Ian Book On The Possibility Of A Season Without Fans: ‘I Just Want To Play’
As much as Notre Dame quarterback Ian Book tries to fight it, it is near impossible for him to avoid thoughts of what the 2020 college football season will look like.
Will there be fans? If so, how full will the stadium be? What if the season doesn’t start on time?
Even casual Fighting Irish fans are pondering such questions, so as a fifth-year senior with NFL aspirations, this thought exercise is certainly understandable.
But when it comes down to it, at least from his perspective, the answer is simple: Book wants to compete, and it doesn’t matter who is watching.
“Whether there’s no fans or a hundred thousand fans, I want to be there and I just want to play,” Book said Tuesday on “The Fight,” Notre Dame’s fundraiser for COVID-19 relief efforts. “I know when I talk to all the guys in the team, they just want to play. We just want to have a season, but we understand it's safety first. We've got to keep everybody safe, and we know that we’ll be put into the right position, whatever that is.
“I’ve thought about it a lot. I thought about what it would be like to run into Notre Dame Stadium with no fans. But I’m here to do it. This is my last season. I want to make the most of it.”
When it comes to avoiding such thoughts, it also doesn't help that Book is cooped up inside for much of the day, but his responsibilities to the team do help to keep him busy.
Three times a week, he and the other Fighting Irish quarterbacks meet with offensive coordinator Tommy Rees. Then the entire offense collectively meets once a week, where Rees installs new pieces of the Fighting Irish offense, just like he would do if the team were still in South Bend.
Every Wednesday, head coach Brian Kelly addresses the team via Zoom. Book says Kelly has dramatically improved his virtual meeting skills since the start of the pandemic.
“After the first day, he’s gotten a lot better,” Book said. “The first day he had some technical difficulties, but now he’s been doing great.”
Throughout his week, Rees also gives Book and the other quarterbacks quizzes pertaining to the offense, which may seem like an undesirable task for players already trying to focus on virtual course work, but according to Book this is what it takes for it to be business as usual.
Still, no matter how much film Book watches or how often he meets with his teammates and coaches via Zoom, there is no denying the notion that being scattered across the country could be harmful to an offense that just lost two second-round draft picks in tight end Cole Kmet and wide receiver Chase Claypool.
“As much as I wanted them all to come back because they’ve been so great for me and just for this whole entire offense, they’ve landed in great spots in the NFL, where I believe they’re going to have a lot of success,” Book said. “But it’s the next-man-in mentality. That’s college football, that’s Notre Dame.
“We do a great job of recruiting the best players around the country and, after what I’ve seen just in one spring practice that we did get, we’ve got guys that are able to step up and that are going to have great years.”
Claypool, in particular, will be difficult to replace. More than a third of Book’s 3,034 passing yards and 34 touchdowns came by way of receptions from the 6-4 wide receiver.
“He made my job a lot easier,” Book said of Claypool, the 2019 team MVP. “Even if a pass wasn’t the best, he caught it.”
At the same time, Book says he is confident in his receivers on the perimeter, likely referring to juniors Kevin Austin and Braden Lenzy plus fifth-year senior Bennett Skowronek, a graduate transfer from Northwestern who Book has become close with.
Still, Book will be the only three-year starting quarterback of the Kelly era and likely a two-time team captain, so no matter how much offensive skill talent Notre Dame lost in 2019, he will be expected to produce. That means combining the big offensive numbers from 2019 (Book and Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts were the only two quarterback to throw for at least 2,500 yards and 30 touchdowns while also running for more than 500 yards) with the accuracy from 2018 — when he set a Notre Dame record for the highest completion percentage in a single season.
He feels confident he can meet his own high expectations for himself, especially with Rees calling the plays.
“I can’t speak highly enough of him,” Book said. “He’s pushed me, he’s taught me everything and he’s put me in the right positions. I know how much I believe in him and how confident I am that he can be a great play caller, which he will be. When the whole team also feels that way, that's when you know something special is going to happen.
“We all believe in him and we’re all confident. We can’t wait for the season.”
That is, assuming there is one. But if Book gets his wish, there will be — with or without fans in the stadium.
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