Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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18 MAY 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY TYLER HORKA I f Notre Dame's spring practice had a checklist, the Fighting Irish would go into the summer without having filled all the squares. And that's completely OK. Head coach Marcus Freeman has re- mained ostensibly ambiguous, for ex- ample, on the timeline for naming a starting quarterback. He's said it's as simple as identifying one when the race feels over, but he's also said the only way to know when that's occurred is when it becomes obvious to everyone that one of the options is head and shoulders above the others in the running. Hence, ostensibly. Every time Free- man says the same things about the quarterback race, it feels like he's spew- ing coach speak. But he's really just telling the truth; when QB1 emerges, it won't be long thereafter when Free- man opines on who it is. Until then, he's playing the watching game. We're all playing the waiting game. Let's begin this Notre Dame spring ball offensive overview with more on the most important position on any team — and in the case of the Irish, one of those unchecked boxes. 'THEY'VE BEEN GREAT' In one fully open practice in terms of media viewing, the three quarterbacks who could feasibly start for Notre Dame at Miami Aug. 31 showed why they're all in the thick of the competition. Senior Steve Angeli didn't do any- thing flashy. He played within his means. His turnover-worthy plays were few and far between, if he had any, but he also didn't do much in the way of explosively moving the ball down the field. He's got that ability in the bag, but it might not show up as frequently as it does for his position mates and, for the time being, competitors. Junior Kenny Minchey, meanwhile, did have a turnover-worthy play — and he did indeed turn the ball over. He threw an interception to walk-on cor- nerback Isaiah Dunn on a pass across both hash marks he had no business let- ting fly from his hand in the first place. He went well out of his way to make a play, something Angeli will rarely do. There's a reason why Angeli has 10 times as many touchdown tosses as in- terceptions in his career to date on just 80 attempts in actual games. He takes care of the football. Minchey, though, also led the most impressive touchdown drive of the day during the scrimmage, mixing in an ar- ray of quarterback runs coupled with pinpoint passes, one of which allowed senior tight end Eli Raridon to catch and run — and run, and run, and run for a long while all the way down to the goal line. There's a yard-producing ele- ment of the Notre Dame offense that's unlocked with Minchey's athleticism, the best offered among the Irish's quar- terbacks gunning for the starting job. When he's throwing it accurately and making the right choices, there's noth- ing left to be desired. Sophomore CJ Carr could have had an interception go down on his ledger, too, but an across-the-body downfield heave was dropped by a defensive back. The ball didn't come close to any of Carr's teammates. Bad decision. Bad throw. Good decision? Good throw? That came on the final rep of the day — for anyone. Carr walked it off with the best singular quarterback play of the day. He one-upped his elder statesmen when he sat in a blitzed-upon pocket for just long enough to launch a deep ball so high it felt like it was going to clip some of the steel structures in the rafters of the Irish Athletics Center. Instead, the only thing it hit were the outstretched hands of freshman wide receiver Elijah Burress. Boom, right in the breadbasket. A n g e l i 's u p s i d e : s t e a d i n e s s . Minchey's: improvisation. Carr's: arm talent. They're all plausible playmakers in their own ways. "They've been great," Freeman said. "They've been just exactly what I thought they would be — mature and guys that take care of their business and take advantage of their opportunities that they're getting." FIGURING IT OUT Notre Dame has some answers on offense coming out of the spring, but not all of them