Notre Dame’s 2025 struggles have flipped from expectations

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish temporarily stopped the bleeding this weekend. After suffering a stunning collapse in the national rankings (going from sixth to 24th) with two heartbreaking losses, the Fighting Irish finally got a win.

They dominated Purdue by 26 points, covering the 24.5-point spread as well. But what happened there was still pretty emblematic of what’s happened to the Irish this season. They got good QB play, but the secondary really struggled.

ESPN’s David Hale wrote, “When the season opened, the biggest question looming over Notre Dame was at quarterback. It took until late in fall camp before CJ Carr won the job, and the Irish — fresh off a trip to the national championship game — might’ve reasonably been concerned about putting their fate in the hands of a QB with no starting experience.”

But as it turns out, Carr has been just “fine” so far, and he added 223 yards and two touchdowns in the blowout win Saturday. But the “Achilles’ heel” resurfaced in the form of “the area the Irish might’ve felt best about: the secondary.”

The Boilermakers still threw for more than 300 yards and three touchdowns in the loss, and the defensive backs the Irish ran out really had no answers and couldn’t adapt. “Notre Dame might have its QB1, but the job now is stopping the other team’s quarterback,” Hale wrote in conclusion.

The Irish were expected to have a dominant defense this year, but losing coordinator Al Golden has proven to be a huge loss. Even head coach Marcus Freeman admitted that he plans to get more involved on that side of the ball to help fix things, but even in a win, defensive issues popped up. It seems to all circle back to a porous secondary, something that could hamper the Irish all season.