Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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to a team and even weaken a signal- caller's leadership. Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly understands that with junior DeShone Kizer and senior Malik Zaire. Both have intrinsic leadership qualities, possess dual-threat talent and have shone on the big stage as starters, although Kizer 's 11-game starting experience in place of the injured Zaire last year (three career starts) probably gives him an advan- tage. Inevitably, the question is why doesn't head coach Brian Kelly uti- lize both? After all, he found success with the strategy in the 2014 Music City Bowl victory versus LSU when Zaire was named MVP with 96 passing yards and 96 rushing yards (both team highs), yet deposed starter Everett Gol- son maintained a strong presence by completing 6 of 11 passes for 90 yards while having a hand in several scoring drives, including the game winner. One game is different from one full season, though. Three years earlier, Kelly tried the same against Florida State with Tommy Rees and Andrew Hendrix in the Champs Sports Bowl, and the disjointed offense managed only one touchdown in a loss. Kelly summarized his dilemma at the end of this spring: "They're both No. 1s. They both probably can't play at the same time. One's going to have to be the starter and somebody's go- ing to be unhappy, but I can't keep them all happy." Trying to incorporate two quar- terbacks into an offense has often produced miserable results at Notre Dame. Former Irish head coach Charlie Weis in 2007 tried to implement the spread with sophomore Demetrius Jones. That was scrapped in less than a half in the 33-3 season-opening loss to Georgia Tech, with junior Evan Sharpley taking over most of the game there and freshman Jimmy Clausen starting a week later during a 1-9 start to the campaign — and Jones bolting from the team after the second week. Gerry Faust's career at Notre Dame in 1981 got off to a rocky start when he tried to do the same with Blair Kiel and Tim Koegel through the first half of the season. A preseason favor- ite to win the national title, the Irish began 2-4 and finished 5-6 — their first losing season since 1963. Speaking of 1963, that's when in- terim coach Hugh Devore used "in- terim" quarterbacks, starting Denis Szot, John Huarte and Frank Budka through the first three games, and later Sandy Bonvechio in a quarterback merry-go-round amidst the 2-7 rubble. However, here are five cases over the past 40 years at Notre Dame where the quarterback position had a bit of a revolving door — yet suc- cess still occurred in varying degrees. Of course, a stellar defense and run- ning game to take the burden off the quarterbacks helps. 1. 2012: EVERETT GOLSON & TOMMY REES The sophomore Golson started the season when the incumbent Rees was suspended one game for an off- the-field incident. However, Rees