When he was leading the Notre Dame football team, quarterback Ian Book showed enough raw talent that talk around him competing for the Heisman Trophy was on the table. While he never really came close to putting up the kind of season required to be considered for the sport’s top individual award, he had a solid enough career in South Bend that he had a chance to go on to the NFL. Unfortunately, the former Golden Domer is now waiting and hoping for a call from a team to give him a shot in the 2026 season.
“If I got a call, I’m gone tonight,” Book told ND Insider after conducting a youth skills camp at the Mishawaka Fieldhouse. When the quarterback was asked whether that means that the door is open for the signal-caller who has just one start under his belt in the NFL, he didn’t hesitate. “Always.”
However, Book knows that the writing might be on the wall. The former Notre Dame quarterback might need to continue in a new career. That new career will almost certainly not be as a football coach. The former Irish star believes that if his football story continues, it will be as a player. If his football story is over, he’ll take what he learned in his classes about how to apply his education to life after football.
He spent a full year auditing a real estate private equity class and has found fulfillment in the chance to add new skills almost daily.
Ian Book keeps NFL door open while Notre Dame football lessons shape next career
“I’m learning everything,” he said. “I love that it’s the guys I’ve been with. We’re running a different playbook now, but it still feels the same, like we’re back on a team and investing in a community like South Bend that invested in us.”
“Just having a new goal of underwriting an apartment building, going out and getting it, making it better,” he said. “That’s been my new thing.”
All of those comments hammer home a message that Notre Dame has told its recruits often. Playing football in South Bend is great. It’s something that every player should desire to do. The program will do things to promote those players and turn them into the best in the country, as they have with Jeremiyah Love. But sooner or later, the playing days will be over.
Notre Dame has a major advantage over other Power 4 schools in that it has the rigorous academic standards that are very close to the Ivy League. That degree on a resume carries weight. The classes and what a player needs to do to graduate carry weight as well.
Ian Book is just one of the latest former members of the Fighting Irish who clearly understands what going to Notre Dame really means. Even if the writing is on the wall, he knows he’s not searching for his next career and wondering if he’s qualified for what comes next off the field. He’s someone who Marcus Freeman can point to when he’s recruiting kids and telling them that football isn’t the only thing they need to find important.
Add us as a preferred source on Google