2020 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team
The 2020 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team represents the University of Notre Dame in the 2020 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The team will be led by Brian Kelly in his eleventh season at Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish play their home games at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana and compete for the first time in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Previous season
The 2019 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team finished 11–2 on the season with a 33–9 victory over Iowa State in the Camping World Bowl in Orlando, Florida. They finished at No. 12 in the final AP Poll of the College Football season.Offseason
Departures
- TE Cole Kmet
- WR Chase Claypool
- LB Julian Okwara
- CB Troy Pride Jr.
- LB Khalid Kareem
- S Alohi Gilman
- RB Tony Jones Jr.
- WR Chris Finke
- S Jalen Elliott
- LB Jamir Jones
- LB Asmar Bilal
- CB Donte' Vaughn
- QB Phil Jurkovec
- WR Michael Young Jr.
- LB Jonathan Jones
- CB Temitope Agoro
Coaching changes
2020 recruiting class
Personnel
Coaching staff
Roster
Depth chart
Schedule
The 2020 schedule was officially released on December 7, 2017.Due to suspensions of athletic programs nationwide as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the team called off the 2020 edition of its spring Blue-Gold Game. The Emerald Isle Classic game against Navy at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland was tentatively rescheduled for Navy–Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland, and three games were scrapped after the Big Ten and Pac-12 elected to restrict play to conference opponents only. This included a game scheduled against Wisconsin on October 3, the team's rivalry game against Stanford, and the team's rivalry game against USC.
In regards to replacing the cancelled games, head coach Brian Kelly told ESPN's Mike Greenberg that "our phone is ringing off the hook right now in terms of teams looking for games", and that Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick had been communicating with ACC commissioner John Swofford; as per its membership in most other sports, Notre Dame typically plays five games against ACC opponents per-season. On July 29, 2020, the ACC officially announced that Notre Dame would play its 2020 season within the conference, with 10 games against ACC opponents, a non-conference game of its choice against an in-state opponent, and being eligible to compete for the conference championship.
All home games will still be broadcast on NBC even with the conference for the first time in history during the COVID-19 pandemic.
| 2020 Notre Dame Fighting Irish schedule |