Notre Dame’s competitive, contentious, and controversial quarterback battle finally came to an end on Tuesday afternoon with the announcement that redshirt freshman CJ Carr won the job. A couple months ago, maybe even a few weeks ago, this was viewed as somewhat of a formality by many following the Fighting Irish. But it didn’t quite work out that smoothly.

Well, how did that happen?

#1

This looks like it became a perfect brew for a quarterback controversy through a competition. Angeli transferred out, the incoming freshman was nowhere near the battle, and the two remaining quarterbacks split reps while getting their first taste of winning a job. Neither had the experience and a lot of development could happen quickly but fall practice is a relatively short period in the grand scheme of things.

While many had Carr winning before August, it’s not really that weird that the competition stretched out through nearly 3 weeks of practices.

#2

Many people got way, way, way too bent out of shape due to a quarterback not being named the starter sometime last week. For me, this was the biggest sin of the Notre Dame media, not just expecting an imminent decision, but suggesting or even outright claiming that a lack of a decision was a bad thing for the football team.

When Marcus Freeman met with the media following Sunday’s Jersey Scrimmage he seemed visibly annoyed, but his comments about not having a timetable to name a quarterback seemed like they were the most truthful remarks. I will note, the veterans in the media didn’t ask about the quarterback situation first. I think they knew at that point to tread lightly.

In the end, the program named the starter a couple days after the Jersey Scrimmage. This seems entirely reasonable and should’ve been expected. That there was panic and a little bit of hysteria instead wasn’t a good look.

#3

I will continue to point out the lack of access for the media largely drove this quarterback freak out. Many will argue Freeman and the coaching staff don’t owe the media any access and his job is to do what he thinks is best to prepare the team to win. That may be so, but it’s also not fair for these same fans to criticize the Irish media for not being able to correctly predict what shaped up to be a very close quarterback competition.

Agree with it or not, Freeman runs a tight ship. 

Fans want their cake (Freeman should shut out the media, hell yeah!) and eat it too (the media should still provide me with the most accurate information through trusted sources and never be wrong)!

This is the type of situation that happens in the worst of scenarios with recruiting coverage. When the media is unable to gain enough access to a recruit and their decision making process, timetable for committing, etc. the coverage can go off the rails. When Notre Dame shuts out the media and puts such an emphasis on not leaking information they are creating this type of atmosphere for coverage around the program.

In my opinion, the veteran sites like Irish Sports Daily and Irish Illustrated did a decent job throughout this. It was clear they were confused and mystified by certain information, didn’t seem very confident in what was going on, but had to report something to their readers/listeners all the same.

#4

As with many things in college football, we’re seeing the NFL-ification of media access at Notre Dame. Coming out of the Covid season, the NFL started changing their media access rules and clamping down pretty hard. In a perfect world, the ND beat media should be able to watch all of the practices for the first couple weeks of August camp. With restrictions in place (don’t report on specific teamwork and formations) this is how it used to be in the NFL.

Now, the NFL has changed things to token introductory practice periods for media and that’s it. Sound familiar? That’s exactly what Notre Dame has been doing in recent seasons, too.

#5

To me, the story isn’t really about waiting too long to pick a quarterback, or picking the wrong quarterback, it’s how the lack of media access allowed the drama to unfold and sort of backfire on Notre Dame. Freeman has decided to run an extremely tight ship when it comes to information coming out of the Gug and by doing so put the focus squarely on insider information with this quarterback battle.

What if, and hear me out on this, the media got to watch practice and actually report on some real football things?

#6

Now, it’s difficult to ascertain what is fact and what is fiction. It’s safe to say the competition was very close and around 50/50 as of very recently. What more can we really know?

Some speculated Minchey performed better than Carr during spring practice. Others seemed confident that Carr was still in the lead both back in the spring and this month, as well. Trying to piece this drama together is pretty futile but the last gasp over the last 7 to 10 days seemed to snowball around out of context (my read on it) belief that Minchey had pulled ahead, and possibly even won the job.

There are textured shamrocks on this football. 

The only “solid” info that was coming out was that Carr threw more interceptions than Minchey. But again, in what context? It’s all so farcical to debate a quarterback competition when no one is watching the players in practice!

#7

I feel bad for Kenny Minchey, but of course this may not be the end of the competition. I’ve been expecting him to transfer for at least 18 months now and to his credit he stuck around through a couple of incoming quarterback transfers and then had the confidence to stick around this spring and fight for the job. He’ll probably still end up transferring after this season, I’d expect. In order to stay, I’d think he would have to play a significant amount (4+ starts maybe?) and perform well enough that he’d feel extremely comfortable winning the job for 2026.

#8

I just got really nervous for CJ Carr! It’s all good though, this is what he signed up for and I think long-term the development of Carr for the next 3-4 years provides such an incredibly bright future. The start of the season at Miami offers a fascinating beginning to his career. You have to think they are going to take things pretty conservatively, lean on the run game, and keep things simple.

But what if Carr is good enough to move the ball and looks very comfortable doing so? Notre Dame hasn’t had a quarterback throw for 300+ yards against a Power program in over 2 full seasons. Can you imagine if Carr pulls that off in a victory?