The Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team has a new defensive coordinator leading its defense onto the field in 2025 and while Chris Ash has said he's not going to make drastic changes to the defense the players know, he is making tweaks here and there, especially on the defensive line.
Ash has said that he's going to tweak the defensive line so that there are no strong-side and no weak-side defensive ends. Instead, it will be left and right. Ash believes this will allow the defense to be more nimble and more adaptive.
This viewpoint is going to be seen right in the first Notre Dame Fighting Irish game considering that the Miami Hurricanes have a very good offensive lineman who the Blue and Gold are going to need to change things up to get past.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish might not have to go undefeated in order to make the playoffs
While the Irish couldn't afford to lose another game after the Northern Illinois upset, it's looking like this year's schedule is good enough that a loss or two won't necessarily keep Marcus Freeman and Co. out of the field.
Analyst J.D. Pickell is the latest to point out that with a schedule that has quite a few possible conference champs on its schedule, Notre Dame might be able to go 10-2 and still make the playoffs. Granted, if they want to be a high seed, they'll need to take care of business early and often.
Notre Dame trying to flip Miami commit
The Irish are on such a hot streak recruiting-wise that they are now actively going after other teams' commitments. The latest sign of this is Freeman and Co. taking a run at Miami Hurricanes commit Kenton Dopson.
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are hoping to host Dopson on a visit this fall. The most interesting part of this particular pursuit is that Dopson, who is a 2027 recruit, is thinking about reclassifying to the 2026 class. Should he do so, he would be yet another addition to what is already a great 2026 cycle.