INDEPENDENTS OVERVIEW
Notre Dame and UConn are on two very different paths this season. With the new College Football Playoff qualification and seeding rules, all the Fighting Irish have to do is finish in the top 12 in the CFP rankings and they will automatically be in the field. Based on how good Notre Dame looks this season, it would be a major upset if they aren’t in the field. In fact, DraftKings had the Fighting Irish at -800 to Make the CFP and the ‘No’ was 5-1 for anybody brave enough to take that chance.
While UConn never has CFP aspirations, the Huskies were at least worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as the Fighting Irish with back-to-back 9-4 seasons. Unfortunately, it does look like the tide will turn in Storrs, at least to some degree, with Jim Mora Jr. now at Colorado State. Many believe that Jason Candle is a good hire, but he’s had a knack for losing games as a favorite over the course of his career at Toledo and the Huskies have basically nobody back from last season’s team.
The story is different in South Bend. While star RBs Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price are now in the NFL, QB CJ Carr is among the Heisman favorites and the defense is chock full of returning production. After missing out on the CFP last season and after losing to Ohio State in the CFP Championship the previous season, there may not be a more motivated team than the Fighting Irish and the schedule has absolutely softened up after last season’s early losses to Miami and Texas A&M proved too much to overcome in the rankings.
CONNECTICUT HUSKIES
Jim Mora Jr. won 27 games in his four seasons at the helm with UConn. From 2012-21, the program had 26 wins. With Jason Candle taking over, the program ranks 138th in Phil Steele’s Experience chart. With North Dakota State and Sacramento State now in FBS, 138th is officially dead last. That being said, while there’s no returning talent from last year’s Huskies team, Candle did bring some Toledo talent with him, so he’s not walking into the facility with zero familiar faces.
The problem, at least on the surface, is that Candle wasn’t able to bring any of his extremely productive players with him on offense and only a couple followed him on defense. This has all the makings of a transitional, rebuilding year for the Huskies and Candle himself, as his only other coaching stop outside of Toledo was D-III Mount Union from 2003-08. With no clear-cut starting QB and a ton of position battles elsewhere, it’s sure to be an interesting first year.
Three Burning Questions for the 2026 Season
Was it something I said?
Normally new head coaches bring a collection of assistants with them. There’s familiarity there, not only in terms of understanding the scheme and the playbook, but also the types of players that fit in that system. Well, Candle’s OC is Nunzio Campanile, who was at Syracuse from 2023-25 and at Rutgers prior to that. His DC is Ryan Manalac, a fellow Ohio native who served as Pitt’s linebackers coach and has never been a defensive coordinator at the FBS level. The special teams coordinator was at Washington State. His co-OC and QB coach was at South Carolina. I do applaud Candle for putting together a diverse staff with recruiting connections all over the country, but for a guy who was at Toledo for a decade as head coach, it is surprising to see how many new colleagues he has on the staff.
Can you tell us one interesting fact about yourself?
For spring practices and other team events, it must have felt like asking icebreaker questions in a new class. Even the players who have come from other schools are not really players that have stood out and would be recognizable, except for K’Von Sherman, who had 93 tackles last season for Toledo. Kalieb Osborne is one of the Rockets that came with Candle and he’ll battle with Jake Merklinger from Tennessee and a couple of in-house options at QB. RB Kenji Christian is at his fourth school, with Toledo his most recent one. Three potential starters on the OL were together at Toledo, but didn’t play much. The Huskies averaged 31.9 PPG and 35.3 PPG the last two seasons and 6.7 YPP last season. Suffice it to say that the fan base probably won’t see those numbers.
Is keeping expectations low a good thing?
From 2021-25, Candle lost 10 times as a touchdown or more favorite. Aim low and shoot high might be the right approach here as a result, given that UConn won’t be favored very much this season with a completely new roster. It is impossible to quantify what it might mean for Candle to be away from Toledo after coaching there for 16 years. His staff is a smorgasbord of coaches from other schools and that could end up being a positive in the present and the future. It might not be. Also, while the offense has major question marks on paper, the defense has a good chance at being solid, as Manalac is a Pat Narduzzi disciple and that guy knows a thing or two about defense. Furthermore, Toledo was second in yards against per game last season and third in yards per play against.
UConn 2026 Season Win Total – Under 5.5 Wins
This does look like a transitional year, but that’s not the whole reason why I’m down on UConn. While the degree of difficulty with the teams on the schedule isn’t all that daunting, the team has trips to Air Force and Wyoming on Halloween and Thanksgiving weekend, respectively, so those are two elevation games late in the year. They also face Syracuse and Old Dominion at The Rent with those two teams off of byes, adding an extra challenge to two winnable home games. While the Huskies do only play five road games, I believe they fall short of bowl eligibility and my projection is 5.39 wins.
NOTRE DAME FIGHTING IRISH
A season with 10 or 11 wins in the regular season cannot be described as a disappointment, right? In Notre Dame’s case, it just might be. Perhaps calling it a “cupcake” schedule would be a little bit too critical, but it’s a “bundt cake” schedule at the very least. The Fighting Irish get a crack at Miami in a major revenge game at home on November 7 and that looks to be far and away the biggest test for the team.
Obviously a lot of things can happen from a health standpoint, but Marcus Freeman and his staff have put together a spectacular roster. Freeman is 34-7 over the last three seasons. While Notre Dame gets to pick their schedule as an Independent, they’ve still been tested, facing 12 ranked teams in the regular season over that span. There’s a chance that they only face two or three during the regular season this year.
Three Burning Questions for the 2026 Season
Are there any weaknesses on offense?
Carr had a 24/6 TD/INT ratio last season and added three more scores on the ground, though he was hardly the rushing threat that Riley Leonard was. The depth behind Carr is a major worry if something were to happen to him, but he spent most of the spring and summer as the favorite to win the Heisman Trophy. The schedule surely has a lot to do with that, as anything under 11 wins would be a bit of a surprise, so he should be putting up numbers and winning games for a very visible program. While Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price are gone, taking over 2,000 rushing yards and 29 rushing scores with them, Aneyas Williams should be able to keep the bar high at that position. Similarly, while Jordan Faison is the only notable returnee at wide receiver, Jaden Greathouse is back after missing nearly all of last season due to injury. Plus, the offensive line looks very good, including the return of Charles Jagusah. So, in a word, no.
Are there any weaknesses on defense?
The TL;DR version of this question is one simple word – no. Unlike a lot of premier programs with heavy personnel losses, second-year DC Chris Ash has his top six tacklers back. The Irish were one of 11 teams to hold opponents to fewer than three yards per carry and only eight teams allowed fewer yards on a per-play basis. Notre Dame has had a lot of coaches and players roll through in the past seven years and they’ve only allowed more than 19.7 PPG one time. Hell, they’ve allowed under five yards per play in each of the last three seasons under Freeman. They are +31 in TO margin over the last two seasons, which is one area of concern, but not if Carr takes care of the ball. The defense will go ball-hawking again after securing 21 interceptions last season.
Anything else?
It feels like I’ve said about all I can say about this team. Notre Dame’s two close losses last season were followed up by a bunch of blowout wins, as they outgained their other 10 opponents by more than 1,800 yards in total and outscored them by nearly 300 points. As long as the Irish avoid cluster injuries, the goal of a perfect season is very attainable, and that includes the CFP as well. It should also be noted that Notre Dame only plays four true road games – Purdue, North Carolina, BYU, and Syracuse. Two of their “road” games are in neutral settings, with one in Green Bay and one in Foxboro. The Irish get an extra week to prepare for Navy’s triple-option with a well-timed bye that comes the week after they play in elevation at BYU.
Notre Dame 2026 Season Win Total Pick – Over 11.5 Wins
The pressure of going perfect may ultimately be too much, but Miami feels like the only major stumbling block and they’ve had to do a lot of retooling on defense. While we probably all underestimated Miami last season, Notre Dame was favored on the road in the lid lifter last season, for whatever that’s worth. The Irish were so perturbed about their CFP snub that they didn’t bother playing a bowl game, but you can tell that everybody has bought in, as the only players of note that left did so for the NFL and not for other schools. My projection is 11.42 wins, and they are favored by 8.5 or more in every game.
