Do preseason watch lists mean DeShone Kizer has edge for starting job?

By Greg Hadley | Jul 15, 2016

November 28, 2015; Stanford, CA, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish quarterback DeShone Kizer (14) throws against Stanford Cardinal during the second half at Stanford Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports /

Update: The Davey O’Brien Award Committee has stated that in cases where a school had two quarterbacks under consideration and no starter has been named, preference was given to the player who ended 2015 as the starter. No such distinction was made for the Walter Camp Award.

DeShone Kizer is on the watch list for awards given to the nation’s best quarterback and best player, but Malik Zaire is not. Does that mean anything?

Finally, mercifully, the annual tradition of mostly useless preseason watch lists came to a close Friday with the release of the Walter Camp and Paul Hornung Awards’ versions.

The Paul Hornung Award, given to the nation’s most versatile player, featured no Irish players as contenders. Oh well. But the Walter Camp Award, awarded to nation’s best player, included Kizer among its 40 players to watch this season, but not Zaire.

And that’s not Kizer’s only watch list in the past two days.

DeShone Kizer — no Malik Zaire — on the Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award Watch Listhttps://t.co/rF1smVWi3g
— BlueandGold.com (@BGInews) July 14, 2016

A solid 95 percent of the time, preseason watch lists can and should be considered as predicative as tarot cards. They mostly just summarize who had a good year last season and are so expansive as to basically be a catch-all. Case in point, Zaire and Kizer were both named to the 90-player Maxwell Award watch list, and Josh Adams and Tarean Folston were both included on the Doak Walter Award list . That’s called hedging your bets, folks.

But the O’Brien and Camp Award watch lists buck that trend and are part of that five percent worth paying attention to.

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The O’Brien committee names just 30 signal-callers to its watch list, while the Camp committee selected only 40 players, meaning both groups had to make some tough calls and omit talented players in favor of others, rather than just throwing everybody in there and then some.

That means they could only pick one Irish quarterback, and they chose Kizer over Zaire. But why? And does that mean we should expect Kizer to win the starting job?

The short answer to that second question is no. While I personally believe Kizer remains the favorite to start for Notre Dame against Texas come Sept. 4, it’s not as though these committees have any insight the rest of us don’t have. They’re seeing the same things and making their best educated guess.

As an interesting side note, Notre Dame’s social media has been silent on the topic after posting to Twitter and Facebook for every other player and coach named to a preseason watch list. It’s not too crazy conspiracy theory to say that the Irish don’t want to seemingly tip their hand by celebrating Kizer just yet.

But why did the award committees pick Kizer over Zaire, and even if we can’t assume that Kizer will start, doesn’t this mean that people who know a lot about football think he will?

The answer is pretty straightforward: Kizer has more experience than Zaire. Despite being younger, Kizer has more games under his belt and has played decently well for a rookie quarterback in tough situations. Zaire has impressed when he has played, but all his games have come either in tandem with Everett Golson or against mediocre teams like Texas and Virginia.

Besides, if you’re Brian Kelly, you want to win now, but you also want to be able to win in the future as well, and Kizer has more years of eligibility left and has already redshirted. Why not give him a whirl now? Even if this season falls apart, which is by no means a guarantee, Kizer will develop further and be ready come 2017.

I’m guessing that was the logic behind these committees’ decision to recognize Kizer and not Zaire. Logically speaking, Kizer has the double-advantage of being both younger and more experienced than his competition. Unless Kelly really thinks Zaire is significantly better than Kizer and will provide the Irish with the better chance to win more now, Kizer should start.

Next: Folston and Adams named to Doak Walter Award watch list

These watch lists merely reinforce that line of thinking, and while they may not put Kizer in front in the mind of Brian Kelly, it certainly builds expectations in the public’s mind as to who will be under center for the Irish in 2016.

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