Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1539449
BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM SEPT. 20, 2025 17 Caleb Williams, has worked with Carr since the Saline, Mich., product was a freshman in high school. Since then, Carr and his family have made two or three trips to the Jacksonville area each year. Sometimes, they schedule it around a vacation. Others are purely business travel. "The talent is off the charts," Hewlett said. "He throws one of the prettiest balls I've ever seen." Even back when he first met him, Hewlett could tell that Carr — without any professional training to that point — was "just better than most kids at throwing the football." His training with Carr has centered on the little details that turn good quarterbacks into great ones. "For CJ, it was really about, how can we improve the 1 percent, the 2 percent every time we get together?" Hewlett said. "Where can we squeeze more out of it? The biggest jump has really been top-end velocity and just a really good feedback mechanism for like, when he makes a bad throw, understanding why the throw was bad." The technical term, as Hewlett put it, is "pre-throw and post-throw posture." Essentially, Hewlett believes the posi- tion you start and finish in — how you set yourself up for the throw and what your body looks like after the ball leaves your hand — can tell you a lot about why the throw did or did not reach its in- tended target. "Maybe the best way to describe it is that all great quarterbacks are natural compensators," Hewlett said. "They're able to get through, when they're do- ing things right and wrong. But there's a pure feeling that you want to chase where it's like, 'That feels easy every single time and I can replicate it.'" Hewlett said Carr understands and uses that feedback mechanism "on a very elite level," and Carr returned the favor. He told reporters that he believes Hewlett is the best in the country at "creating those habits and making them second nature," and Book feels the same way. "Will just gets it," Book said. "He understands that you don't need to be thinking about 20 things when you're throwing. … I think we all throw differ- ently, kind of like a golf swing. So, let's just pick a few things that we can adjust to make you more accurate, instead of trying to change the whole motion." LIVING THE LIFE Asked about the early game plan for Carr, Freeman said he proved in Week 1 that he's capable of executing the entire playbook. However, he still stressed the need for caution. "Let's not just tell him to bomb the ball down the field every play, because he'll do that if we allow him to," Free- man said. "CJ will throw the ball down the field every single play." Carr is confident, almost to a fault. But it's the way he channeled that con- fidence during the quarterback compe- tition that won him the job. "There's not a throw on the field that anybody's made ever that he doesn't think he can make," Leonard, who still had access to Notre Dame's spring practice tape and watched it in his spare time, said. "But the one thing I saw [during spring ball] was just him not forcing that consistently." That's a sign of Carr's maturity, which Book and Hewlett also said was well be- yond his years. Hewlett described Carr's approach as "professional," adding that no detail was too small for the young quarterback. Growing up in a football family — his grandfather, Lloyd Carr, coached Mich- igan for more than a decade and won a national championship in 1997 — that's all Carr has known. "You can't teach that to some people," Book said. "Some people really like it. Some people love it. Some people live it. And I think CJ lives it." No one has lived Carr's life like Book, who is Notre Dame's last multi-year starting quarterback. He tries to help Carr navigate the challenges that come with that job — that life, really — which include doing the right things in the classroom and in the community, as well as handling the outside pressure. "The best thing I could do was give him the advice of, the pressure here is truly a privilege," Book said. "Anyone in the world would love to run out of that stadium and be the starting quar- terback. So, now that you have the op- portunity, don't hesitate." DIDN'T FLINCH From the sidelines at Hard Rock Sta- dium in Miami Gardens, Fla., Book watched Carr throw a seemingly crip- pling fourth-quarter interception on a botched run-pass option. He knew that could crush a young quarterback making his first start in a hostile environment. But not Carr. "He seemed like he didn't flinch at all," Book said. "In the huddle, in the pocket, on the sideline. He was locked in." Watching on TV, Leonard chuckled. He knew his ex-teammate would be all right. "He's not nervous at all," Leonard said. "Why would I be nervous for him? … He's born for these moments. He's gonna be fine." Carr entered the fourth quarter with 91 passing yards against Miami, but he went 8 of 11 for 130 in the final frame. After the pick, he led the offense to 10 unanswered points as the Irish com- pleted an improbable comeback — only to see the Hurricanes win on a field goal with just more than a minute to play. To lead that comeback in start No. 1 takes guts. " I d o n 't k n ow wh a t wa s go i n g through his mind or anything, but there weren't any alarm bells going off that it looked like from the outside," junior wide receiver Jaden Greathouse said. "He was charismatic, he was poised and he had a lot of confidence on his face." "He wanted the ball in his hands," Freeman said. "That's who he is." Carr certainly showed a lot in his de- but, but it's important to remember that development isn't linear. There may still be, as Freeman put it, bumps in the road. Still, once the adjustment period is over, there's no ceiling on what Carr can do at Notre Dame. "The kid has as much talent as anyone I've ever worked with," Hewlett said. "It's gonna be exciting to see what he can do once the reins are off." ✦ "You can't teach that to some people. Some people really like it. Some people love it. Some people live it. And I think CJ lives it." FORMER IRISH QUARTERBACK IAN BOOK ON CARR GROWING UP IN A FOOTBALL FAMILY