Former Notre Dame football QB Drew Pyne to Arizona State

While his time with the Notre Dame football program has ended, Drew Pyne will be heading to Arizona State to continue his collegiate career. After visiting ASU this past weekend, the former Irish quarterback will head south and compete for the starting role as Sun Devils QB.

First-year head coach Kenny Dillingham will be getting an experienced starter to compete with the rest of his quarterback room. In parts of 3 seasons with Notre Dame football, Pyne completed 63.1% of his passes for a total of 2257 yards. He also tossed 24 touchdowns to just 6 interceptions. While there was a lot of pressure on him as the starting quarterback for the Irish, he performed very well.

It was the games where he failed to show up that soured most Notre Dame fans on the quarterback out of Connecticut. He had some brutal performances in losses this season, most notably against Stanford. Pyne would target Mayer early and often and consistently miss other reads on the field.

That said, Pyne was a true competitor for the Notre Dame football program and never once showed signs of letting the pressure get to him. Even though he lost the starting job to Tyler Buchner at the beginning of the season, he stuck with it and eventually took over after Buchner got injured. Thrust into the spotlight, Pyne went 8-2 overall as the starting quarterback for the Irish.

It remains to be seen who the team will add from the portal, but they’re still searching for a quarterback addition. With rumors of Hudson Card, Devin Leary, Michael Pratt, or Sam Hartman, there’s no clear indication as to who they could add. Additionally, two of the mentioned players aren’t currently in the portal.

Whether they trust Buchner, Angeli, or Minchey is beside the point. They need to bring in veteran experience and competition to improve the QB room. Once bowl games start to wind down, things should become more apparent.