Meeting with the media this week leading up to the Notre Dame game, Cristobal had nothing but praise for Carr. The 'Canes' coach should certainly know better than most. He got to see Carr make his first career college start in last season's opener.
Cristobal came away impressed with the Notre Dame quarterback. Despite coming out with the win, his takeaway from that game was essentially, “Notre Dame has itself a quarterback.”
He also talked about the growth he's seen in Carr when comparing last year's opener with the film he's watched to prepare for Saturday's game.
"Well, right away you saw in that game that he was on his way to being an elite player. And by the second half, he was doing elite things. So, he’s a guy that continues, has continued to develop as a passer, as a runner, a guy that has complete control of the offense."
CJ Carr gets major praise from Mario Cristobal before Notre Dame football faces Miami
"Very accurate. Gets them in the right plays, understands where pressure is coming from, understands where he’s protected, where he’s not protected, gets them in the right run game stuff, extends plays, hurts you with his feet. I mean, he’s become the complete quarterback and arguably one of the best players in college."
Certainly, some of the positive things Cristobal said about Carr are the usual coachspeak. After all, he's not going to say that he thinks Notre Dame's starting quarterback actually sucks and Miami expects to dominate. But he also touched on some things that many, many scouts have said about Carr.
This will also be a massive chance for Carr to show he can perform against teams like Miami the way he does against lesser opponents. The Fighting Irish did see a bigger and better version of Carr in the second half of the Miami game than they saw in the first half.
He wasn't able to show that in the second half of the BYU game.
Cristobal clearly has a lot of respect for Notre Dame's quarterback. Hopefully, CJ Carr can earn himself even more respect on Saturday night with a win.
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