The Pros and Cons of Notre Dame's Bye Week Following Loss at BYU

There is some good that comes from getting a bye after that loss, but certainly some bad, too

Oct 17, 2026; Provo, Utah, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish quarterback CJ Carr (13) calls a play against the Brigham Young Cougars during the first half at LaVell Edwards Stadium. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Depending how you look at it, the timing of Notre Dame's off week couldn't come at a better time.

Or could it?

The Fighting Irish are fresh off their first loss of the season, and after how last year went, one has to assume it will need to win out, including beating No. 1 Miami on November 7, to make the College Football Playoff.

That's quite the turn of events for a team that entered Saturday night thinking it would be ranked No. 1 in the nation on Sunday, as long as it took care of business against BYU.

As it turns it, it didn't take care of business, and now has the "Big Game Question" back in the picture, as it has now dropped three-straight in that department, dating back to the start of the 2025 season.

The Pros to Notre Dame's Bye Week Coming Now

If you're a believer in "letting it hurt" when something goes poorly, then this bye week comes at the perfect time.

Notre Dame gets extra time to think about the pain of losing to BYU, and that then somehow makes the group more focused or prepared to play the rest of the games is the thinking.

I'm not huge on that, but I am huge on some of the injuries to this team mattering.

When you look at the secondary, one that is arguably the best in the country when healthy, it is playing with quite the banged up group.

All-American candidate Brauntae Johnson hasn't played since suffering a foot injury in the opener against Wisconsin.

Likely top 10 draft pick Leonard Moore returned to the field against BYU after missing the Stanford game due to a concussion, but largely didn't look like himself this past Saturday night.

And safety Luke Talich, who would likely start on almost every other Power Four college football team, has been dealing with a wrist injury for weeks.

Add those altogether and get a week away from the emotional roller coaster that came from Saturday night's loss, and it could be a positive for Notre Dame.

The bad news is that the trickiness of Navy next week, creates an odd couple of weeks as Miami comes to town the week after.

The Negative of Having This Week Off

Maybe I'm being too negative but I don't look at the Notre Dame defense and think that a week off before Navy and Miami will do much to solve the problems we saw against BYU.

Notre Dame has handled Navy in convincing fashion in recent years, but its unique offense means more preparation is needed for it than other offenses. That's true of good Navy teams, but equally true against lesser Navy teams, including this one, that sits at 2-4 currently.

The other part that I hate of this is that there is an extra week for all the noise to creep in.

We can say all the things we want, but the fact of the matter is that blocking out the noise is incredibly difficult to do when you're looking at a bunch of young men who grew up with social media and constantly hearing from fans and hot take artists.

The best thing that could have happened to Notre Dame after it was stunned by Northern Illinois in 2024 was to have a game that next week.

It did at Purdue, and fired the Boilermakers into the sun, beating them 66-7, and seeing the seemingly doomed season turn around quickly.

Nick Shepkowski's Quick Thoughts

While getting healthy is key for a position group that is important, I tend to think that can happen even if a game is played.

To me, it'd be better for Notre Dame to have its bye week later in the year than this weekend.

Like it or not, this team is going to hear all the naysaying until it takes the field for another game.

It doesn't matter if it was "just Navy" as much of the national media will claim, simply changing the focus to preparing for another game instead of sitting in all of it for a week sounds a whole lot better to me.

When Notre Dame came off the bye week last year (it had two), it lost at home as a touchdown favorite to Texas A&M and had perhaps its least impressive showing of the year in a win at Boston College.

From a player perspective I'm all about moving on and getting this taste out of the mouth as soon as possible, but based on what we've seen of Notre Dame under Chris Ash as defensive coordinator, the timing of the bye week should be extremely low on the Fighting Irish concern chart currently.

And perhaps the week off can also be used to figure out a way to get Jonaz Walton more than five touches the next time Notre Dame plays a huge game.