SOUTH BEND, Ind. — The calculus for what life after Sam Hartman looks like for the Notre Dame football program at the quarterback position started way back in July with the start of training camp and long looks at sophomore Steve Angeli and freshman Kenny Minchey.
On Thursday, Irish head coach Marcus Freeman revealed he and his staff plan to meet during ND’s second bye week, Nov. 5-11, to discuss and put the finer points on their plan for the position for the 2024 season.
Specifically, whether to add a quarterback from the transfer portal again, and for the third time in four years. The winter portal window, condensed this season to 30 days, opens Dec. 4 and closes Jan. 2, with a 15-day spring window to follow from April 16-30.
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“I think all options right now are in consideration,” Freeman said during his weekly Thursday Zoom session with the ND beat media. “I feel really good about the future of our program at the quarterback position with the guys coming in, with the guys we have here, but you look at numbers too.
“Most rosters have four quarterbacks on scholarship, which we lost when Tyler [Buchner] left, and so we've been in discussions on what we want to do. Do you want to take another quarterback? We have three quarterbacks on scholarship right now.
“So, we'll make final decisions here, probably, as we get into the next bye week. But, again, I'm really pleased with the growth and confident with the growth and performance of Kenny and Steve Angeli.”
Hartman, formerly of Wake Forest, will face Pitt (2-5) on Saturday (3:30 p.m. EDT; NBC/Peacock), starting a run of three consecutive ACC opponents for the 14th-ranked Irish (6-2).
The nation’s 11th-ranked player nationally in pass efficiency is 195 yards away from becoming the sixth quarterback in FBS history to hit the 15,000-yard mark in career passing yards.
The Hartman Effect on the Notre Dame football program is having an impact, though, beyond game day. And apparently beyond 2023.
Freeman emphasized getting longer looks at his younger/developing players during the three bye-week practices last week, and Hartman’s influence on Angeli and Minchey, he says, was clear to see.
“I think the most important thing they’ve benefited from is the preparation,” Freeman said. “How they prepare throughout the week, outside of the time that's permitted through the NCAA rules, [outside of] the four hours we get with them a day. It's the preparation in terms of watching film, a routine, pre-practice routine or post-practice routine.
“And they all do it. They're always together. They're always watching film. They're always going through the routine together. And so, that to me, has been the biggest benefit.”
Vaunted Saline (Mich.) High senior CJ Carr is set to sign with the Irish in December and early-enroll in January, joining Angeli and Minchey on the Irish roster for the spring semester. Four-star, dual-threat QB Deuce Knight is committed in the 2025 class but doesn’t figure into next year’s QB picture.
But if Freeman does take a portal QB who’s a likely starter, does that chase either Minchey or Angeli into the portal? Last offseason, both Drew Pyne in December and Tyler Buchner in April opted out of ND because of the incoming portal QB, Pyne to Arizona State before he even knew that the portal QB was going to be Hartman. Buchner landed at Alabama before Freeman officially announced the obvious, that Hartman was No. 1 and Buchner was No. 2 coming out of spring.
Buchner is listed as third string on the most recent Alabama depth chart. Pyne, who is injured, would be no higher than No. 3 among Arizona State’s QB options if all four Sun Devils signal-callers were healthy.
The third former Irish QB still playing in the collegiate ranks, sixth-year grad Phil Jurkovec, comes to Notre Dame Stadium Saturday as Pitt’s third-team QB after starting the Panthers’ first five games. Penn State transfer Christian Veilleux will start for the Panthers this weekend.
Notre Dame’s 2024 schedule largely lends itself to the possibility of an inexperienced QB being able to grow up on the job, with the exception of the Aug. 31 opener at Texas A&M. Following that game are matchups with Northern Illinois, Purdue, Miami (Ohio), Louisville, Stanford, Georgia Tech and Navy before Florida State visits Notre Dame Stadium in November.
Mixed signals
Notre Dame and Michigan aren’t scheduled to play in football again until 2033 and 2034, but the Wolverines’ expanding sign-stealing scandal that has evolved into a full-blown NCAA investigation, still hits home with Irish head coach Marcus Freeman.
“We assume every opponent we go against studies our signals,” Freeman said. “There's been games over my career that I felt like the opposing team has maybe had our signals and were calling things out. So, you have to go to the sideline and adjust. But what you can't do is confuse your players, and that's always the double-edged sword.
“We want to make sure we're not just telling an opponent what we're doing, but we also want to make sure our guys have clarity in what they're doing. So yes, we've changed signals within a game if we felt like a team had our signals.
“But too, we have to be really cautious on making sure our players are very clear on who's live and what the signals are, because I've seen that too — somebody gets confused on who's the live signaler, and he doesn't get the right signal, and that can be catastrophic to your team.”
Freeman said Notre Dame changes its signals a couple of times a year, but more variables are introduced by the presence of multiple signalers on the sideline and changing up which of them is “live” and which are decoys.
“When I first became coordinator here at Notre Dame, as the defensive coordinator, I was doing signals, and I did that at Cincinnati,” Freeman said. “When I got here, you realize how often you're on TV, and you have to change it up — who's signaling, who's live, and have a good system.
“And so, we do a lot of self-scouting in terms of how often somebody's live, what signals are we using, do we have multiple signals to give the same call to the offense or defense? And so, it changes often.”
Post-bye practice changeup
After three days of practice last week during ND’s first of two bye weeks — on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday — Freeman wanted to prioritize a mental and physical refresh Thursday through Sunday for the players and coaches.
But one that clearly ended on Monday of this week, with Pitt coming to town for a game on Saturday.
“The challenge for me was when they got back, we had to create some friction,” Freeman said. “We had to make it difficult. We practiced Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, which isn't typical. On Mondays, we usually do a walk-through, but we practiced on Monday and we got after them on Tuesday and Wednesday, but we had some really good practices. Weren't perfect.
“We wanted to create though that friction that it really takes to grow. And we had to grow as a team this week. And so, I challenged our coaches. I challenged myself and I challenged our players that we have to do good on good.”
That means more 1s vs. 1s in practice than usual rather than the 1s facing scout-team players.
“I just told the staff I was pleased really with how these three practices went and where we're at right now as we head into our Thursday, Friday. Now, you’ve got to just continue to smooth out the details to get ready to go on Saturday.”
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