Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM SEPT. 9, 2023 31 J ason Onye shook Sam Hart- man's hand when the for- mer left the dais after his interview session and it was the latter's turn to ascend it follow- ing Notre Dame's 56-3 win over Tennessee State. Like, a full ex- tension, palm out, thumb up, "Hey sir, how do you do?" type of handshake. That's not a normal way for a 294-pound defensive tackle to greet a 212-pound quarterback. But Hartman isn't normal. So, it made sense. We're talking about a guy who crafted a necklace out of his surgically removed rib, for one. But we're also talking about a 24-year-old who has 116 col- lege football touchdown passes and counting. That is tied with USC's Matt Barkley for No. 12 in all- time NCAA history. Next up: Hawaii's Timmy Chang (117). Then bumping Washington State's Luke Falk (119) out of the top 10. Then surpassing BYU's Ty Detmer and Geor- gia's Aaron Murray, who each threw 121 in their respective careers. If Hartman throws 27 more touch- down passes this season, he'll stand alone in second place behind Hous- ton's Case Keenum as the second-most prolific touchdown passer who's ever played the sport. On the way there he'd fly by Boise State's Kellen Moore (142), Texas Tech's Graham Harrell (134), Ha- waii's Colt Brennan (131), Marshall's Ra- keem Cato (131) and Oklahoma's Baker Mayfield (131) and Landry Jones (123). Mostly a who's who. Yeah, that deserves an unusual hand- shake that had Hartman giggling all the way up to the press conference podium. His play versus the Tigers made Notre Dame fans around the world giddy, meanwhile. He completed 14 of 17 passes for 194 yards with 2 touchdowns. He added an- other score on the ground — er, that one was actually kind of through the air, too. He flipped past a defender at the goal line, somersaulted and ended up on his feet saluting the fans going ballistic in the north end zone seats at Notre Dame Stadium. It was an impromptu ode to Russell Crowe in "The Gladiator" according to Hartman himself. The folks he roused were very entertained, even if it was too much emotion exhibited by the gener- ally calm, cool, collected signal-caller who made his first career start over six years ago. "A little me-guy move, so I'm a little disappointed in it," Hartman said. "But sometimes it just comes out." The only thing Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman was a little dis- appointed in was the fact that Hartman left his feet in the first place. In a game in which the Irish already had a player leave with a head injury in running back Devyn Ford, it's a scary sight to see your Heisman Trophy hopeful QB take off and parlay his best Clark Kent into a Maxi- mus Decimus Meridius impersonation. "You kind of don't want to see him do that," Freeman said. As for the celebration, Freeman didn't believe Hartman when he said it was not premeditated. "I'm like, all right, you might have had that one planned, but keep your feet on the ground." Hartman is just too valuable for Notre Dame to lose him in what ended up be- ing a 53-point victory. It's Labor Day weekend, the Irish played a Week 0 game, and this sentence is still true: Notre Dame has not punted on any possession led by Hartman this season. He led a touchdown drive on all five of his possessions against Tennessee State, and he was six for seven in that regard against Navy. In going 11 for 12 overall, the only time he's taken his hel- met off empty-handed resulted in a missed field goal. Notre Dame is that close to putting points on the board every single time Hartman has been on the field in 2023. Having started 47 games in his illustrious career, he just knows what he's doing out there. That's been fun for Freeman to watch. "The thing about Sam is the ability for him to come over to me and say, 'I'm good,'" Freeman said. "He made maybe an error or two, a bad read, and he looked at me and was like, 'I'm good.' Six years, man. That experience is so important. He's a heck of a football player." He's a heck of a dude, too. When his day was done at halftime, Hartman put a signaling pinny and a headset on to help backup Steve Angeli operate the offense. He could have eas- ily taken the rest of the afternoon off entirely. Instead, he helped "keep Steve at ease." That's worth shaking hands with. "He's great," Onye said. "We all love him. The defense, the offense, he does a great job of interacting with us, talk- ing to us. As a defensive player, I really don't need to be talking to Sam. But he just comes up to me and says, 'Hey, good luck this game. Do this. Go kill 'em.' "This is the quarterback. Everyone knows him. He has no reason to be talk- ing to me but he's showing me support and showing me that he cares. He does it for the whole team." ✦ 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 Hartman has put points on the board for the Fighting Irish in 11 of the 12 drives he's led through two games. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER Sam Hartman Shows Again He's The Real Deal