Notre Dame's Biggest Questions Unlikely To Get Answered This Spring

Notre Dame Spring Football 2025

Limited spring camp presents modern challenge for Irish program

Notre Dame Football is coming off the longest football season in its illustrious history.

The 16-game gauntlet the Irish barreled through extended the season nearly to the month of February. As we now sit amid spring football, Irish fans are looking to 2025 as a clean slate, but the program itself hasn't had that luxury.

There have been staff roles to fill and many serious injury recoveries to navigate, which have hindered just how much work Notre Dame can get done in their spring practice sessions.

Due to the physical limitations of the program during this practice period, I suspect that many of the program's biggest questions cannot be answered until August camp, when, theoretically, the team should be fully healthy.

Let's examine some of these areas.

Who will be the Notre Dame starting quarterback?

Notre Dame has a three-man QB competition taking place to determine who will take the first snap against Miami in 2025.

To be obvious, this means each player will get a third of the reps with the starting group, and a third with both the second and third string lineups, which are all physically limited due to injury.

With such limited opportunity to shine and seize control of the dynamic, Even though it should take something special to knock off CJ Carr from the No. 1 spot, I suspect this race for the starting job will carry over into August.

How healthy is the talented offensive line?

With Ashton Craig, Billy Shrauth, and Anthonie Knapp all limited due to injury recovery and impressive freshman Will Black not on campus yet, it will be tough for Notre Dame to figure out what combination of players at what positions gives it the best chance to win at Miami to kick things off.

I suspect a lot of lineup changes and combination trials will come in August.

Can Notre Dame's WR room take a giant leap forward?

Notre Dame found out firsthand what an electric passing game can do to the opposition when it faced Ohio State in the title game.

With Malachi Fields and Will Pauling out, and Jordan Faison limited while playing lacrosse, this is another group that will not be fully put together until fall camp.

Really, what will Notre Dame get out of the spring practices?

With so many moving parts offensively, not to mention the Irish defense being under new leadership under Chris Ash, I predict the first couple of weeks of fall camp to be chaotic.

Notre Dame will have many decisions to make to set its two-deep starting roster in a very short amount of time before game prep for Miami begins.

This scenario isn't ideal, but it is a reality for an Irish program looking to make back-to-back deep playoff runs.

After all of this, though ... it's spring football. We're just getting started.