Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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42 OCT. 18, 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY MIKE SINGER A unique aspect of Blue & Gold Illus- trated's recruiting coverage is the emphasis of live, in-person viewings of Notre Dame recruits. And to start the high school season, BGI saw the Irish's quarterback commit in the 2027 class. This came a couple weeks after seeing Notre Dame's signal-caller pledge in the 2026 class, Noah Grubbs, whom we covered in a previous issue of BGI. On Sept. 5, we watched Kennesaw (Ga.) North Cobb's Teddy Jarrard, who is Ri- vals' No. 2 quarterback and No. 51 overall player nationally in the 2027 class. Jar- rard committed to the Irish in late July over offers from Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State and many others. Jarrard transferred from North Cobb Christian to North Cobb, and he's been solid in his first season for the Warriors. In his first five contests of his 2025 cam- paign, he connected on 85 of 140 passes for 925 yards with 6 touchdowns and 3 interceptions, while adding 17 carries and 100 yards on the ground. In the game BGI saw, Jarrard's team fell 35-27 against Cartersville (Ga.) Cass in what was considered an upset in the Peach State. The Warriors turned the ball over four times, and Cass took advantage of the unforced errors. Jarrard and North Cobb rallied late and had the ball with a two-minute drill to tie things up, but a dropped pass by one of Jarrard's best receivers on the night crushed the drive. Jarrard connected on 21 of 39 throws for 258 yards with 3 touchdowns and no interceptions on the night. He added 6 rushes for 46 yards on the ground. It was North Cobb's fourth game of the season and first that Jarrard threw a touchdown pass in. THE GOOD On first glance, Jarrard is impres- sive physically. He looks to be closer to 6-foot-4 than the 6-3 he's listed at. In watching him up close during warmups, he is clean mechanically with a smooth throwing motion and good footwork. Jarrard can really rip the ball. It felt like he had to take a lot of velocity off his throws in intermediate passes in warmups. Jarrard has tremendous arm talent. He's also very accurate. The North Cobb offense has a lot of run-pass op- tions (RPOs) and passes in the short-to- intermediate game, and even though the Cass defenders could sit on those routes — knowing that the deep ball was rare — Jarrard was able to fit passes into tight windows. And he showed off his im- pressive arm strength on those passes. Jarrard's mobility is excellent. He's a pass-first quarterback but can extend plays with his legs while looking down- field, and he has the ability to pick up chunk rushing yards. North Cobb had so many penalties, and the 4 turnovers were a killer, but Jarrard's heroics were nearly enough to pull off the comeback. It was just too little, too late. AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT One of the turnovers did appear to be Jarrard's fault. He mishandled a snap and was unable to pick it back up. A Cass defensive lineman recovered the ball and took it back for a touchdown. This gave Cass a 21-7 lead late in the first quarter. But in terms of Jarrard errors, that was the main one. There were no near- interceptions. He had misfires — all quarterbacks do — but other than the fumble, he took care of the ball. My remaining thoughts might be more nitpicks and things that are not his fault. Jarrard only took one big shot down the field — on a double play-ac- tion, he fired a rocket downfield that was just past his receiver's outstretched arms. As noted, the North Cobb passing offense is more RPO, screen and inter- mediate pass-based. Jarrard has the arm to push the ball downfield, that's for sure. But it just wasn't in the game plan for him to let it loose other than the early shot. And this may also be more based on the nature of RPOs and the short pass- ing game, but Jarrard seemed to focus in on his first read a lot. And if that wasn't open, he'd often leave the pocket to find his second read, even if there was no pressure. However, some of his best throws were made in that exact sce- nario. So again, a minor nitpick. All in all, the Notre Dame commit was outstanding on the night. His talent is immense, and he was very impressive for a sophomore. ✦ F O O T B A L L RECRUITING In-Person Review Of Notre Dame 2027 Quarterback Commit Teddy Jarrard Jarrard, who is Rivals' No. 2 quarterback and No. 51 overall player nationally in the 2027 class, impressed Blue & Gold Illustrated despite a loss in September. PHOTO BY MIKE SINGER