Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1515937
40 MARCH 2024 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED 2024 FOOTBALL RECRUITING ISSUE BY TYLER HORKA T om Brady and Peyton Manning in their primes. The best of Joe Mon- tana and Dan Marino. The way the ball came out of Aaron Rodgers' hand in Green Bay, and the way it comes out of Patrick Mahomes' hand in Kansas City. Some slingers just have it. Their throws are different. Could it be that Notre Dame has someone like that on the 2024 roster? Perhaps. His name is CJ Carr. Will Hewlett is an assistant coach at St. Augustine (Fla.) High and a private quarterback trainer. He's worked with former Notre Dame starter and all-time Irish wins leader Ian Book, Anthony Richardson of the Indianapolis Colts and Brock Purdy of the San Francisco 49ers. It's his job to know what good quarterback play is and what it isn't. He sees the best of it in Carr. "The way the ball came out of his hand, and everything was synced up well, was just so, so good," Hewlett told Blue & Gold Illustrated. "It was just so pretty and almost intoxicating just watching the ball come out of his hand. Just a perfect amount of spin rate, the way it traveled through the air… It was just the ease with which he did every- thing that made you think, 'OK, this guy's got it." That was Hewlett's first impression of Carr a few years ago when the two first connected. Carr was a freshman at Sa- line (Mich.) High then. He's a freshman at Notre Dame now. With time came regular visits to Flor- ida to train with Hewlett, a couple per year. Carr took what he learned in those sessions back with him to Michigan. He drilled down on the details in practices and on his own time. Every time he re- turned to the Sunshine State he was better than before. He had more velocity. More athleti- cism. More maturity. More efficiency. More consistency. More of it. "This past trip down here before he went up to Notre Dame, mechanically he looked the best he's ever looked," Hewlett said. That's the product the Irish have their hands on. It's far from a finished one. Carr doesn't need to be reminded of that. He knows. He steps into a room full of four scholarship quarterbacks, including himself, headlined by a 21-game starter and NFL prospect in Duke transfer Riley Leonard. Junior Steve Angeli has never had as much optimism surrounding him as he does now, fresh off a master- ful performance in a 40-8 Notre Dame win over Oregon State in the Sun Bowl. Sophomore Kenny Minchey and all of his upside is breathing down his neck. Carr, an early enrollee at Notre Dame in January, was rated the No. 6 quarterback recruit in the class of 2024 according to the On3 Industry Ranking. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER CJ Carr Could Be Notre Dame's Next Great Quarterback