Advertisement
football Edit

No Rust For Quarterback Ian Book As Spring Practice Opens

With his two top defensive ends gone from last season, the top three Irish receivers outta here and a couple of team captains from a depleted defensive secondary also departed, Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly faces a long fix list as his five weeks of spring ball opened Thursday morning on campus.

Fortunately for the Notre Dame head coach, veteran quarterback Ian Book isn’t on the list.

Kelly and his Irish held the first of 14 practices at the Irish Athletics Center, and Kelly said afterward he couldn’t have been happier with what he saw.

“It doesn’t get much better than that for a first day of practice,” he said. “It was competitive. It was high levels of execution and there was a really good tempo to the practice.”

SPECIAL OFFER: Receive $49.50 gift card to Rivals Fan Shop with new annual subscription

Advertisement
Book, seen here in the Camping World Bowl, was nearly perfect in Thursday's spring practice opener.
Book, seen here in the Camping World Bowl, was nearly perfect in Thursday's spring practice opener. (Kim Klement USA Today/Sports)

For Kelly and his staff, Thursday’s workout served mainly as a baseline sample, a two-hour snippet for the coaches to study and dissect as the guys take 12 days off for spring break before practice resumes in earnest March 17.

And for Book, Thursday’s workout was the first step in a mission to show that even as a third-year starter, much improvement can still be made.

Book was sharp with his throws, confident in his demeanor and quick with his decisions.

Now, reading too much into one practice with only helmets and shoulder pads — and no contact — is obviously a reckless endeavor. But it’s hard to argue that while Kelly works down that to-do list this spring and summer, the Irish offense will be in good hands with Ian Book.

“He’s got a ton of credibility and a lot of respect from his peers,” Kelly said when asked about his veteran signal-caller. “He doesn’t really need to walk around and scream and yell. He’s got a presence about him and he just needs to be Ian Book, complete a s***-load of passes, that would be great.”

Book was nearly perfect in the two most important live passing drills during practice.

In the 10 minutes of seven-on-seven work, Book made poised and sound decisions on where and to whom to throw, he put the ball where it needed to be and completed all 10 of his attempts.

In the 11-on-11 work, Book completed 8 of 9 passes, including deep sideline balls to junior Kevin Austin and fifth-year senior Javon McKinley — two wide receivers that entered spring ball with some roster uncertainty but dominated the action Wednesday, and appear to be full-go for spring ball and beyond, per Kelly.

With unproven guys like Austin and McKinley, along with junior tight end Tommy Tremble, and many others, battling to fill the production voids left by stalwarts Chase Claypool, Cole Kmet and Chris Finke, Kelly was asked how Book’s role might change this season from last.

“He doesn’t need to be anybody else,” Kelly said matter-of-factly, “just be Ian Book and I think he will be fine.”

Kelly went onto say that Book showed his mettle and moxie starting last October through the end of the season — and built up plenty of leadership equity along with it — when he kept standards high and attitudes right when the season reached a crossroad following the 45-14 loss Oct. 26 in Ann Arbor, Mich.

“What’s great leadership? To me, when you battle through adversity,” Kelly said. “After the Michigan game, for him to lead our football team to six consecutive wins, that’s pretty good. That shows some resilience and some leadership.”

The residual impact from Book’s performance last season, Kelly explained, is a team that will never doubt the effort or abilities of its quarterback.

“They want to follow a guy like that,” Kelly said, “just because of his actions from last year.”

Kelly also expects Book to benefit from having Tommy Rees serve the dual role of offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach because, “if you’re not coaching at that [quarterback] position, there’s a bit of a separation there that can occur.”

Backing Up Book

Behind Book, sophomore backup quarterback Brendon Clark had his moments, but was somewhat inconsistent during practice.

In seven-on-seven work, Clark went only 4-of-8 passing and had one attempt jumped and intercepted in the middle of the field by junior DJ Brown.

Clark improved later during his 11-on-11 work with 6-of-8 passing, including deep completions to McKinley and junior wideout Micah Jones.

Early enrollee freshman quarterback Drew Pyne — presumably the eventual third-stringer — did not take reps in either of those two passing drills.

----

Talk about it inside Rockne’s Roundtable

Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes

• Learn more about our print and digital publication, Blue & Gold Illustrated.

• Follow us on Twitter: @BGINews, @BGI_LouSomogyi, @BGI_MikeSinger, @CoachDeDario and @AndrewMentock.

• Like us on Facebook.

Advertisement