The chaos around who can play and who cannot in college football this year has only gotten worse this week, though there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. The Big Ten, the SEC, the ACC, the Big 12, and the Sun Belt have all passed conference rules aimed at punishing member programs if they try to put someone who went to the NFL back on the field.
- Those conference rules are supposed to be better than what the NCAA has done because they can go around court rulings and punish schools rather than players. Notre Dame Fighting Irish don’t need to pass any rules since they’re independent, so they can refuse to sign a player who was a professional athlete to a deal. Even so, they have announced they agree with those rules and oppose pro players returning to college, even if they were members of the 2022 class.
Notre Dame officials have communicated to both the SEC and Big Ten that the school is aligned with the prohibition on signing players who have been part of professional organizations, sources tell @YahooSports.
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) August 25, 2026
The Irish are adamantly opposed to adding pro players.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish and national news
- While the Notre Dame football team still has to wait one more week before it starts the season against Wisconsin, the women’s volleyball team gets its season underway on Friday night. The volleyball squad tips things off at 6:30 pm against Ball State, then faces them again at 3:30 pm on Saturday before taking on Xavier at 1:00 pm on Sunday.
- Jaden Greathouse is one of those guys that the Irish coaches expect to have a big 2026 after missing most of 2025 due to injury and ineffectiveness. The wide receiver is still looking to live up to the hype he created in the 2024 College Football Playoff, and national analysts believe he will.
- Greathouse earned selection to the 2026 Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award Watch List. The award annually recognizes the outstanding Division I college football offensive player who played football at and graduated from a Texas high school and/or plays football at a Division 1 four-year college or university. It’s the third straight year Greathouse has been named to the watch list. Maybe three times is the charm, and he’ll take home the award for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish this year.
- There was a thought that the Notre Dame Fighting Irish were set at running back with Aneyas Williams and Nolan James. However, two freshmen, Javian Osborne and Jonaz Walton, are catching the eye of Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock and could see the field quite a bit this season: “When you hand those guys the ball, it’s reminiscent of what we’ve watched the last couple of years. I’m not comparing them to those guys, but they have something about them that is really, really cool and they’re home run hitters.”
- Sophomore safety Brauntae Johnson keeps rocketing up the list of the best players in college football this season. In a recent ESPN NFL Mock Draft, Johnson was projected to go No. 14 overall to the Pittsburgh Steelers. He’s one of three Notre Dame Fighting Irish players Jordan Reid believes will go in the first round, following CJ Carr at No. 3 and Leonard Moore at No. 7 in next spring’s draft.
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