Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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Nevertheless, Zaire cannot be ruled out as factor in the offense with his skill sets as a dual threat. If two quar- terbacks could be incorporated into the game plan this year … "I can handle that," Kelly said. "The ideal situation is one, but … [Zaire] definitely has shown himself ready to compete in some of those areas. I want to see him compete in all of those ar- eas. He's going to make it interesting." Golson was banged up several times in 2012, which led to Tommy Rees be- coming college football's Fireman of the Year out of the bullpen. An interest- ing comment from Golson back in 2012 was his praise of Rees for helping him learn the playbook. Golson admitted that had the roles been reversed, he didn't think he would have been as helpful as Rees was. According to Kelly, that's showing up in a way now. "Everett is not going to sit down and teach him the playbook, but they like each other," Kelly said. "They get along very well. It's not a Tommy Rees where Tommy would sit down and teach Everett the offense. … These are two competitive kids. Malik wants to beat out Everett. "It's a very positive atmosphere. [Zaire is] just a highly competitive kid and he's extremely confident in his ability. Sometimes I have to settle him down a little bit. That's a good thing. I'd rather have that than somebody that doesn't think he can do it. "The dynamic is very positive. They're very good with each other, they help each other — but it's not one where they're going to share notes and sit down and how can I help you beat me out? That's not happening." Golson remains the top seed, but Zaire is now at least planting a seed. ADVANCED TRAINING For both Golson and Zaire, it's been a challenging spring because of new defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder's NFL-type system imple- mented at a rapid pace. It was at times akin to going from 100-level basic algebra to 500-level ad- vanced calculus for the quarterbacks in some practices. In the long run, Kelly hopes it will be beneficial (the Blue-Gold Game was much more va- nilla with the defense). "When it comes to pocket presence and route progression and how they protect themselves, they are not even close to where they need to be," Kelly said of his quarterbacks prior to the final week of practice. "What they're seeing is really some 500-level stuff. I'd rather have it that way than have them line up like ducks and we get to the fall and it's like, 'That's the first time I've ever seen that, Coach.' "It's made for some tough meetings, but I think it's really good teaching in the spring. I'd rather be teaching in those meetings rather than [it being] easy." Kelly said none of the coaches could award a 'C' level performance, if that, to the quarterbacks in areas such as calling pass protection, a forte of the graduated Tommy Rees. "The quarterbacks agreed with that grading system," he said. "We have a number of categories that we graded them, and a lot of it is because they were taking 500-level classes. It wasn't