Ian Book Announces Return To Notre Dame In 2020
Senior quarterback Ian Book has announced on his Instagram page that he will return to Notre Dame for his fifth season of eligibility in 2020.
The first Fighting Irish quarterback elected as a captain since Jimmy Clausen in 2009, Book would also be the first three-year starter at his position since Clausen from 2007-09.
Book is coming off a 20 of 28 passing performance for 247 yards and a touchdown in this weekend’s 33-9 Camping World Bowl victory versus Iowa State.
For the season he is 28th nationally in passing efficiency (149.1 rating) by completing 240 of 399 passes (60.2 percent) for 3,034 yards, 34 touchdowns and six interceptions.
He also was second in rushing with 546 yards, and led the team in that department during four straight wins in November.
A year earlier as a junior in 2018, Book finished 17th nationally in passing efficiency with a 154.0 rating, the highest in head coach Brian Kelly’s 10 seasons at Notre Dame.
Furthermore, Book joins Fighting Irish luminaries Tony Rice, Tom Clements and Joe Theismann, along with Brandon Wimbush, whom Book supplanted as the starter in game 4 of the 2018 season, as the lone Notre Dame quarterbacks to eclipse 1,000 yards rushing in their careers.
With a 20-3 career record as a starter (not including coming off the bench to rally the Irish to victory over LSU in the 2018 Citrus Bowl), Book could realistically be the first Notre Dame quarterback to win 30 games in that role.
The current record of 29 wins as a starter is shared by Clements (29-5 from 1972-74), Ron Powlus (29-16-1 from 1994-97) and Brady Quinn (29-17 from 2003-06).
This season Book became the first Notre Dame quarterback to pass for more than 3,000 yards and 30 touchdowns and rush for more than 500 in a season, with Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts the only other QB to achieve that feat in 2019.
Book will be the first fifth-year senior quarterback returning as a starter for the team since Jarious Jackson in 1999. Under Kelly, all previous QBs eligible for a fifth season became graduate transfer at other schools: Dayne Crist (Kansas), Andrew Hendrix (Miami (Ohio)), Everett Golson (Florida State), Malik Zaire (Florida) and Wimbush (Central Florida).
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