Inside QB Sam Hartman's recalibration of his Notre Dame football journey
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Some of the initial conversations Sam Hartman had with former Notre Dame quarterbacks in his first few months since transferring in and enrolling in January felt coincidental.
From those who starred to those whose promise only briefly flickered.
But eventually, the now-24-year-old former Wake Forest QB sought out those discussions, cherished the words and began to recalibrate in his mind why his final college chapter brought him to South Bend, Ind., and why it was now so much more than a great NIL landing space and a way to manipulate his NFL Draft trajectory.
It all galvanized just before a team run in late June in Notre Dame Stadium, and the ACC’s all-time leader in TD passes (110) and college football’s active leader in career passing yardage (12,967) was strolling down the stadium tunnel when he experienced something totally unfamiliar to that point in his Notre Dame experience.
“Goosebumps,” he said.
Hartman was so overwhelmed, in a frantic quest for context, he sought out director of football performance Matt Balis. The longest-tenured member of head coach Marcus Freeman’s staff was presiding over the stadium run that day but would later abruptly submit his resignation to an unsuspecting Freeman in late July, just ahead of the start of preseason training camp.
“I think a lot of what I got from the conversations with the QBs who came before me is just understanding the magnitude of this program and the magnitude of this place,” Hartman said in a one-on-one interview with Inside ND Sports.
“I keep hearing about how Notre Dame comes alive from Thursday until Saturday. It's just too different of a place and a different atmosphere.”
This was the part of coming to Notre Dame that has so serendipitously blindsided Hartman. And now it’s become another force that drives him.
Stepping into history. Honoring it. And maybe changing it.
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And that’s when talking to figures from Notre Dame’s past, including eventually some non-QBs, heightened in importance and frequency for Hartman.
“A lot of what they told me is about the spotlight and the attention that you receive, and a lot of it's about just enjoying it,” he said. “And everybody messages differently, but it all kind of revolves around the same thing — that there's something special about this place. There's the attention — the amount of people that are invested in this program and this school and our team. And I’ve just got to be ready for it and embrace the moment.”
The moment looks markedly different, though, now than just seven months ago when Hartman and his mother, Lisa, toured the ND campus to punctuate the decision he had already largely made weeks before.
Balis — whom Hartman bonded with, confided in, ventured outside of his comfort zone because of — is gone. Junior QB Tyler Buchner — the likely starter for Notre Dame’s Aug. 26 season opener in Dublin, Ireland, had Hartman’s transfer plans landed him elsewhere — left in May for Alabama, though the two QBs worked out together in California and hung out socially before summer school/training started.
And, most jarring, in February offensive coordinator/QBs coach Tommy Rees left to become the OC for Nick Saban at Alabama.
Hartman was left to ponder what he’d gotten himself into, as Notre Dame plodded somewhat clumsily into finding Rees’ replacement, eventually promoting tight ends coach Gerad Parker to the offensive coordinator part of Rees’ old role, which provided some continuity and finally a playbook to delve into.
Gino Guidugli — who had just taken a job at Wisconsin after raising his profile at his alma mater, Cincinnati — took the QBs coaching part of Rees’ old job but was learning the Parker offense right along with Hartman.
“I think I just leaned into the team, leaned into coach Free and trusted that they were going to figure it out,” Hartman said. “Really, the team, like the locker room, just kind of kept everything rolling.
“Obviously, there were some gut punches along the way, but that’s life. And I've enjoyed being here. I think the team just really — it's just the guys. Like, we always joked in the locker room about different things, and it kind of kept it light. Obviously, it was a pretty — whatever — thin-ice situation, but we stayed afloat.”
From home there were plenty of words of encouragement, from mom Lisa and dad Mark, but home wasn’t just a quick jump in the car away anymore.
Mark, who played college football at Davidson, is an orthopedic spine surgeon, and his schedule hasn’t yet allowed him to make it to the Notre Dame campus for a visit.
Lisa, whom Sam calls “the coolest mom in the world” routinely and for prosperity’s sake on his Instagram page, is a former labor-and-delivery nurse. Her only visit, heading into the start of training camp, was during that recruiting visit in January to close the deal on the transfer.
And in tears the whole time.
“Yeah, it was a very emotional experience for her,” Sam said. “She's religious, so a lot of that stuff really resonated. I mean, she lit a candle. And now she's Notre Dame’d out, all the gear. She loves the green. She's excited.”
When Sam was younger, Lisa impressed him with her ability to hunt.
“She used to hunt duck,” Sam said. “We had the labs and everything, and so she can outshoot me, I will admit to that.”
Today, she has the uncanny ability to make people say “kale” and “delicious” in the same sentence.
“It’s the dressing,” a member of the Notre Dame sports info staff offered of Lisa’s kale salad recipe.
But what Lisa was best at in days and weeks after Rees’ departure was reminding Sam that he’s been in much darker places and emerged a better man from them. Always.
And that’s where his head is now, with training camp session No. 9 about to unfold Saturday on campus, and his Notre Dame football debut roughly three weeks away on the other side of the Atlantic.
Hartman shares less of his mindset publicly than he used to, and usually on Instagram when he does, but you can see the trail of his thoughts there still. The most enduring and perhaps intriguing quote goes like this:
“In the end, we're all dead men. Sadly, we cannot choose how, or when. But what we can choose is how we decide to meet that end, so we are remembered forever as men.”
“You know what that’s from?” Hartman said. “It’s from [the movie] Gladiator. Proximo, the old gladiator, said that. That's like my favorite movie, so I’ve got it tattooed on my leg. And so, that's like the man in the arena type-esque. That’s what I’ve always wanted to be, the man in the arena.”
Merging fact and folklore
There is a mythology of sorts that’s followed Sam Hartman throughout his college career that seems out of proportion for a prospect who gleaned just three scholarship offers in high school, none of which was from Notre Dame.
The TV hair and the swooning it coaxes. The perfect beard. The game that he played in as a freshman against Syracuse in which he broke his fibula and still finished. Stunningly rapid recovery from other injuries. And the depth and the value of his NIL arsenal.
There’s more truth than embellishment in just about every thread, though Hartman isn’t always proactive about setting the record straight, because he values his opportunities for insulation more.
The latest merging of folklore and fact is actually a bit of a rerun. The whole “surgically removed rib in the refrigerator being made into a necklace” story surfaced last fall. But it didn’t gain nearly the traction when Hartman was still wearing a Wake Forest uniform as it did when making the media rounds for Notre Dame in New York earlier this summer. That came during a kind of de facto media day — with Freeman and teammates Joe Alt, Ben Morrison, Blake Fisher and Audric Estimé.
The genesis of the story is actually quite serious. Last August, Hartman developed a blood clot under his collarbone in a subclavian vein, the normal function of which is to move oxygen-poor blood from your upper body back to your heart.
“My dad was freaking out,” Sam said. “My mom was more like, ‘You’ll be fine. Rub some dirt on it.’ But my dad assumed the worst. I was grateful, though, for both of them, because we had access to get in and get the best of the best treatment.”
Surgery ensued, and, in the course of it, a rib was removed to alleviate pressure. Hartman missed Wake Forest’s 2022 season opener against VMI on Sept. 1 but returned for game 2, Sept. 10 at Vanderbilt, and for the balance of the season. He casually mentioned at the time the rib would be converted into a necklace.
“I think some people thought I was joking,” he said. “No, that was true. It's on a necklace now. I’m going to get it shipped up here soon. It's like Hawaiian puka shells. My mom kind of made it. It's a part of the story.
“I don't know if I’ll ever wear it. If I lost it or it got broken, I'd be pretty devastated. But kind of more just like a memento of everything that's happened.”
The more enduring storyline involves an old Netflix docuseries, “QB1: Beyond the Lights.”
It ran for three seasons and followed nine high school quarterbacks and their recruiting journeys, three each season. Hartman became the eighth of the nine to eventually transfer at least once, with Georgia signee Jake Fromm (Season 1, 2017) the lone exception.
Hartman appeared in season 2 (2018), with Iowa State signee Re-al Mitchell and current Chicago Bears QB Justin Fields, a Georgia signee who finished at Ohio State. The show’s popularity and relevance has not significantly faded. In fact, Notre Dame 2024 verbally committed QB prospect CJ Carr is a huge fan, even though he was only 13 when Hartman’s episodes streamed.
“Obsessed with, actually,” Carr told Inside ND Sports back in late January, ahead of his first face-to-face meeting with Hartman. “He became like my college guy, really. And that’s why I've watched Wake Forest every weekend.
“So, I was really familiar with what they're doing there and his style of play and what he can do. And I'm a big fan. So, it's exciting that he's at a place I’ll be.”
“It’s funny,” Hartman said, “because it's become a hot topic in our QB room now. A lot of people are trying to find it. And a lot of people want to know how we got involved. Basically, [the show’s producers] reached out to us. It was kind of one of those things where they emailed probably like 20 kids, and I was one of them, being a Division I committed quarterback. And it just kind of fell into place.
“I did 10 different interviews and talked to [director] Peter Berg, and I was a huge Friday Night Lights fan. I remember watching the first season when that came out, and I was a junior or whatever in high school and I'm like, ‘Oh that'd be really cool, but there's no way.’ And then the puzzle pieces fell, and I did.”
And life was never quite the same again.
“I was talking to [ND freshman QB] Kenny Minchey about this,” Hartman related. “It was weird, because it was the spring of my freshman year [as an early enrollee at Wake]. And then a month in, when you're still getting to know people, there's a show about your entire life coming out every week. And you're walking into the locker room, and it's basically on the TVs in your locker room.
“So, it was a surreal experience. And you’d go to class, and people would be having it up on their laptops. It was nuts. I mean, it prepared me for the spotlight, prepared me for things to come. It’s kind of my calling card at this point. I'd like to be known as a good quarterback, not the kid from QB1, especially how old I am.
“After games and stuff at Wake, you’d have kids come up, ‘Oh, I was watching you on QB1.’ Some of the midyear freshmen are like, ‘Dude, I was in like fifth grade when that came out.’ I'm like, ‘Yeah, I’m old, I know.’ They really love reminding me about how old I am. So that comes with it.”
Old but accomplished. His passing efficiency rating has improved every college season from 125.3 as a freshman to 159.4 in 2022, good for 14th nationally. The last time a Notre Dame quarterback finished that high or better in the national rankings was Jimmy Clausen in 2009 (third at 161.4).
Hartman’s also a three-time captain with a good shot at a fourth coronation in the coming days. And not only older and accomplished, but with much more earning potential, now that the rules allow for that.
So, would Hartman do something like QB1 again?
“I don't know,” he said. “I like to keep what I do in my life relatively private. And I know that that's kind of hard to do. And again, it kind of comes with the territory. I think if there was a money-type incentive — that was before the whole payment thing.
“I did that for free, which looking back you're like, sheesh. But again, it kind of gave me a following and gave me a start for the future of social media and how big it is now. But I don't know. Probably not. Probably not. Unless there was some cheddar involved.”
Freeman, meanwhile, loved what he saw of Hartman on film when word started spreading he’d end up in the transfer portal once Wake’s 2022 season concluded in the Gasparilla Bowl against Missouri last December. But was there a fit?
“There's so much that goes into a football player beyond what you just see on film,” Freeman said generically on Dec. 29, heading into ND’s Gator Bowl matchup with South Carolina. “There's a lot of guys you can turn on film and say he's a good football player, or you can say he's not so good. When you meet somebody face to face, you get a chance to know them, ask them difficult questions, see how they respond. You get to say, ‘Let's figure out who this person is as a man.’
“It's different in the transfer portal, because everything happens so fast. When you're recruiting high school kids, you build relationships over time. You really get to know the kid, the coach, the families.
“In the transfer portal, you have to be able to look kids in the face, have those conversations, but also make phone calls, try to see, ‘Hey, do you know somebody at the previous school? Do you know somebody that can give you a little bit of character makeup of this person?’ You’ve got to be careful, the people you bring into your locker room.”
And now Freeman believes the best quarterback in the country is in his.
Not the least of which is because of how Hartman leads, how he generates buy-in from his teammates.
“In my two years here, man this is maybe the closest group of players I've seen,” Freeman said. “And you can see there's different examples. When you have that emotional bond, that's when great things really are achieved.
“And so, we have to continue to create that amongst our team. There has to be an emotional bond amongst this group of men that they don't want to let each other down.”
In search of the big catch
Sam Hartman was able to accelerate his Notre Dame football growth curve this summer without having to balance it against any academic demands. In other words, zero classes. But Notre Dame football first-year director of player development Amir Carlisle gave Hartman an assignment anyway during a summer workshop with NBC.
Hartman’s idea synched up with Notre Dame’s 4-for-40 theme and Hartman’s own vision of what life after football might look like, whenever that comes for the former communications major.
“I've always said if I was to be done playing football, I'd probably end up getting into some type of broadcasting,” he said. “So, I thought why not try and mix that into one of my passions — fishing? Have like a TV show of me fishing with a special guest and whatnot.
“Like in the spring, I took [teammates] Tyler [Buchner] and Steve [Angeli] out, and they caught fish. It was kind of the first time really for Steve. Tyler had fished before, but not where somebody was like holding the rod for him. Seeing that interaction was cool. I'm hoping to take more of my teammates out.”
And as far as the show concept and NBC’s reception of it?
“They weren't really buying it,” Hartman said with a laugh. “I might have to take it to another network. And even if no one bites, fishing will always be a part of who I am. My first memories of growing up are fishing and football. For me, I see a lot of it hand in hand. I’ve got to give it to my dad for that.
“It's kind of a peaceful place and a fun place and can be frustrating at times — kind of like a lot of things in life. But I see a little bit of that in the parallels with preparation and execution [in football]. And I've enjoyed it. Kind of a part of that is bringing other people with me, and I can go and not catch a fish and somebody else catches 10. But if I'm a part of them catching theirs, it's cool for me.”
Hartman has made a point to fish at the home of his new offensive play-caller, Parker, multiple times. And Parker’s son makes it a point, every time he does, to ask Hartman what’s the biggest fish he ever caught?
“I think I've caught some big sharks, some big stingrays,” Hartman said. “Probably there's some 5-footers, 6-footers — not anything too crazy. I’m more into game fishing and trying to catch bass and redfish. Those are probably the two biggest primary species.”
In the portal game this winter, Hartman was perceived by some as the biggest catch available. But not coming out of Oceanside Academy in Mt. Pleasant, S.C. Elon, Charlotte and Wake Forest comprised the offer sheet for the three-star prospect, who had followed Davidson Day coach Chad Grier across state lines. Northwestern and some others showed casual interest, but not enough to offer a scholarship.
In that same 2018 cycle, Notre Dame found its quarterback early, landing a commitment from high four-star/top 100 prospect Phil Jurkovec, who just happens to pop up on the Irish schedule with his third collegiate team, Pittsburgh, on Oct. 28.
Notre Dame, meanwhile, never called, texted, wrote, DM’d or made a graphic edit for Hartman.
“There wasn't a lot of communication between me and a lot of other schools, either,” he said with a chuckle. “For starters, I committed very early, and I wasn't very big into the recruiting process. I learned from a lot of people, especially my dad and my oldest brother (Demitri) — he played at Elon. You want to go where they love you.
“I felt like Wake was the place where they did love me. I feel like it's proven me right, because when I struggled at points there, a lot of other places probably wouldn't have kept me around or wouldn’t have given me another chance.”
One of those early struggles came fairly early in his freshman year, when Notre Dame came to town in Ian Book’s first start at QB after overtaking incumbent Brandon Wimbush on the depth chart for good (he filled in for an injured Wimbush the one game the previous season).
In that game, a 56-27 Irish rout, Hartman threw for 110 yards, about a third of Book’s total, was sacked three times and hit hard on many other occasions when he did get rid of the ball.
“That's a game I try and forget,” Hartman said. “It was 100 degrees. Drue Tranquill probably tackled me like 15 times. Julian Love was on that team. And they were like, ‘Just don't throw at him. He's really good.’
“First play of the game, I threw right at him. Knocked it down. Yeah, it was surreal. And then we played Clemson in 2018, like two weeks later. And that was Trevor Lawrence’s first start. We kind of got bombarded. That was not fun. Those are not fun Sunday morning meetings, either, for sure.”
But Hartman kept getting up when he got knocked down and kept casting his line, groping for progress. Trying to bag the big catch or be the big catch.
“You want to know why I’m forever grateful for Wake Forest and everything that they gave me?” he said. “Coach [Dave] Clawson believed in me throughout bad games, good games, OK games. I grew so much. And the only reason I'm here at Notre Dame is because of them.
"I was only about 6-foot, 170 then (212 now). I wasn't ready for the big show or whatever you want to call it. Thankfully, I got to develop and try to put on some weight and figure out how to play football.”
Seismic shifts
Even the moments that scar the soul, Sam Hartman tries to find a way to evolve into turning points of sorts.
Hartman and his brother, Joe, lost their adopted and oldest brother, Demitri Allison, at age 21 to suicide on Nov. 11, 2015 — two days before Sam’s Davidson Day School was to play for a North Carolina football state championship. The Hartman family had taken Allison in when Sam was 12 after knowing him and his tough and worsening family situation for years.
“I told myself that there is a plan,” Hartman wrote in a first-person reflection. “Sometimes we don't know what the plan looks like, but God has a light at the end of the tunnel. Even if the light is so dim that some of us — like Demitri — can't even see it, that light is still there.”
Hartman has worn Allison’s initials on his wristbands and his No. 10 jersey number in every game since then.
“Whenever I would go back in the weight room, and I was fighting for one last rep, Demitri served as all the extra motivation I would need,” Hartman wrote. “I know he would have loved to be down here playing football too, and since I was blessed with the opportunity of playing here, Demitri would want me to make the most of it.”
Which helps Hartman process that even losing Demitri tragically, he would have missed out even more had their paths never crossed.
“I mean, I think a big part of it would have been just not seeing a different side of life,” Hartman said. “And you think your life’s hard and you think you had a bad day, but I got to see Demitri’s problems and see my problems, and it kind of helped me realize how little a lot of my things were.
“And it was like you got another brother in your life. I think that was something that can never go wrong with — a couple of brothers hanging around with you and a bigger family. My brother Joe, we talk about just those experiences and those kinds of memories would have been erased had we never met him and made him part of our family.
“I had kind of a hero, in a sense, because we went to a kindergarten-through-12th grade school at the time. And l knew a high schooler, and I always was just looking for dap up when I was in line or something. Like Holy Cow, how cool was that?”
One of the other turning points Hartman readily identifies as such was fighting the urge to transfer when Jamie Newman jumped him on the depth chart Hartman’s sophomore year, then left Wake Forest himself after that season.
Hartman ended up redshirting in 2019 instead of burning that year, which combined with the COVID exemption is the reason he has a year of college eligibility to spend at Notre Dame in 2023, a calculation not lost on Hartman.
Another pivotal stretch was getting his throwing mechanics right, finding offseason quarterbacking expertise at the 3DQB Training Center in Huntington Beach, Calif., during his ascent at Wake Forest.
And still another was getting his mind right by going into therapy, a life detail he’s willing to share in hopes of giving others the courage to consider it if they find the need.
“Those two things changed my career,” Hartman said, “the 3DQB that [former Wake QB] John Wolford recommended and the therapy."
The latter came during and after the 2020 season filled with COVID protocols and curveballs. That included a matchup with Notre Dame — which would have been his first time facing the Irish since the 2018 debacle — getting scratched off the schedule twice.
The Demon Deacons finished 4-5 that year, their only losing season in Hartman’s five years on the Wake roster. Wake Forest rebounded and then some in 2021 (11-3 overall and Atlantic Division champs at 7-1 in the ACC).
“I did everything I could getting ready for that 2020 season, and things just didn't go the right way,” Hartman said. “And we just lost games we shouldn't have. I made plays I shouldn't have, and kind of had to take a step back. And then that was really where I kind of was like, ‘All right, what do I need to do differently?’
“First was therapy and just talking to somebody about my brain processing, how I feel about different things, how I handle pressure, how I handle adversity — everything in that realm. And relationships, leadership — like how do I talk to somebody? How do I talk to this receiver?
“A part of that was with coach Clawson and his leadership ability and me realizing that I wasn't doing it all correctly and I wasn't handling every situation in the right way. And it’ll never be perfect.
“That's kind of what I've tried to bring here is like, again, like I can't treat everybody the same. Like each person has their own individual feelings and individual ways that they want to be coached and taught. And you're going to be hard on guys. And maybe, it's the wrong time, but, it's all from a place of love.”
Meditation became part of his routine as well. Sometimes in pregame.
“I think in a world where everything's fast paced, and especially college football — how fast everything moves — it kind of slows things down. Sometimes you just forget to take a breath and relax.”
And sometimes Hartman forgets his transfer to Notre Dame started out as a business trip, because it’s turned into a sentimental journey.
And maybe another turning point for Hartman? And maybe a turning point for Notre Dame?
“What I can say is I think there's a lot of guys here that are hungry to grow and come together,” he said.
And now Sam Hartman isn’t just the man in the arena.
He’s the man in the arena — on a mission.
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