SOUTH BEND, Ind. — The annual Notre Dame survey is a way to gauge the optimism and engagement of Irish fans. And on both fronts, the fan base appears to be peaking.

More than 3,000 subscribers filled out this summer’s survey, a record turnout. And the hope around this Notre Dame football season is unmatched by any since the days of Lou Holtz.

Thanks to everyone who participated this year. The idea for this started in the summer of 2020, when we weren’t sure there would be a football season. Now these 20 questions are a signpost of the summer, en route to a season that could take Notre Dame all the way to Las Vegas on Jan. 25.

Enjoy.

We are now reaching the mathematical limits of optimism among Notre Dame fans.

This is as good as you’ve ever felt about the state of the program — at least in the seven years of this survey — with “excellent” responses inching upward from last year’s record-setting mark of 84.2 percent. As a reminder, after Marcus Freeman’s first season in charge, just 13.1 percent of fans saw the football program as being in “excellent” shape. Now, just four of the more than 3,000 respondents dared to pick “average.”

If this is the peak of optimism for the fan base, enjoy it. Barring Notre Dame winning a national championship this season and Freeman rebuffing NFL interest again, the vibes may have reached their summit.

Opinions on Freeman inched upward even though the Irish missed the College Football Playoff after early losses to Miami and Texas A&M. Two-thirds of you believe Freeman’s first five seasons in charge have been “excellent,” even though that time includes unforgettable losses to Northern Illinois, Marshall and Stanford. The goodwill Freeman built during the national championship game run of two seasons ago seems to be holding up. Will that be the case a year from now? For the first time in Freeman’s tenure, there’s an expectation, not just a hope, that Notre Dame will compete for a championship.

Seven times more Notre Dame fans consider this a national-championship-or-bust season than did last year. And that doesn’t include the doubling in size of the group that considers winning at least two College Football Playoff games the bare minimum for a successful season. Put another way, a year ago, roughly two-thirds of respondents would have been satisfied with the Irish just making the CFP or winning one postseason game. Now, just 10 percent would accept a one-and-done or worse season as being successful.

You might feel roughly the same about the state of the program or the head coach. But you feel a lot differently about what qualifies as a successful season.

This is probably a mix of heightened expectations and a weaker schedule, but the share of fans who believe Notre Dame will run the table through the regular season increased eightfold, from 5.1 percent to 43.5 percent. And that’s with the percentage of votes for an 11-1 season remaining relatively flat. We’ve come a long way from just three years ago, when a quarter of all respondents predicted (correctly) that Notre Dame would go 9-3. This year, only 92 fans voted for 10-2.

Combining the results for cornerback and safety, more than half of voters picked the secondary as the strength of Notre Dame’s team, although Leonard Moore and his fellow cornerbacks drew the larger share of votes. Oddly, a larger percentage voted for quarterback as the team’s biggest strength when Sam Hartman was the quarterback than did today with CJ Carr behind center. That probably speaks to the faith in the cornerback spot, which has been voted No. 1 in two of the past three seasons. Also, two-thirds of you correctly picked running back as the biggest strength of last year’s team. All four defensive positions got more votes than every spot on offense other than quarterback.

Tight End U might be taking a gap year. In the history of the survey, the tight end position has usually been an afterthought. But fans are wavering with Eli Raridon off to the NFL, even with Cooper Flanagan returning and five-star freshman Ian Premer enrolling. Receiver has been a constant weak point that has yet to be resolved in your eyes. The wideouts drew roughly the same percentage of responses as the running backs, and the running back depth chart lost two first-round picks. The receiver position did not.

Notre Dame’s breakout player this season will be _______.

It’s A-N-E-Y-A-S Williams.

It’s clear you like the new starting running back as Notre Dame’s breakout player of this season. It’s also clear that, 616 votes and all, he’s not yet a household name among Irish fans. Williams’ first name was spelled 31 ways during the write-in voting. But whether you’re partial to Aeneas (73 votes), Aneas (40 votes) or all the way down to Ananias (one vote), Angus (one vote) or Aeneid (one vote from a big Virgil fan?), you have high hopes for the junior who has been sitting behind Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price.

The other big vote-getters were CJ Carr (378 votes), receiver Mylan Graham (333 votes) and defensive lineman Bryce Young (212 votes). O-lineman Will Black and safety Tae Johnson each got more than 100 votes. D-lineman Rodney Dunham (49 votes) led all freshmen, with tight end Ian Premer (31 votes) and receiver Devin Fitzgerald (23 votes) the only other freshmen in double digits.

Also, 10 people voted for first-team All-American and Thorpe Award finalist Leonard Moore as a breakout player, which seemed to miss the point. Although not as much as the one person who chose Darnell Ewell.

I’m curious how 2025 will be remembered as Notre Dame moves further away from a run that was a whipsaw of emotion, from the maddening start to the entertaining middle to the controversial ending. For now, you remember the ending most.

Two-thirds of respondents expect Freeman to remain at Notre Dame for the medium term. If Freeman stayed four more seasons, that would mean an eight-year run and, if he keeps winning at the rate of the last couple of seasons, roughly 90 victories and a winning percentage close to Ara Parseghian’s (83.6 percent). Only nine Power 4 coaches will be entering their eighth season (or longer) this fall in the same job. But three have won national titles: Kirby Smart, Dabo Swinney and Ryan Day.

Also notable: Barely 8 percent of you think this will be Freeman’s final year, despite NFL interest the past two offseasons.

What is your favorite part of being a Notre Dame fan?

I wasn’t sure where you’d take this, but the results weren’t all that surprising.

The runaway winner was “tradition,” which was included in nearly 600 responses, with a combination of “games” and “Saturdays” coming a close second. “Family” got nearly 200 mentions, but “community,” “history,” “independent” and “hate” all got more than 100 mentions. Clearly, part of being a Notre Dame fan is an awareness of everyone who’s not.

• “The traditions. I’ve gone to many games during my childhood (Florida State and Boston College in ’93). Though I haven’t attended one recently, just seeing places on campus, the rituals that I’m not taking part in, brings back a flood of memories. It’s powerful that in the ever-changing landscape of college football, some things remain the same.”

• “The tradition and how it bonds even strangers. I’ve gotten ‘Go Irish’ yelled at me in places as far away as Edinburgh, Scotland. … When people see that ND monogram, it’s an automatic connection.”

• “The ability to have a unifying thread with my best friends from college at ND. The group chat is legit 10x more active during football season, and that connection with my friends across the country is worth more than any wins we get.”

• “All of it. To me, being a Notre Dame fan is something that defines me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

You’re almost evenly split on staying at 12 teams or expanding to 16.

And almost the same number of you would prefer going back to the four-team or the BCS days as would like to see the CFP expand to 24 teams, the format that is now backed by Notre Dame and most of college football. The sentiment around the 24-team idea is that nobody wants this other than the people running the sport, which holds true with the Notre Dame fan base.

Despite all the teeth-gnashing around the sport, you like where the Playoff has taken college football (just maybe not all the way to a 24-team field). Has the CFP sucked the oxygen out of the regular season? That depends on whom you ask, but it feels that way while covering it, with every weekend demanding to be put in context of who’s making the field and who’s not. Maybe I should have asked what you’d rather watch on Tuesday nights in November than the ESPN rankings show.

You’re largely good with the work Bevacqua has done through his first two full years on the job. It’s not like he’s acing the test on all fronts, but as long as football has Marcus Freeman and robust NIL support, it’s hard to imagine fans getting too bent out of shape over Olympic sports, apparel partnerships or ticket prices.

Notre Dame men’s hoops has become a bottom-feeder in the ACC under Micah Shrewsberry, with a losing record in each of his three seasons, and its best players bolted for better NIL opportunities in the spring. So, is the issue the roster (and the money put into it) or the guy coaching it? The answer is both, although more than twice as many of you think the NIL program needs to get fixed before a change is made at head coach. Ultimately, the program might require both.

Almost a quarter of you wouldn’t change a thing if spending on basketball meant taking away resources from football. For the record, the going rate for a quality starter in basketball at the Power 4 level is probably double the cost of signing two five-star football prospects out of high school. It’s hard to make that kind of math work at a football school.

Maybe this spring’s Brendan Sorsby drama would have altered these numbers if it had ended another way. Regardless, the tumult around this sport is wearing on the fans who follow it, at least a little bit. Yes, the majority of fans are holding steady, no matter the nonsense that’s happening with conferences, television networks or even the judicial system. But one-fifth of the respondents are starting to back away from the sport, which has become a seemingly nonstop parade of negative headlines during the offseason. Is that the start of a trend or standard churn? That’s hard to say.

You’re bummed; I get it. Me too, and not just because I’ll be spending Thanksgiving weekend in upstate New York this year.

College football is nothing without traditions (see above), and ripping Notre Dame-USC from the calendar robs the next generation of fans of both schools from enjoying the game their fathers and grandfathers remember. Unfortunately, those in charge seem at ease with selling a century-old rivalry for the sake of becoming slightly more likely to make the College Football Playoff.

A Notre Dame-USC game in the Playoff would be an incredible spectacle, but it’s hard to bet on the Trojans to make it that far.

If Notre Dame needs a new annual football rival, who should it be?

Here are the only schools that got double-digit votes:

• Michigan (1,649 votes)
• Miami (760)
• Ohio State (199)
• Texas (163)
• Clemson (125)
• Indiana (38)
• UCLA (35)
• BYU (11)

The people have spoken!

Though adding Michigan as an annual opponent might be a little complicated, an annual Miami series makes a ton of sense on multiple levels. Not only is it a historical rivalry, but Miami and Notre Dame also could use the schedule bump, considering their respective ACC schedules. The ACC is all for Miami and Notre Dame doing something similar to the upcoming 12-year Clemson series. If the ACC can help massage its scheduling to give these teams favorable matchups before their meeting, maybe that helps get this kind of deal done.

Shoutout to the one person who listed Northern Illinois.

What is your first Notre Dame football memory?

The Bush Push got the most votes, but it didn’t garner even 2 percent of the more than 3,000 write-in responses.

That’s because the Notre Dame fan experience is as broad as it is deep, and your answers highlighted as many losses as wins. No game was too insignificant to make the cut. Even the breadth of players mentioned was striking, from stars Joe Montana and Rocket Ismail to cult heroes Harry Oliver and Kevin McDougal. Some first memories are two years old (Jeremiyah Love’s touchdown run versus Penn State). Some are almost 75 (Notre Dame snapping Oklahoma’s 47-game win streak in 1957). Lindsey Nelson’s replays came up a lot.

These are some of my favorites.

• “Students chanting ‘Ara, stop the snow’ during a miserable cold, wet winter snowfall. As I also recall, the snow stopped and the Irish won.”

• “Pep Rally at Stepan Center. Got there late, and Dad put me on top of a cigarette machine to watch the band and team.”

• “The ’93 season. I was 8 years old. I tried with mixed results to watch the Michigan game in the back seat on a black-and-white portable TV. I thought the loss to Boston College was ‘my fault’ because I was wearing a long-sleeve Bugle Boy T-shirt that looked somewhat like BC’s color scheme.”

• “The first one that is really vivid is actually my freshman year at Notre Dame in 2016. I left a watch party for the Texas game in Keenan Hall to go back to my room in St. Edward’s. As I was walking out Keenan’s back door, someone threw their TV out of a fourth-floor window.” (Remarkably, not the only response to mention this incident.)

• “The Jim Sanson field goal as time expired, capping the fourth-quarter comeback at Texas in 1996. Mary Lou Retton talked smack to me (I was 7) in the concession stand line before the game for wearing my Notre Dame shirt and a Texas hat (I’m from Austin). She told me I had to choose one or the other. The shirt stayed on, and I eventually graduated from South Bend.”

• “Golden Tate jumping into the band against Michigan State. Remember my dad and I going to a neighborhood party, and we were the only ones rooting on Notre Dame. I remember replicating that jump into my family’s couches for the next month.”

• “I received the Navy No. 3 (Ron Powlus) jersey for my birthday in second grade. It was an adult size, way too big for me, but I wore it to school once a week. I still have it to this day and wear it on home Saturdays during the game.”

• “Helping my mom lay out her ‘magic talismans’ (buttons and ticket stubs and other things collected over her lifetime of Notre Dame fandom, but only from games they had won) and then watching every second of the game, win or lose.”

• “My then-13-year-old sister bringing a sign to a Notre Dame game at Wake Forest that said ‘Tommy Rees, will you marry me?’ in 2011, which his mom saw and sparked a friendship with the Rees family.”

• “A John Huarte-to-Jack Snow touchdown pass vs. Purdue in the 1964 home opener. Irish won 35-14. I bought the ticket from a rich alumnus for $1. My seat was south of the press box. It was a beautiful day!”

• “Allen Pinkett’s mom was my bus driver in elementary school. She had pictures of him all over the bus — she’d recap his games and talk Notre Dame.”

• “Listening to games circa 1951 with my Notre Dame grad dad. The radio was 4 feet tall. Big orange dial.”

• “My father taking me to the Northwestern game in 1971. I will see my 375th in-person game this year.”

Notre Dame makes it all the way to the national championship game in Las Vegas. Through the magic of Zoltar the Fortune Teller, you know before kickoff that the Irish will win their first national championship in football in 38 years. How much are you willing to pay to get into Allegiant Stadium for an upper-deck, corner end-zone seat to experience it?

$10,000: 8.8%
$5,000: 15.6%
$2,500: 20.5%
$1,000: 26.7%
$500: 16%?
$100: 12.4%

This would be an interesting question to reask the week of the national championship game if Notre Dame makes it that far, because another deep run might make fans more willing to pay up for a chance to see history. Almost half of you think the worst seat in the house is worth a mortgage payment.

Here’s guessing the 270 people willing to pay $10,000 will all be in Allegiant Stadium. And the 383 only willing to fork over $100 won’t.

As the blue and gold confetti falls on Jan. 25 and Marcus Freeman lifts the national championship trophy, how are you celebrating the moment?

You gave me 29,670 words to read. I read them all. For most of you, what you’ll be doing if Notre Dame wins a national championship this season doesn’t matter as much as who you’ll be with.

The words “family,” “tears,” “dad” and “hug” appeared the most, although combining “beer” with all the varieties listed (yes, Guinness led the way) would have come close to taking the top spot. More of you own Pappy Van Winkle than I would have expected. Plenty of you plan to be in Allegiant Stadium on Jan. 25.

Here are some of my favorite responses.

• “My family will finally be able to have my mom convert to Catholicism. It’s our family tradition to say that once Notre Dame wins a national championship in football, she has to convert. We’ve been close twice but need to go for gold!”

• “By being on the phone with my dad at the end of the game, who wouldn’t be able to attend due to Parkinson’s.”

• “Finishing the last of some 20-plus-year-old scotch that has been broken out at a lot of special moments in my life. It almost had to be tossed out due to the fire that ravaged our town in 2025, but it was saved and is still in the cabinet just waiting for either a grandkid or a Notre Dame football championship.”

• “Alma mater, first and foremost.”

• “Holding my happy, healthy newborn, whose due date is … January 25th. That’s gotta be a great sign, right?”

• “I will celebrate with my grandpa (class of ’57), my parents (’85 and ’86), my sisters (’16 and ’20), my brother (’22) and my kids (2046 and 2047).”

• “Surrounded by three generations of family in Jamaica Plain, Boston. Lifting a Smithwick’s Red Ale, served in one of our six 1952 vintage Notre Dame frosted glass mugs, with the Victory March music and lyrics printed on the side. (Two-color graphics: a royal blue and a dark shade of lemon yellow of the era.) Celebrating my father, too, ND ’47, who accompanied me to the 1988 Fiesta Bowl.”

• “Writing a check to give to Lou Nanni to pay for Freeman’s new contract.”

• “Grabbing my fiancée (I guess, by January, my wife) and any of our friends watching with us, standing arm in arm, and singing the alma mater. I like to think I’ll be remembering all the people, especially family members who have passed away, who shared memories of this team with me since I was a little kid whose first Irish jersey faded from blue to a dull purple after so many repeated washes.”