Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1534445
BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM MAY 2025 5 T he spring went so swell for Notre Dame's quarterbacks, the one ev- eryone seemed to count out before the competition even began, junior Kenny Minchey, was doing celebratory backflips just beyond the Notre Dame Stadium end zone in the midst of the Blue-Gold Game. If you had that on your Irish QB competition bingo card, you're probably lying, but if you had a square that said, "This went about as well as we could have hoped for," then you covered that one up. This spring was a success for Notre Dame's quarterbacks indeed. But now comes the hard part for head coach Marcus Freeman — choosing one. Or, at the least, eliminating one from con- tention. "You would like to be able to go into the fall with a two-quarterback battle," Freeman said. "It's really hard with truly having a three-quarterback battle." Looking at the spring game alone, Minchey, senior Steve Angeli and soph- omore CJ Carr all performed admirably. "A lot of good," Freeman called it. For what Minchey lacked in accuracy, he made up for with the 4-yard touch- down rush that had him flipping out. Literally. Angeli attempted the fewest passes of the trio but completed 73 per- cent of his 11 throws with 1 touchdown toss. Steady. Carr offered up the only interception of the afternoon, but he countered it with 2 touchdown passes and the most passing yards of any of his teammates — 170. Of course, this is about more than what happened in a glorified scrim- mage. It's about what's happened in multiple of them, whether the media and/or public is watching or not. Free- man and his coaching staff have those receipts, and the mere mention of whit- tling the race down from three to two participants likely means he's generat- ing a better idea of who the guy might be. What's tricky is, even when the deci- sion comes down, nobody will know if the correct call was made. We've never so much as seen Carr attempt a pass in a collegiate game. Minchey has thrown one. Just one. Angeli has 80 under his belt, but most of those have come at the tail end of blowouts. He started the Sun Bowl, but those 19 attempts may as well mean as much as the 11 from the Blue-Gold Game. OK, just a tad more, but not an overly signif- icant amount. Not nearly as important as however many he'd throw at Miami Aug. 31 if he gets the nod. The seven he fired against Penn State in that very same stadium in Coral Gables, Fla., in the Orange Bowl a few months ago? Different story. Those mattered a great deal. Maybe Freeman and his fellow deci- sion makers are clinging to those as an irrefutable data point. If this compe- tition truly is too close to call, Angeli could own the tiebreaker by way of ex- perience. Naturally, that'll anger the Carr backers who feel the youngest of the three in the running has the most up- side and needs to get his time as the starter underway. It'll irk the Minchey supporters who believe he's got the most resemblance to Riley Leonard in the running game, and who think that having a mobile quar- terback is an undeniable quality that leads to overall success of an offense, especially if it's coupled with effective passing prowess. Those traits worked for Leonard down the stretch run of a season that ended one win away from a Notre Dame na- tional championship. That's just where this Notre Dame quarterback battle stands exiting the spring; this isn't a situation like the Irish have had in the past when it was clear there was one quarterback on the roster head and shoulders better than any other. Freeman said going into the spring that he had his first true contest on his hands at the most important position in the game, and he was right. It's been rendered unresolved over the course of a month's worth of practices, which is both understandable and expected. If nothing else, though, Notre Dame did get closer to a determination. What Freeman and everyone else who's a part of this program witnessed from mid- March through mid-April will stick with them in May and June. When it's time to run it back in July in advance of the season opener in August, it'll all come roaring back to who they feel QB1 is. It's only Freeman's right to say, but the detractors will be few and far be- tween and Notre Dame will be able to get on to 2025 with a starting quarter- back labeled. We inched closer to that reality this spring. "We've got to sit down and have con- versations about what's best for our program, what's best for our quarter- backs, and we'll make those decisions in the future," Freeman said. ✦ Head coach Marcus Freeman liked what he saw from his quarterbacks during the Blue-Gold Game, but that only made his decision on which one to start that much harder. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER Now The Hard Part: Irish Must Choose A Starting QB Tyler Horka has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 2021. He can be reached at thorka@blueandgold.com GOLDEN GAMUT TYLER HORKA