What Notre Dame's Spring Tells Us About the 2026 Offense
Spring has officially come to a close for Notre Dame, and while the practices themselves don't generate a stat sheet, last year's did — and it's the clearest way to measure what this offense showed this spring against what it actually has to replace. The Irish still have summer workouts and 25 fall camp practices ahead before their opener against Wisconsin in the Shamrock Series, but between the 2025 production and what offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock and quarterback CJ Carr have said about this group, a real picture of where the offense stands is starting to form.
WHAT WE KNOW
Notre Dame's 2025 offense ran the ball 203.4 yards per game (31st nationally) against 255.1 passing yards per game (61st), a split built almost entirely around Jeremiyah Love's 1,372 rushing yards and 21 total touchdowns, with Jadarian Price adding 674 more. Through the air, Carr — in his first year as a starter — completed 66.6% of his passes for 2,741 yards with a 24-6 touchdown-to-interception ratio and a 168.1 passer rating, spreading the ball across Jordan Faison (640 yards), Malachi Fields (630), Eli Raridon (482) and Will Pauling (381).
With Denbrock heading into year three and Carr into year two, the expected uptick in efficiency showed up this spring, and Denbrock has pointed to the same root cause the numbers suggest: last year's stat line was produced by a quarterback and staff still installing the offense in real time. This spring looked different because that install is already done. "This is the first time in a while we weren't trying to break somebody in," Denbrock said, adding that the continuity "makes the process a lot easier."
Carr's growth as a leader has been just as visible as his growth as a passer, and it's showing up in how much operational control he's been given. "They give us a lot of freedom to check plays," Carr said of Denbrock's system. "All the protections are on us." That's a meaningful shift from a year ago, when Carr was still earning the job — a 24-6 touchdown-to-interception ratio put up while learning the offense reads very differently than the same numbers would if repeated by a quarterback now diagnosing coverages and setting protections himself.
The skill positions have gotten faster, too, and Denbrock noticed it in the very first practice. Watching a group that now includes Ohio State transfer Mylan Graham alongside Faison and a healthier Jaden Greathouse, he called it simply a different-looking group — a notable comment given that no Notre Dame receiver cracked 700 yards last season, with Faison's team-leading 640 the high mark.
The offensive line also settled into a group that held for the entire spring: Will Black at left tackle, Anthonie Knapp at left guard, Guerby Lambert at right tackle. A five-man front that stays intact through 15 practices is a different foundation for a young quarterback than the one Carr operated behind for stretches of 2025.
REMAINING QUESTIONS
The receiving room's overall talent is not in question — Denbrock's own read on the group's speed settles that — but production is. Faison's 640 yards led the team in 2025 by only 10 yards over Fields, and spring didn't produce separation at the top of that group. Ohio State transfer Quincy Porter missed the spring with injury, and how he, Graham, Greathouse and returning depth split targets is a question that will carry into fall camp.
The tight end room's pass-catching hierarchy is similarly unresolved. Eli Raridon's 482 yards was a solid number in 2025, but no clear successor emerged as the room's top target this spring, even as run-blocking improved.
The single biggest open question, though, isn't really about spring at all — it's about replacing the 2,046 combined rushing yards Love and Price took with them to the NFL. Nolan James Jr. and Jonaz Walton showed promise this spring, but Notre Dame hasn't yet seen this offense with Aneyas Williams (224 rushing yards in 2025) or Kedren Young at full strength, since both were working back from injury. Denbrock has talked about scheming around that loss with pace, formation and personnel mismatches rather than looking for a single feature back — a philosophical shift from the run-it-behind-Love approach that produced last year's 203.4 yards per game, and one that can't really be evaluated until fall camp puts a healthy backfield on the field together.
AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT
Carr has identified his own next step, and it's a specific, correctable one: red-zone decision-making. Given his 24 touchdown passes against just 6 interceptions in 2025, the room for growth isn't accuracy or ball security broadly — it's the shrunken-field decisions that show up disproportionately inside the 20, the same maturation Denbrock described watching Carr force a throw into coverage on a play he'd handled correctly just one snap earlier during spring practice.
Health remains the same variable it always is. Greathouse, Porter, Young, Williams, true freshman Javian Osborne and center Ashton Craig all missed meaningful spring time. Given how directly Young's and Williams' availability ties into replacing Love and Price's production, and how much Greathouse's return matters to a receiving room still searching for a No. 1 target, a fully healthy fall camp would do more to move Notre Dame's 2026 offensive numbers than any single technical fix.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Every 2025 number Carr produced — the 66.6% completion rate, the 168.1 passer rating, the 24-6 touchdown-to-interception ratio — was set by a first-year starter still being taught the system. Denbrock and Carr's own comments this spring point toward those numbers being a floor, not a ceiling, for a quarterback now running the offense with real autonomy. The run game is a different story: 203.4 yards per game was a name-driven number, and with that name now in the NFL, whatever the ground game produces in 2026 will be a product of Denbrock's scheme rather than a repeat of last year's production.
