Notre Dame’s fall camp opens on Thursday, and Fighting Irish football is just upon the horizon.

Heading into the 2026 college football season, head coach Marcus Freeman and the Irish carry high expectations for what this team can accomplish, including a potential deep playoff run and national championship hopes. A lot of those hopes will center on the quarterback position, led by redshirt sophomore CJ Carr, who is coming off a tremendous redshirt freshman season where he threw for 2,741 yards and 24 touchdowns while throwing just 6 interceptions, completing over 66% of his passes.

For a fall camp preview, let’s dig into the quarterback position as a whole, the questions that remain unanswered, and the observations everyone will hope to see over the next several weeks heading into the first game at Lambeau Field against the Wisconsin Badgers.

CJ Carr’s ascension is the story of fall camp

The conversation starts and ends with Carr.

Some believe, depending on the type of season he has, that he could be a candidate to be an early entry into the 2027 NFL Draft. That conversation is way down the road, but for now, the expectation should be quite simple. After a strong redshirt freshman year that showed a lot of growth and promise, Carr should be expected to make that next step to become one of the best overall signal callers in all of college football.

With how Notre Dame’s offensive personnel has changed this offseason under offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock, the potential is there for this to be one of the best passing offenses we’ve seen in some time. There has been an overhaul at running back with Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price off to the NFL.

While the running attack will still be good for Notre Dame, the passing attack will have to pick up more of the slack than it did in the 2025 season.

So the first question is quite simple: will CJ Carr be able to make that ascension to being one of the best quarterbacks in college football? We will get a glimpse of whether that leap is coming during fall camp with the reports that emerge over the next several weeks.

Carr will have the daunting task every single day of facing one of the deepest and most talented pass defenses in all of college football. There will be some uneven moments for him. But if he is able to hold his own and excel at times against the likes of Leonard Moore, Adon Shuler, Tae Johnson, and company, that is a great indicator that Carr is indeed ready to take the next step.

If he is, Notre Dame should be very bullish on their opportunity to make a championship run when the 2026 season officially begins.

Who wins the backup quarterback job?

The other major question the quarterback room must answer is who fills the backup role behind CJ Carr.

As of today, my bet would probably go on redshirt freshman Blake Hebert, just because of his year of learning the Denbrock system as a backup last season. However, I am not going to discount the opportunities that both true freshman Noah Grubbs and Teddy Jarrard have coming into the fall.

Grubbs spent all spring with the team, so he had a few months of a head start on Jarrard, who didn’t enroll until the summer. With the new 5-for-5 rule, redshirting any player is not as much of a priority as it once was. It isn’t even a thing anymore.

Does that give the opportunity for a Jarrard or Grubbs to unseat Hebert as the main backup, or will the staff prioritize that year of a head start in the system?

Those are the major questions we need to see answered over the next couple of weeks. Fall camp will tell us a lot about where this quarterback room stands, and if Carr looks the part against Notre Dame’s elite secondary, the vibes heading into the 2026 season should be extremely high.