Brian, diving into part three of the Irish Breakdown podcast brought to you by our friends over at Fandoul.

We're continuing our conversation with the 2026 Notre Dame defense.

And look, we've talked a lot about what they bring back, the star power.

We've talked a lot about what foundation was laid.

We have a better idea of what to expect a little bit more from Chris Ash.

It's not 100%.

But like we've talked about, great coaches always find ways to adapt.

All of those things are great.

And right now you have an insane amount of sticking with cooking analogies,

an insane amount of ingredients in the cabinet and in the fridge.

But now we have to get into the expectations conversation.

Because you and I, along with 339 other people in the chat, believe that Notre Dame has the opportunity to go on a run unlike one that we've seen, at least in my lifetime.

And for people who are older than me, one that we haven't seen really in the last couple decades.

And so what is the expectation for this Notre Dame

defense going into 2026? And I think the best way to start is can they play elite defense

all season? That's the key. We can't be having conversations of, you know, midway through

November. It's does so and so revert back or are they who they are now?

It's, we need to be having conversations at the halfway point in the later window

of the regular season of, yeah, this is just who they are.

Yep.

And that's where would they have to be?

That's the biggest thing.

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