Notre Dame Football: Hopes for Book and Jurkovec in the Blue and Gold Game
By Paul Walsh
Phil Jurkovec: Understanding the System
There is no doubt that Jurkovec has all the talent to be able to help Notre Dame win football games. He has a strong arm and can run, making him a true dual-threat quarterback. At 6-foot-5 and 225 pounds, his physical presence is daunting as well. But as we all know, talent and physicality is not enough to be a successful quarterback. The quarterback must also have an excellent understanding and command of the offensive system of which he is a part. Once this is achieved, then the talent and physicality can take over.
Getting more comfortable with Chip Long’s system and style of play seems to be the focal point of Phil Jurkovec’s development right now. Brian Kelly discussed noticing “incremental” improvements in Jurkovec during his press conference, also saying that “they weren’t giving him much” until they saw a “competency level” at certain things before “adding a little bit more with him.”
In coach speech, this means that Jurkovec is a redshirt freshman who is putting in the work to try to get a handle on an offensive system at the division one college level. It is expected to take some time for Jurkovec to get comfortable within the confines of this new system. As Kelly mentioned, he needs to get a good feel for the more simplistic aspects of the system before he can be handed the more complex nuances of system. But the quicker he moves through these levels of understanding, the quicker he can be an impact player for the Fighting Irish.
What We're Hoping to See from Notre Dame Receivers in the Blue-Gold Game. dark. Next
It is hard to call this an area of improvement seeing as we have virtually no substantive sample to reference, but the spring game will give us our first real look at Jurkovec’s command of the Notre Dame system at this point in his development.