Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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at Nike's "The Opening," which in- cluded the Elite 11 quarterback com- petition. "Being out there and squaring off against the best players in the country was big for me," Kizer said. "It hum- bled me even more and showed me that there are players working hard every day, and if I want to get a ring at the next level I need to work harder than them. "I definitely didn't perform my best. I don't make excuses. I think I had a solid performance, but I need to do better on that type of stage and play better. I actually think that helped me during my senior year and I think that's why I was able to play as well as I did. I learned a lot that week. I learned to stay in the pocket longer, to tighten up my motion and I learned how to better read the field." While in Oregon, Kizer learned from two prominent quarterback coaches in Super Bowl champion Trent Dilfer and George Whitfield, who has worked with Andrew Luck, Cam Newton and current Notre Dame quarterback Ev- erett Golson. "Kizer is a very coachable kid and he takes what I say to heart and I like that," Dilfer said. "He lacked some discipline at times, and I told him that. I told him that he needs to stay in the moment and make sure that he makes the right reads and not force the ball. "Overall, he's a great kid. He strug- gled a little this week, but he's going to be fine. He's somewhat at a disad- vantage and he's got some stuff that needs to be cleaned up, but he's going to be a tremendous player. He's going to be very good." Whitfield predicted a big senior sea- son for the Irish commit, and Kizer proved him right. The signal-caller completed 150 of 245 passes (61.2 per- cent) for 2,847 yards with 30 touch- downs and six interceptions. "I love his passion about the posi-