Notre Dame confirms 2025 spring football game plans

Notre Dame will play a traditional spring football exhibition game, head coach Marcus Freeman announced, bucking a trend some other high-profile programs are setting.

Notre Dame will play a spring football game in 2025 as other high-profile schools decide against it. / MICHAEL CLUBB/SOUTH BEND TRIBUNE / USA TODAY NETWORK

Notre Dame will play a spring football exhibition game this preseason, head coach Marcus Freeman has announced.

Fans can see the Blue and Gold take the field on April 12.

“We will have a spring game,” Freeman said of his plans.

“It will be a version of a spring game. Again, it’s important to me to use that as an opportunity, one to let our players perform in front of our fans, but, two, it’s a chance to really integrate our community and our fans with this football program.”

He added: “I think it’s so important to me to give the opportunity to fans that maybe typically don’t get the opportunity to come to a Notre Dame game or, if they do, to give them another opportunity to come and engage with our players. I don’t want to take away from that.”

That said, having played a much longer football season than usual, culminating in the Irish appearing in the national title game, means the schedule will be adjusted somewhat.

“We moved spring back,” Freeman said. “I think when I first put our spring practice calendar, when we decided when the spring game was going to be, I decided after the season that we had to move spring practice about two weeks.”

Notre Dame played for the national championship on Jan. 20, a much later date not only than college football has played for its title, but than the Fighting Irish have played either.

“The reality is, I didn’t want to cheat strength and conditioning phase or the development phase on how many plays they played last year in terms of when they started that strength and conditioning phase,” Freeman said. “That’s why I decided to push it back two weeks to get started.”

Still, the Irish appear to buck a new trend across college football that finds some high-profile programs electing to back away from the spring scrimmage and host an alternative event.

Ohio State, LSU, Texas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska are among those schools that have decided against playing the usual preseason match and go for something else.

For some schools, it’s a question of having played a longer season, while for others, there are growing concerns that the game serves as a try-out of sorts for rival schools to tamper with and ultimately poach reserve players in the preseason transfer window.

But Notre Dame still sees value in the spring football program, at least in 2025.

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