Will Notre Dame Fans Have Fun This Fall?

Fighting Irish football fans are going to have to wait on the fun this season.

It is very fitting that the Notre Dame Fighting Irish only trail the Ohio State Buckeyes on FanDuel for the best national championship odds for the upcoming college football season. It would not be a surprise at all if the two programs met in the College Football Playoff National Championship game this season. Again. The two teams are loaded on both sides of the ball, and each has a quarterback who very well could win the Heisman trophy this fall. The Irish have won fewer than 10 games just once since the start of the 2017 season, while the Buckeyes have won fewer than 10 games, pandemic-shortened season aside, just once over the last twenty years. What I wonder, though, particularly this upcoming season, for the Notre Dame faithful, is how much fun this fanbase can really have before the calendar flips to December?

Last season, Georgia Bulldogs fans finally had the home schedule they dreamed of with Texas, Alabama, and Ole Miss all traveling to Athens for a road contest inside Sanford Stadium. Before the Bulldogs’ home loss against the Crimson Tide, head football coach Kirby Smart’s team had won thirty-three straight ball games at home. Even before the 2025 season kicked off, you looked at Georgia’s home slate of games and knew there was a strong possibility that the Bulldogs’ incredible home winning streak would end, but that’s what made the schedule so exciting for that fanbase. For the first time in years, there was a real chance they could walk out of Sanford Stadium following a Georgia loss. That’s what makes a great conference schedule, particularly at home, so much fun – a great schedule doesn’t necessarily mean a great result for your team.

This season, Tennessee’s home schedule is extremely enticing. Texas, Auburn, LSU, and Alabama will travel to Neyland Stadium to face the Volunteers. With a freshman or redshirt freshman under center, I think every Vols fan would happily take a 2-2 split, with victories over the Bayou Bengals and Crimson Tide being the preferred two wins. Sure, the schedule is more arduous than what Tennessee had on the docket in 2025 and 2024, but as much as the powers that be try to fight it, the regular season is what makes this sport great. Huge games on college campuses. The more big games on your favorite school’s campus come with a price, though, and that is more losses, if you’re a glass-half-empty person. It can also come with more wins if you’re a glass-half-full person. I don’t know how many of those huge home games the Vols will win this fall, but I do know how electric the lead-up to each of them will be this fall, and, wouldn’t you know it, I’m way too ready to start next season, and it’s still just the latter part of May.

Ohio State fans haven’t experienced this for a long time. Notre Dame fans are experiencing it now. On one hand, it has to be a comforting feeling to have such a high floor every season, regardless of how many players from last year’s team move on to the NFL. On the other hand, doesn’t it kind of stink to know how high a floor your team has every season? With longtime rival USC off the schedule, Notre Dame has one big game at home this fall against the Miami Hurricanes, and that game doesn’t take place until November 7. It should be a fantastic game at a fantastic venue with a whole lot of extra juice after last season’s CFP last-one-in drama between the two schools.

But that’s it.

Wisconsin, Rice, Michigan State, Stanford, Boston College, and SMU are the remaining home games. Part of that is not their fault, of course, with both the Badgers and Spartans currently in rough patches for their storied programs, but which game outside of Miami are you really fired up about as a Fighting Irish fan this fall? This is what Georgia fans felt for years before last season’s home slate. I imagine it’s what Ohio State fans have felt for many years. Although the Buckeyes schedule, particularly early, is as dangerous as it’s been in the regular season in a long time. Ohio State has to play at Texas, Iowa, Indiana, and USC, along with home dates against Oregon, Illinois, and Michigan. There are more potential land mines on this schedule than there have been in a long time for the Buckeyes.

There aren’t many potential land mines on Notre Dame’s schedule. The Fighting Irish will play the four ACC schools with the worst projected conference championship betting odds this fall – North Carolina, Stanford, Boston College, and Syracuse. They will not travel to USC. Their biggest test, in a battle of national championship runner-ups the last two seasons, is in South Bend. There are no preseason CFP locks in college football, but the combination of Notre Dame’s talent, coaching staff, and schedule is as close as anyone in the sport this season.

But it’s the kind of season that if you’re a fan, you want to fast-forward to December. Texas could win it all, and they’re all-in, but their schedule is tough. Oregon has Michigan and Ohio State back-to-back. Indiana is as close as any contender to Notre Dame’s, but all this winning is so new that I don’t imagine the cupcake schedule is all that bothersome for Hoosier fans, at least for now.

Until that ostensibly inevitable CFP expansion, the regular season is still the most special part of the sport, but there is nothing special about Notre Dame’s regular schedule this fall. It’s the opposite. But head football coach Marcus Freeman’s team could win it all. The Hoosiers went undefeated with a similar schedule last year, and the Fighting Irish could do it this season, something Notre Dame hasn’t done in my lifetime. All of that is well and good, but I don’t think it’s fun or healthy to want to fast-forward your team’s regular season for a couple of postseason games on neutral sites. Do Notre Dame fans share this perspective? I don’t know, but I do know that I hope it never feels this way at Tennessee in late May.