Former Notre Dame legend Brady Quinn didn’t have as successful NFL career as many of us thought he would, but his next venue has been much different.
With the Irish he won the Maxwell Award and Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award during his final season and the Cleveland Browns took him in the first round of the 2027 NFL draft. The current Fox analyst recently joined Colin Cowherd on “The Herd” and when asked about the current state of his alma mater, Quinn said “I definitely think they have the chance of still wining a national championship… they’re that talented, that’s their ceiling. There problem is, there’s no room for error, and we saw that after last year … 10-2 wasn’t good enough. I think that’s the concern here is it all comes down to the Miami
game.”
I can’t argue with Quinn’s assessment, as I called the game at home against the Hurricanes a must-win. There is an eery feeling that last season is playing back all over again, as the Irish dropped their first game against a tough opponent.
Quinn would then return to the BYU loss, saying that it was a winnable game despite CJ Carr having an off game, Boubacar Traore being disqualified almost immediately, defensive coordinator Chris Ash’s reluctance to play man-to-man and a few others. “Notre Dame should look nowhere else but the mirror and try to pick up the pieces, max the fixes they need to make because they are capable of winning it all,” is his view of what happened.
The harsh reality of losing to the Cougars then set in, as Quinn would say that the Irish are virtually in the playoff right now, as another loss essentially knocks them out of the running. Miami is the must-win, but he’s right, Notre Dame can’t afford another loss during the regular season if it expects to be playing in the playoff.
"Notre Dame should look nowhere else but the mirror. They are capable of winning it all. But they can't afford to lose."@colincowherd & @Brady_Quinn talk Notre Dame's playoff chances after losing to BYU pic.twitter.com/N1zyjpkaBm
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) October 21, 2026
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This article originally appeared on Fighting Irish Wire: Brady Quinn shares thoughts on Notre Dame following the loss to BYU
