SOUTH BEND, Ind. — The gaggle of media peppering CJ Carr with questions Friday at Notre Dame’s indoor football facility was considerably smaller than the media mosh pit that had just soaked up Duke transfer QB Riley Leonard’s first press availability at ND moments earlier.
Disproportionately smaller, really, when you think of Carr’s recruiting pedigree and the high ceiling that shows up in seemingly almost every snippet of his high school tape.
His humility, contrastingly, came off as substantial as it was sincere.
“I don’t think I’m worried about the depth chart, where I’m at,” said Carr, one of a record 15 football freshman early enrollees completing their third week of spring-semester classes and winter workouts this past week at ND.
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Realistically, the 6-foot-3, 197-pound Saline, Mich., product will start spring practice next month at No. 4 of four on the quarterback depth chart, and perhaps finish spring at the Blue-Gold Game on April 20 in the same position.
And maybe not.
“The goal is to come into the building every day and get one step better,” he said. “[Director of player development] Amir Carlisle over here has a phrase called ‘close the gap.’ The goal is to just close the gap every day.
“I get to learn from some of the best players in college football,” Carr continued. “Riley Leonard. You’ve got Steve Angeli, who just came off a great win, and Kenny Minchey too. All three of those have a lot of knowledge. I’m not as much competing with them as I am myself.”
A healthy perspective for a player ranked as No. 50 player overall, per Rivals, in the 2024 class. That’s the second-highest ranking for a Notre Dame QB — behind Gunner Kiel (No. 20 in 2012) — since former coach Charlie Weis signed five-stars Jimmy Clausen (2007) and Dayne Crist (2008) in back-to-back classes when Carr was a toddler.
And the kind of perspective that Carr let fade once he verbally committed to the Irish on June 9, 2022 — a full 18 months before he was able to sign his National Letter of Intent, per NCAA rules.
The kind of perspective that makes him dangerous, though, is how driven the grandson of former Michigan coach Lloyd Carr is, powered by loss and grief that became a resolve to make a difference.
In football. In life.
He lost his youngest brother, Chad, in 2015 to an inoperable brain tumor 14 months after being diagnosed. Chad, the youngest of three Carr sons, was 5 years old, and CJ 10, when Chad died. Parents Tammi and Jason Carr channeled their heartache into bringing awareness and funds to other families touched by the condition, DIPG (diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma).
The ChadTough Defeat DIPG Foundation (chadtough.org) has a mission of “discovering game-changing treatments for childhood brain cancers, while offering help to families currently ”in the fight.”
“It's an everyday part of our life, really,” Carr told Inside ND Sports roughly a year ago. “(Chad) obviously means a lot to me, and I think about him every day. So yeah, he's still part of our daily lives, which is beautiful.”
CJ Carr wasn’t just an early enrollee. He was an ultra early enrollee, getting a special waiver to participate in some of the team’s Sun Bowl practices in December, but not in the game itself on Dec. 29 — a 40-8 walloping of Oregon State in El paso, Texas, behind Angeli in his first college start.
“It was a cool experience,” Carr said of his December dip into Notre Dame football, wearing No. 17 in practice at the time and since swapped out for No. 12, when running back Jeremiyah Love vacated it.
“It was a different experience, too, just the way speed changes from high school to college. I learned a lot in those few weeks. Practicing with the team was a big advantage for me. I’m excited to head into spring with the right foot forward.”
And with some words of wisdom he got from opted-out 2023 No. 1 QB Sam Hartman on the Sun Bowl sidelines.
“He’s a great role model to look up to,” Carr said.
Carr to a large extent has been a role model himself — in patience. He’s on his third strength-and-conditioning coach, third offensive coordinator and second QBs coach since verbally committing. And he recently loaded film of LSU’s 2023 offense onto his iPad — as have Leonard, Angeli and Minchey — to try to get a feel for new Irish OC Mike Denbrock’s approach.
“It kind of shows you what college football is,” Carr said of the assistant coaching turnover. “You never have full confidence in someone staying all four years. I’m just excited to have coach Denbrock here and looking forward to learning a lot from him. I’m confident he’ll put us in the best position to win.”
And confident he made the right choice by never wavering through the changes.
“It’s the bonds I’ve built with the commits here and the players that are already here,” Carr said of the lasting allure. “It’s a special group of kids we have in the room down there.
“The quarterback room, the receiver room, the defense room, offense room — there’s just dudes everywhere. So, that was a big reason why I never wavered. Also, trusting coach Freeman to put the best coaches out there that can develop all of us in the correct way.”
On Jan. 8, Carr from a distance cheered on his dad’s and grandpa’s former team Michigan in its national championship victory over Washington, then envisioned how Notre Dame could do the same someday soon.
“We’re real close,” he said. “”We have the players and the coaches to do it. At this point, the whole goal is to win games. I’m excited to see how everything unfolds this year.”
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