Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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6 MAY 2023 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED N otre Dame had its "Thank God it's April" moment in the Irish Athletics Center on the first Saturday of the month. By Blue & Gold Illustrated's un- official count, the Fighting Irish's top three scholarship quarterbacks combined to go 15 of 35 on passing attempts during 11-on-11 periods of practice that day. Presumed starter Sam Hartman, a graduate transfer from Wake Forest who's entering his sixth season of college football, completed 3 of 14 throws. There were wide receiver drops. There were flat-out errant throws. There were pressures that led to throwaways. There were batted balls by defensive backs. There was a little bit of everything — ex- cept prolific passing. The completions Notre Dame's quarterbacks made followed a pat- tern; the majority of them came within a few yards of the line of scrimmage and would not have resulted in large gains in actual games this fall. The aerial assault downfield that is supposed to come with Hartman's propensity to toss a mesmerizing deep ball was nowhere to be found, like sunlight in a South Bend winter that just won't seem to end. It's a good time to add what happened in the IAC for two hours April 1 while a wintry mix fell on the landscape outside is not a standalone indicator of what will occur Aug. 26 in Dublin, Ireland, or in any Notre Dame matchup there- after through the end of November. The Irish are still very much working out the kinks in a transition from Tommy Rees, now at Alabama, to Gerad Parker as the program's offensive coordina- tor. Adapting to that change will take time, much more than 14 practices and a spring game will allow. But if there is ever a practice in Au- gust that resembles the one the media viewed in its entirety on the first day of April, then it'll be time to sound the alarms. Parker doesn't have time to say, "Well, it's my first year as the OC here. Cut me some slack." Results have to come right away. He's got a quarterback who threw more touchdown passes (110) than any- one else in ACC history during his five years as a Demon Deacon. He's got one of if not the very best offensive tackles in the country protecting him in junior Joe Alt. He's got a pair of running backs in juniors Audric Estimé and Logan Diggs who both averaged at least 5.0 yards per carry in combining for 1,742 rushing yards in 2022. He's got as deep of a wide receiver room as Notre Dame has had in recent memory regardless of whether the players who make it up are proven or not. He's got a lot. But what he doesn't have is a lot of time to make it all work. Notre Dame cannot let poor offense be what holds the program back. Not in 2023. Not when the Georgia Bull- dogs, long lauded for stifling defense thanks to head coach Kirby Smart who made a name for himself on that side of the ball, won a second consecutive national championship primar- ily by putting up unprecedented point totals. Georgia averaged 53.5 points per game in its two College Football Playoff victories. Notre Dame didn't score 50 points once last season. If a national championship is the goal, and Irish head coach Marcus Freeman repeatedly assures the masses that it is, then fair or not, Parker doesn't get a year to feel things out. Saturday displays of an offense as disjointed and discom- bobulated as the one Notre Dame put on record for the media April 1 cannot be the norm. There is plenty of time to im- prove and make that practice session one of the most forget- table April Fool's jokes of all time. Remember when Notre Dame couldn't complete a pass more than 10 yards downfield during that one spring practice? Ha, no, Notre Dame is too busy hanging 40 on foes with regularity and racking up meaningful tallies in the win column. That's very much a possibility. If it transpires that way, Parker will have much to do with it. If it doesn't, he'll be a fall guy. That's how it goes. Parker wasn't Notre Dame's first choice to take the reins from Rees. He wasn't the second, either. After failed attempts to secure Kansas State's Collin Klein and Utah's Andy Ludwig, Freeman circled back to his 42-year-old in-house candidate who has limited play-calling duties on his résumé. Parker was the OC at West Virginia from 2020-21 but took a backseat to head coach Neal Brown during most games. This is by far the biggest job of Park- er's career. He's in charge of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish offense. Rome wasn't built in a day, nor the Irish of- fense. Time will tell. ✦ GOLDEN GAMUT TYLER HORKA Tyler Horka has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 2021. He can be reached at thorka@blueandgold.com Fair or not, Parker doesn't get a year to feel things out in his first season as the Irish's offensive coordinator. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER Gerad Parker Doesn't Have Time For Trial Run