Notre Dame Football Midweek Mailbag originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
Mailbag Day comes early this week on IB Nation Sports Talk. Irish Breakdown’s Sean Stires and Vince DeDario answer listener questions about Notre Dame football and more on today’s show. Some of today’s topics include:
* Why does Notre Dame have six offensive line commits in the 2026 recruiting class?
* Once Notre Dame’s quarterback battle is done, should the Irish try to convince the No. 2 QB not to transfer?
* If Notre Dame joins a conference, would you want the Irish to play eight or nine conference games?
* Could Arkansas go after Tommy Rees as head coach?
* Much more!
There’s more to discuss and debate in Rapid Fire as well. See the list of topics below!
Today’s Rapid Fire topics include:
* Someone asked Stewart Mandel of The Athletic this question in his most recent mailbag: Assuming Julian Sayin (Ohio State) and CJ Carr (Notre Dame) are named starters for their respective teams, which supporting cast would you prefer for a first-time starting QB: Ohio State, with the best receiver duo in the country (Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate) with a good tight end (Max Klare), but several new starters along the offensive line? Or the best running back in the country (Jeremiyah Love) and nearly an entire returning offensive line, but questionable wide receivers? We share our responses.
* If Carr is the starter, is he more likely to pass for 3,000 yards or throw 30 touchdown passes?
* If Kenny Minchey is the starter, where do you put his over/under passing and touchdown pass numbers?
* There’s a debate going on in college football about going back to a BCS-like computer model to do the rankings rather than a committee. Do you Buy or Sell going back to computer rankings?
* We discuss new Notre Dame women’s basketball player Vanessa de Jesus being named to the Phillipine national team and will compete in a World Cup qualifier in China next month.
* Brian Windhorst posted a video on social media this week where he goes into detail about where and how he watches a game he’s covering. Windhorst travels to the game, but he doesn’t sit in the arena. Instead, he sits in an ESPN work room and watches the game on his computer and listens to the TV broadcast while getting fed stats and notes from ESPN computers. What do you think of covering a game that way?
* Fill-in the blank: It’s BLANK that ESPN’s Field Yates tore a shoulder labrum while hitting a tackling dummy last year to determine his fantasy football draft order.
Be sure to check out the Irish Breakdown message board, the Champions Lounge
Irish Breakdown Content
2025 Scholarship Chart
2025 Football Schedule
Notre Dame 2026 Scholarship Offers
2025 Commit Rankings – Offense
2025 Commit Rankings – Defense
2024 Recruiting Class
2023 Recruiting Class
2022 Recruiting Class
Become a premium Irish Breakdown member, which grants you access to all of our premium content and our premium message board! Click on the link below for more.
Be sure to stay locked into Irish Breakdown all the time!
Join the Irish Breakdown community!
Subscribe to the Irish Breakdown YouTube channel
Subscribe to the Irish Breakdown podcast on iTunes
Follow me on Twitter: @SeanStires
Like and follow Irish Breakdown on Facebook
Sign up for the FREE Irish Breakdown daily newsletter
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 25, 2025, where it first appeared.