started, it’s also not one that will bear much fruit beyond blind guessing.

Some might think the best thing for former Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly to do would be to lay low. He hasn’t had a great go of it since being fired by LSU last fall, and it seems like every time he does an interview, he says something that just leads to even more people taking shots at him. And yet, earlier this week, Kelly did yet another wide-ranging interview where he attempted to cover why he left South Bend for Baton Rouge with another coat of paint.