SOUTH BEND, Ind. — The way Notre Dame freshman Blake Hebert processes being the fourth alternative in a three-QB race this spring is anything but a back-burner mentality.
And through the first three practices of the 15 the Irish will stage this spring, reality has pretty much synched up with that.
“I’m getting a good number of reps actually, and every rep I’m trying to do my best,” Hebert said after a recent Irish practice. “Obviously, mistakes are coming. I’m new here. I’m new to a lot of the concepts that we’re running. So, if mistakes are happening, I’m just going to make them at full speed.
“Every day I'm attacking it with the same mentality. Just competing against myself, trying to get better. So, that's how I'm thinking about it.”
Related Content
► How Kenny Minchey is making case in Notre Dame football QB competition
► Why it may be time for Steve Angeli as starting QB for Notre Dame football
► Stronger CJ Carr focuses on daily messages in Notre Dame football QB battle
► Gritty Miles points the way as Notre Dame WBB thunders into the Sweet 16
► What Will Pauling believes Notre Dame WRs coach Mike Brown can do for him
And given that the transfer portal opens one last time this offseason for football — April 16-25 — it’s entirely possible Hebert will open the season Aug. 31 in Miami as the No. 3 Irish quarterback option, if not No. 2, once the pecking order among contenders to be the Notre Dame starter becomes clear to senior Steve Angeli, junior Kenny Minchey and sophomore CJ Carr.
And that’s whether or not Marcus Freeman announces 2024 starter Riley Leonard's successor to the world before August training camp, which has been his preferred timeline in quarterback derbies.
“They're all working their tails off,” Hebert said of the QBs directly competing to be No. 1. “I can see it. They're getting better every day. And they're honestly really helping me out. I'm the new guy just trying to really get my feet underneath me.
“So, they've been doing a great job just helping me and being patient. I'm trying to learn it all, you know? So I've been asking them a lot of questions. They've done a great job getting it back to me.”
And the 6-foot-2, 223-pound Hebert did a great job of getting a head start.
By mutual decision, he ended up as one of four ultra-early enrollees who came to ND in December, rather than mid-January, and filled scout team roles in practice for the last three legs of Notre Dame’s four-game College Football Playoff run.
Linebacker Madden Faraimo and safeties JaDon Blair and Ethan Long — the latter a high school teammate of Hebert’s at the Brunswick School in Greenwich, Conn., this past season — were the other three.
“I'll say the two main things are just taking reps against the starting defense, and then also seeing a game prep,” Hebert said of the benefits. “Especially for these high-caliber games, in the classroom and in the film room. That's the two main things for me.
“I mean, they're the best defense in the country, right?” he said of his daily competition. “But at the end of the day, it's football, just at a higher speed. I would say absolutely it's a different level, and it was awesome.”
Actually Hebert has been bumping up the speed quotient and competition level fairly constantly over the past several years.
At age 14, the British Columbia native and his family left Canada to move to the U.S. as they sought a steeper learning curve and better opportunities for the son of Arena Football League QB Ricky Hebert.
They settled in Massachusetts, where Ricky played football at NCAA Division II American International College and mom Carmen played soccer for the same school. Blake played his first three high school seasons at Lawrence (Mass.) Central Catholic and overlapped there for a year with ND junior linebacker Preston Zinter.
After missing most of his junior season with an ankle fracture, Blake Hebert took another step up in competition and enrolled at Brunswick, the alma mater of ND athletic director Pete Bevacqua, where Hebert teamed up with Long and January-enrolled freshman Matty Augustine, an offensive tackle.
Hebert initially verbally committed to Clemson in the summer of 2023, but flipped his commitment to ND 16 months later, in mid-October of 2024, after fellow four-star prospect Deuce Knight reneged on his Irish pledge and jumped into Auburn’s class late in the recruiting cycle.
“I came on one visit here, and we had a lot of phone calls beforehand in June of '23,” Hebert said. “So, we had gotten really tight just over those phone calls over that visit. That bond kind of lasted the year I guess, just without any communication. And then when they reached out, it kind of rekindled it.
“My first visit, I came that summer, obviously not a whole lot of people were here. Initially I loved it. It's just Notre Dame. Anybody would tell you just the history behind it and the success in the program, the coaching staff is great.
“But now getting here, it's lived up to all that and more.”
And now Hebert is trying to live up to his own expectations for himself.
Part of that process is doing what Leonard did last October during ND’s first bye week — making a concerted effort to understand the “whys” in offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock’s play-calling process and deciphering the playbook by getting to know the man who scripted it.
“Great man and great coach,” Hebert said. “Very cerebral. I'm just starting to kind of get into his head and see his thought process and why he's calling different things.
“But again, it's spring ball and we're kind of just running stuff to run it, just to rep it, and get the repetitions in. But he's a great coach, and I could see him helping this offense extraordinarily.”
As for Leonard, Hebert hopes to stay in touch with the now NFL-aspiring QB, who will be back on campus this week for ND’s Pro Day on Thursday in front of NFL scouts, coaches and personnel types.
“A great dude,” Hebert said. “His play on the field speaks for itself. I could go on about that. But just how he is off the field and behind closed doors, he's an awesome man. I know he's going to do great things at the next level.
“I think I could definitely take certain pieces of his game, his personality and implement them into mine. But at the end of the day, I'm Blake, I'm not Riley or I'm not anybody else.”
• Talk with Notre Dame fans on The Insider Lounge.
• Subscribe to the Inside ND Sports podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, Podbean or Pocket Casts.
• Subscribe to the Inside ND Sports channel on YouTube.
• Follow us on Twitter: @insideNDsports, @EHansenND and @TJamesND.
• Like us on Facebook: Inside ND Sports
• Follow us on Instagram: @insideNDsports
