I titled this article in a purposeful way. This past off-season former highly touted quarterback Phil Jurkovec transferred out of Notre Dame and joined Boston College where he was granted immediate eligibility for 2020. If you’ve read any articles about the situation in recent weeks it’s usually couched in terms of Notre Dame “losing” Jurkovec or failing to keep him on campus. For maximum effect, the situation has largely been framed as losing an important asset with most of the culpability falling on the coaching staff in South Bend. Jurkovec even stoked those flames in an interview prior to this season opening up.
I don’t care whose fault it is. Anyway, we know from experience that there’s a 99.99% chance both sides share plenty of blame. And until Jurkovec proves he’s worthy of being missed it frankly doesn’t matter.
Through 3 games as a starter for the Eagles it’s been a mixed bag for Jurkovec but he does look different and more confident than when he left Notre Dame.
In his defense, the BC offensive line has been severely underachieving so far. Officially, Jurkovec has only been hurried 9 times although it’s been far more than that in reality. Moreover, the Eagles have allowed 11 sacks through 3 games, the same as Florida State and their tire fire offensive line. By the way, what is up with the poor ACC offensive lines? NC State, Louisville, BC, FSU, Wake Forest, Syracuse, and Duke have given up a combined 87 sacks so far!
This looked like a run-first offense in the opener against Duke that was preparing to ease Jurkovec into the starting role but through 3 games their running backs have only 55 carries for 166 yards. To fill that void, Jurkovec has thrown 39 passes per game thus far, 8th most in the country.
Roughly half of Jurkovec’s 80 attempts have been towards tight end Hunter Long who heads into the weekend 3rd nationally among all players with 25 receptions. He’s also established a nice connection with sophomore Zay Flowers who has 243 yards so far.
Jurkovec does look a lot more sure of himself than he ever did at Notre Dame. While sneakily already a redshirt sophomore, there is a sense that he’s recaptured some of that future ceiling that was expected of him out of high school now with 3 years remaining of eligibility.
It’s unfair to expect a finished product at this point but through 3 games the biggest improvement for Jurkovec has been his accuracy and confidence throwing on short routes. That looked absolutely broken when he left Notre Dame.
This is good because BC is surviving on a steady diet of short passes.
For example, over the weekend BC had a 15-play drive late in the 4th quarter against North Carolina that ended in a touchdown to get within 2 points of the Tar Heels. Jurkovec ended up 8 of 10 on the drive with completions of 5, 6, 6, 5, 21, 16, and 6 yards with a pass-interference thrown in for good measure.
Jurkovec has 9 passes of at least 20 yards through 3 games which is about average for a starting quarterback in 2020. Five of those passes–including a busted play wide open 61-yard touchdown–came in the opener against Duke so the last 2 games especially have been very dink-and-dunk heavy.
Jurkovec is averaging 7.0 yards per attempt which is 10th best in the ACC and near the bottom third nationally. Outside of his 20+ yard completions he is 71 of 108 for 528 yards and 4.8 yards per attempt. It’ll be interesting to watch as the season progresses how much opponents can try and take away Long and Flowers and how this will affect Jurkovec’s progress.
He still has a funky delivery, although that’s been cleaned up quite a bit. Jurkovec doesn’t look real comfortable throwing deeper routes and his ball tends to still flutter down field.
Still, he’s showing himself well while under pressure quite a lot. He doesn’t look as quick-twitch and fast as when he was younger (he’s 6’5″ 226 lbs. to be fair) but he’s had a lot of success as a runner so far with 92 yards on 14 carries (6.67 per rush) and 2 scores. He’s also escaped pressure, run around, and made some big plays while under duress a handful of times through 3 games. Other times, he’s faltered like in the above 15-play drive that ended with an interception returned for 2 points for North Carolina and sealed the loss for BC.
Will Notre Dame really regret losing their once prized recruit?
It seems unlikely. For one, Jurkovec is still quarterback at Boston College where he won’t be surrounded by the best talent and he’ll have to overcome some major disadvantages to move into the national spotlight. Not that this isn’t understandable but his biggest fans are already imagining what he could do if he was working with better teammates, specifically if he remained at Notre Dame. Yet, if you’re really playing at a high level you don’t have to imagine such things.
Jurkovec also plays Notre Dame later this year and realistically that probably won’t go super well for him personally with Notre Dame’s defensive line likely to be all up in his business. We’ll probably all read way too much into that matchup, either way.
Also, the long history of quarterback transfers out of Notre Dame is not that impressive. True, seeing Jurkovec already starting so quickly at Boston College makes this more intriguing but there’s a big difference between playing a lot and being someone you’re upset didn’t stay at your school.
Here’s a scorching hot take: Jurkovec will be a solid quarterback over his career at Boston College. It’s still early but he’ll have to take several steps forward as a big fish in a small pond to make Irish fans envious of his career. If he does get to that point it won’t be any time soon.
This is a pretty enlightening article. Jurkovec didn’t respond well to the abrasive coaching style of Long (and to an extent Kelly). And he also committed before Long got there, and got caught up and stuck in a vicious cycle because he wasn’t progressing, lost confidence in himself and the desire to play and then being unable to play/practice well.
I also find myself waffling between debating of Long is too much of a hardass or if others are too sensitive. As written in the article above, probably both sides share in why it didn’t work out here.
But I can also promise that even if Jurkovec was progressing smoothly and playing well he would have transferred in 2020 to play somewhere. Top QB recruits typically don’t sit 3 full years without transferring these days.
https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/high-school-football/2020/09/16/Phil-Jurkovec-Boston-College-Notre-Dame-Brian-Kelly-Jeff-Hafley-Frank-Cignetti/stories/202009160110
Jurkovec is not the 1st ND QB to seek outside help with his delivery and then seem to lose confidence and regress. Golson did the same I believe and Tyler Buchner did this off season and then struggled in camps.
As far as his play at BC so far, I’ve thought his ability to break tackles and escape has been impressive. The announcers appropriately compared him to Big Ben in this regard last week. He’s also made some zany throws while doing this and got away with it.
Highly rated QB’s transfer from every good program. With Buchner and hopefully Angeli coming in to ND in the next two seasons, you can expect one of Pyne or Clark to be next. As long as Jurkovec doesn’t pull a Zack Fraser ND will not rue his transfer.
I think everyone behaved rationally and did what was right for them here, so I’ll have a hard time regretting much of anything.
Coming into 2020, Kelly had, for the first time in his ND career, a three-year starter at QB in Book. Opening up his position to competition from Jurkovec, who had no meaningful game experience, likely would have blown up in Kelly’s face, just as it did in 2016. Either (1) Book would have transferred, which everyone would have screamed about Kelly chasing another QB off; or (2) we’d have started the season with yet another QB controversy that may have split the locker room between the veterans and the younger guys.
Kelly stuck with the first true veteran QB he’s had at ND. Jurkovec didn’t want to sit behind Book for two seasons, so he transferred. Both decisions make complete sense.
Also, since this is happening on other parts of the Notre Dame internet: Rooting for BC is embarrassing and gross. We can all wish Jurkovec the best, but one does not ever root for a pissant program that has no greater aspirations in the world than ruining ND’s season. I swear to God, I will turn this car around and make everyone watch every game from 1993-2008.
Check the PG link, Jurkovec was so unhappy last year, and so down on himself, and had such messed up footwork and basics that he considered switching positions. The thought Jurkovec would have ever beaten Ian Book in a QB competition is pie in the sky dreaming of a headcanon that never existed in reality.
Natural lead in, it’s fine to wonder what went wrong with Kelly/Long having a promising prospect flame out, leave, and almost instantly regain his form somewhere else. However it’s pretty hilarious that Jurkovec left unhappy with the harsh coaching at Notre Dame and now he’s an NDN cult hero when otherwise they’d probably think of him as soft and weak for not being able to hack it at a bigger program.
Does NDN still hate BK?
I should clarify my meaning. Obviously they still hate him. Is hating BK still their #1 concern?
It absolutely is.
It’s more of a Trinity:
1) BK Hate
2) Swarbrick Hate
3) Discussing what you will do Saturday rather than watch the Irish
Amen.
Goodness gracious — I stopped reading NDN years ago — maybe about the time of Eric’s immortal post about how can one hate one’s own team and (how disgusting that is). I confess I was hoping the folks there would grow out of all the decrepitude. Sad to think not. But thanks all of you for saving me the trouble of finding out.
4) Planning which Chicago restaurants stay open after ND games
He looks like a worse version of Book (who, by the way, now has eligibility for next year if he wants to come back). Lots of short passes, decent runner but jittery, doesn’t like to throw deep. I don’t think ND will regret losing him at all (and I also don’t fault him for transferring at all).
Let’s not forget that word at the time was, not only could he not unseat Book but, that he was not given any guarantees that the job was his when Book’s tenure was over.
In all, Jurk is a better QB than Book. But for all his limitations what Book excels at is having the trust of this coaching staff. I’m not one bit surprised that Jurk has excelled at BC and looked much more confident and in control than he did at ND. I feel like the entire offensive staff turned on him and made him feel very unwanted here. Will we MISS him, though? No. I do still wish we had him here because I don’t feel like we have a solid backup if Ian goes out for any reason this year.
Has he excelled at BC? Because it doesn’t seem that way, although it’s only been 3 games so it’s sort of silly to even discuss now as if he’s maxed out or something.
Yeah, I wouldn’t say he has excelled so far. He has been fine, and fine+ for BC standards. His y/a is 7.0 (#46 nationally), a full yard less than Book (#26). Efficiency wise, they are about the same (PJ – #35, IB – #39). He does have a high comp % with a very high volume, so that’s good. For the record, his stats were heisman level back at ND. He was 75%, 12.3 y/a, 0 INTs. That’s [insert OU QB here] level.
I don’t think Jurkovec is a better QB than Book right now. He potentially has a higher ceiling, simply because we know Book’s ceiling (2018), and we don’t know Jurk’s. But whether he ever gets there is a different story. QB progression is seldom linear, or even upward. Book’s first season as a starter was much more impressive than what Jurkovec has done so far.