Mike Denbrock Says Notre Dame’s Offense Still Starts With the Run

Ahead of Sunday night’s opener against Wisconsin at Lambeau Field, Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock was asked what the identity of this year’s Notre Dame offense is.

“Well, we’re going to find out on Sunday night,” Notre Dame’s offensive coordinator said Tuesday. “You know, I think to begin with, the identity for us at the University of Notre Dame is, number one, to run the football, and we’re built around a strong run game. That’s going to be who we are and what we are.”

Everything else, in Denbrock’s telling, is built off that.

“Off that, we hope that develops into giving us opportunities to take vertical shots down the field,” he said. “We want to use our screen game and our quick game and different things to keep a defense off balance and keep a defense playing defense. And then, obviously, the goal is to score one more point than the opponent and make sure we come out on the right end of this.”

The Run Game Still Sets the Tone

Notre Dame lost a pair of running backs to the first round of the NFL Draft, and the conventional read on that was an offense that would tilt toward the pass in 2026 – especially with a Hesiman candidate in CJ Carr leading the offense. According to Denbrock though, the foundation of the offense has not changed even if the personnel has.

Aneyas Williams is the lead back, with Nolan James and Kedren Young behind him, and freshmen Jonaz Walton and Javian Osborne sitting behind the upperclassmen. Marcus Freeman said during training camp that Notre Dame had five backs who could play, even if the Irish could not conceivably play all five every week, and Sunday is the first real evidence of how Ja’Juan Seider’s room gets divided.

It made perfect sense for Notre Dame to lean on the running game the last two years with Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price in the backfield and a run-first quarterback in Riley Leonard in 2024 and a first time starter in Carr last year. While Denbrock and Notre Dame till want the run game to set the tone, it will be telling to see how much they let Carr sling it on Sunday.

How Notre Dame’s Line Matches Up

The other half of the equation is the group in front of them. Carr, coming off a 2,741-yard, 24-touchdown season, was asked how he felt about his offensive line against a Wisconsin front with experience at linebacker and on the defensive line.

“Feel really good,” Carr said. “We got a bunch of returning guys, a bunch of guys who played a bunch of ball with (Anthonie) Knapp and (Ashton) Craig and Guerby (Lambert), and some new guys obviously in there with Will (Black) and (Prescod) Styles. But complete trust that they’re going to come out and perform the way they have been. They’re a super aggressive, super tight-knit group, and so I like how we match up.”

Wisconsin, Denbrock said, mixes coverages well enough that the answers are not going to be obvious on the first look.

“We’re going to have to do a great job in the run game of identifying when we’ve got to block safeties instead of corners and how they’re kind of constructing their run fits so they don’t out-hat us in the box and things like that,” Denbrock said. “So, they present a lot of challenges. You know, I know they’ve got some new faces in the secondary, but they’re very talented players, and it’s going to be a nice little challenge for the wide receivers for sure.”

The vertical shots and screens Denbrock described only open up once the numbers in the box gets solved, and Wisconsin’s structure is going to dictate how quickly Notre Dame gets there. Knapp is one of the returning pieces Carr is counting on there, along with Craig and Guerby, with Will and Styles new to the group. It should be noted that Notre Dame hasn’t publicly named Styles the starter of Sullivan Absher, but Carr’s quotes were telling.

What Sunday Could Set in Motion

Notre Dame should still throw it more than it did a year ago. Carr enters his second season as the starter, and he does it as a Heisman Trophy contender. This is his third year in this offense.

Denbrock was asked what one September night against Wisconsin means for the rest of the schedule.

“It’s the first game of the season, which I think emphasizes your point that this kind of sets the course for a lot of the season,” he said.

Sunday should start answering how the carries get divided among Seider’s five backs and whether that line can control the box well enough to keep the run game as the foundation Denbrock says it is.