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Notre Dame Football 2025: Ultimate Guide to Spring Practice
Notre Dame Head Coach Marcus Freeman speaks to Kahanu Kia (43) and Devan Houstan (98) Saturday, April 20, 2024, at the annual Notre Dame Blue-Gold spring football game at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend. MANDATORY CREDIT GREG SWIERCZ / USA TODAY NETWORK

Notre Dame football starts spring practice in just hours as it is set to begin camp on Wednesday morning. The Fighting Irish are coming off a run to college football's National Championship game where it fell just short of winning the 12th national championship in program history.

What does Notre Dame have to do in order to take things a step further and win the national championship in 2025?

The task will certainly be a difficult one but some of what happens over the next month of spring football will have a significant impact on how things look for Notre Dame when the season kicks off August 31 at Miami.

Here are the things you need to know as Notre Dame enters the spring session.

Notre Dame Spring Football 2025: Quarterback Derby

MICHAEL CLUBB/SOUTH BEND TRIBUNE / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

For the first time in almost a decade Notre Dame enters spring football with a real quarterback competition. Orange Bowl hero Steve Angeli brings the most experience while rising sophomore CJ Carr clearly brings the most hype. Then there is the often-overlooked Kenny Minchey who tends to be overlooked but could certainly challenge for the role.

Based on Marcus Freeman hesitating to even call Sam Hartman or Riley Leonard the starting quarterback in recent years I don't expect a starter to be named, but I do expect to have a much more clear idea of where each stand over the next month.

Notre Dame Spring Football 2025: Who Goes Where on Offensive Line?

Alberto Silva Fernandez/ El Paso Times / USA TODAY NETWORK

The good news for Notre Dame is that it returns a ton of its starting offensive line from fall camp last year. The bad news is that injuries hampered a good amount of these player's reps during the season and where exactly each will play remains to be seen.

Does Charles Jagusah (above) go back to tackle or shift inside after the emergence of freshman Anthonie Knapp last year? Or does Knapp move inside and is room made for big-time rising sophomore Guerby Lambert?

About the only things we think we know for sure at this point is that Ashton Craig will be at center and Aamil Wagner will be at right tackle.

Notre Dame Spring Football 2025: Wide Receiver Depth Building

Brett Davis-Imagn Images

Notre Dame enters the spring with its expected top receivers for the 2025 season largely unavailable either due to transfer rules or because of injury recovery. As a result several inexperienced underclassmen will have the chance to impress. Can KK Smith, Cam Williams, or someone else do enough to position themselves for significant playing time this fall?

Notre Dame Spring Football 2025: New Defensive Coordinator Chris Ash

American Statesman-USA TODAY NETWORK

Notre Dame lost a slew of assistant coaches and front office types since the National Championship game and perhaps none was bigger than defensive coordinator Al Golden. Chris Ash (above) takes over the DC role after time in the NFL and college stops at Ohio State, Texas, and Rutgers among others.

What stays the same and what changes under Ash's direction is something to keep an eye on.

Notre Dame Spring Football 2025: Replacing Jack Kiser at Linebacker

Matt Cashore-Imagn Images

Nobody in the long history of Notre Dame football has played in more games than Jack Kiser (above) as the linebacker will have his name called in April's NFL draft. Kiser was a very good player but also provided a veteran presence that helped with getting the defense set up as a whole. How quickly can the rising stars in Notre Dame's linebacking group pick up what Kiser leaves?

Notre Dame Spring Football 2025: Defensive Tackle Overhaul

Michael Clubb / USA TODAY NETWORK

Notre Dame has benefited from the successes of Howard Cross III and Rylie Mills at defensive tackle for as long as Marcus Freeman has been head coach. Replacing those two is easier said than done. How does Jason Onye (above) look after leaving the program for a bit of time last fall? Will Gabriel Rubio and Donovan Hinish continue to develop as both came up huge in the Sugar Bowl win?

Everything starts up front in football and Notre Dame has to have players step up in a hurry, in the middle specifically, if it's going to find big-time success in 2025.


This article first appeared on Notre Dame Fighting Irish on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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