Notre Dame Opens 2026 Season No. 5 in Preseason Coaches Poll

USA TODAY Sports and the American Football Coaches Association released the 2026 preseason US LBM Coaches Poll at noon ET Tuesday, and Notre Dame opened the season at No. 5 with 1,524 points and five first-place votes. Ohio State debuted at No. 1 with 38 of the 72 first-place votes, followed by Oregon, Georgia, and Texas.

Defending national champion Indiana came in sixth despite collecting 14 first-place votes, the second-highest total in the poll behind Ohio State. The poll orders teams by total points, not first-place votes, so Oregon, Georgia, and Texas all finished ahead of the Hoosiers on aggregate ballot position even with fewer coaches ranking them No. 1. Notre Dame was one of only six programs to receive at least one first-place vote, joining Ohio State, Oregon, Georgia, Texas, and Indiana, and it was the only independent in that group.

Six Spots Higher Than December

Notre Dame finished the 2025 season No. 11 in the final Coaches Poll after a 10-2 regular season and exclusion from the 12-team College Football Playoff, a result that pushed athletic director Pete Bevacqua to publicly label the selection process a farce. Six spots is the distance between how the sport graded that team in December and how it grades this one in August.

Marcus Freeman took a different line at Tuesday’s news conference, a month out from the Sept. 6 opener against Wisconsin at Lambeau Field.

“We didn’t earn that opportunity,” Freeman said of last season’s playoff exclusion.

For historical scale, Notre Dame’s No. 7 debut in 2021 was the program’s highest preseason Coaches Poll slot of the Brian Kelly era. In 2017, the Irish opened outside the poll entirely.

Why Coaches Pushed Notre Dame Into the Top Five

ESPN’s Bill Connelly ranks Notre Dame No. 1 nationally in returning production for 2026, which is the clearest single explanation for a team jumping into the top five after a season that ended without a playoff bid. CJ Carr enters his second year as the starter as a preseason Heisman candidate after completing 66.6 percent of his passes for 2,741 yards, 24 touchdowns, and six interceptions.

USA TODAY’s Blake Toppmeyer, one of the analysts on the poll reveal show, argued in a same-day column that the Irish belong higher than fifth.

“I won’t call Notre Dame at No. 5 a farce, but I will say the Irish are underrated,” Toppmeyer wrote.

His case rested on the same returning-production math the coaches were working from, and something Marcus Freeman mentioned on Tuesday – Notre Dame returns a ton of production, including star quarterback CJ Carr.

What the Ranking Sets Up

Notre Dame’s schedule is not as daunting as years past and the Irish might have the easiest schedule of any contender. Still, the easiest top-10 schedule does not mean an empty one. Three Notre Dame opponents appear in the same preseason poll: No. 7 Miami, No. 15 BYU, and No. 20 SMU. Ten wins against that slate probably will not clear the bar, because 10-2 with this résumé was not enough last December, and nothing about the 2026 schedule suggests the committee will grade an independent’s second loss more generously.

Notre Dame enters fall camp as a consensus title contender with the No. 1 returning production mark in the country, a Heisman-candidate quarterback, and three ranked teams on the schedule. The first measurement arrives Sept. 6 at Lambeau Field.