CLEMSON – The Clemson Insider takes a deep dive into Clemson’s ACC opponents for the 2025 college baseball season.

Notre Dame is led by head coach Shawn Stiffler. The Irish had a record of 27-25 and went 9-21 in the ACC in 2024.

They had a tough campaign in conference play last year. Notre Dame is looking to rebuild and bolster their record heading into the new season.

Clemson opens up ACC play against the Fighting Irish at Doug Kingsmore Stadium, March 14-16.

STRENGTHS:

The Fighting Irish have two starting pitchers back in Rory Fox and Jack Radel. The Irish bullpen is deep and loaded with experience, a lot of innings have been thrown for this club. Pitching seems to be their strength and is going to put them pretty much as an outlier in the ACC due to a lot of the teams having major question marks on the mound.

QUESTION MARKS

With a less than established offensive presence the past couple of seasons, this is going to be the big “what if” for Notre Dame, who could seriously make a run deep into the regular season with the depth of their pitching staff. Junior shortstop Estevan Moreno and outfielder Brady Gumpf are proven to have success in the ACC, but these seem to be the only two proven guys in this lineup.

TOP NEWCOMERS

The big star for this Fighting Irish team is going to be starting left fielder Jared Zimbardo who was a three-year starter at Quinnipiac where he batted leadoff and played centerfield while hitting .353 with 26 extra base hits. He is a high energy guy that adds a much-needed spark to the top of this lineup to help produced baserunners for the middle of their lineup.

Freshman Noah Coy and Bino Watters are going to be high impact guys if they can produce in the spring just as they did in the fall. Those are a lot of “ifs” but this Irish team has the chance to be really good in 2025.