Notre Dame football is a couple weeks into fall camp, and the 2026 season is inching closer for head coach Marcus Freeman and company.

The Fighting Irish boast a deep and talented roster, which is one of the main reasons they carry some of the highest national championship odds and expectations in college football. As more information trickles out of fall camp, including breakout players, potential starters, and key reserves, the puzzle that is this Notre Dame program becomes clearer and clearer.

While plenty of questions are being answered in real time, some will linger.

Certain players hold the ultimate key to the overall upside of this team, but the outlook for their potential impact in 2026 remains cloudy. These are the wild cards. Players who could unlock the ceiling of this Fighting Irish roster, but whose floor brings legitimate question marks in terms of what you can truly expect.

If any of these players take a nice step forward, or several of them do, Notre Dame is going to be extremely hard to beat.

WR Quincy Porter

The sophomore pass catcher began his career at Ohio State, where he was a former five-star recruit coming out of Bergen Catholic in New Jersey. At 6-foot-4 and 215 pounds, Porter is Notre Dame’s best blend of size, strength, explosiveness, and vertical ability.

The problem is that Porter is still not fully cleared for game action, and a complete timeline of recovery is still to be determined. Could he appear early in the season? It’s possible. Could he be held out a couple games to make sure he’s back fully to 100 percent? That seems to potentially be on the table as well.

If fully healthy, Porter has an opportunity to become a difference maker at the boundary wide receiver position. But until he’s available, he cannot be counted on. The offseason began with tremendous upside and expectation for Porter to maybe even end up being the best wide receiver in that room. As of today, his overall outlook for 2026 remains cloudy, especially with Micah Gilbert seemingly taking advantage of opportunities at that boundary position.

RB Kedren Young

The redshirt sophomore tailback came to Notre Dame as a top-100 recruit in the 2024 class, showed some flashes as a true freshman in a small sample size, but was unfortunately lost for the entirety of the 2025 season due to an ACL injury.

Over the first two years of Young’s career, we just have not seen him on the field. The lack of availability creates a mystery toward how much we should anticipate Young impacting this Notre Dame offense in 2026.

If he is healthy, there’s a reason he was a former top-100 recruit. At 5-foot-11 and 230-plus pounds, Young is an explosive and powerful runner who might be the most physically gifted running back on this roster. There’s a world where he’s the best running back on the team in 2026, the third best, or he struggles to be consistently available.

All of those realities make him an ultimate wild card in a good Notre Dame running back room.

OL Matty Augustine (and Charles Jagusah)

Charles Jagusah deserves a mention here. If the redshirt junior was healthy, he would have a very good argument as the most physically gifted offensive lineman on the roster.

However, he is still dealing with the humerus injury from last offseason that led eventually to an infection and some nerve issues, and there is no clear timeline for his return. Jagusah has gone from a wild card to one of the biggest what-if stories of the Marcus Freeman tenure so far. If he does somehow come back at some point in 2026, it would be a huge boost to an already talented offensive line. But I don’t think anyone can expect that as of today.

Augustine is a different story.

Going into fall camp, the 6-foot-8, 310-pound offensive lineman was expected to compete with Sullivan Absher to be the starting right guard. A broken foot is going to cost Augustine several weeks, and while we will see him in 2026, the injury cost him the opportunity to compete in the preseason for that starting spot.

There’s a chance that down the line Augustine once again unseats Absher for that starting right guard position, but for now that competition is on hold. Could he be one of Notre Dame’s best five offensive linemen down the stretch of the season? It’s very possible, but this preseason injury could halt his expectations heading into the year.

DE Keon Keeley

The Alabama transfer came to Notre Dame with a lot of five-star upside but some question marks he needs to answer. The redshirt junior was once committed to Notre Dame in the 2023 class but had gotten lost in the shuffle with the Crimson Tide over the last few years. He did, however, play his best brand of football with Alabama down the stretch in 2025, which brings some optimism for the future.

As soon as Keeley got to South Bend, the staff decided to take some bad weight off his frame. Now standing at about 6-foot-5 and 275 pounds, he is competing with Bryce Young for one defensive end spot opposite Boubacar Traore. If healthy and at his peak, Keeley still has untapped upside and the potential to be a difference maker for this team. But will he be able to hit that ceiling sometime in 2026?

That is still a question to evaluate.

CB Christian Gray

After starting the last two years as the field corner, Christian Gray is moving inside to the nickel. When Gray is on his game, he is a difference-making cover man who has a knack for creating big plays. The problem is that the lows are almost unplayable. The peaks and valleys need to become a lot closer than they have been in the past, especially with Gray now shifting into the slot.

How good will he be in the nickel? Will he be able to deliver a consistent version of himself?

Gray has the ability to unlock the ultimate upside of this secondary on the back end and become the best nickel defender Notre Dame has had over the last several years. But how smoothly that fit comes together is still a question that needs to be answered. If Gray can eliminate the valleys, this defense takes a massive step. If the inconsistency follows him inside, it becomes one of the biggest lingering concerns for Freeman’s squad heading into the season.