While Marcus Freeman feels pretty confident that either CJ Carr or Kenny Minchey could lead Notre Dame onto the field next season, it appears that he’s not totally comfortable with the way his quarterback room looks at the moment.
That’s why Freeman has come up with a rather surprising solution. The departure of Steve Angeli could lead to current walk-on wide receiver Tyler Buchner moving back to his old position. There has been some discussion among the coaches about putting Buchner back at quarterback.
Could Tyler Buchner be Notre Dame football’s emergency QB solution?
“That's something we've discussed,” Notre Dame’s head coach said during a Wednesday press conference. “We'll look at the total number of arms, bodies that we have to practice, but it's definitely under consideration to be able to move Tyler back into the quarterback room as we look into the summer and fall camp.”
That idea, caused some concern among Fighting Irish faithful. Some wondered if that meant true freshman Blake Hebert wasn’t shaping up the way they’d hoped. However, Freeman made it clear in his comments this was more about the number of arms in the room.
Should Buchner move back to the QB room, he would join Carr, Minchey, Hebert, and Antony Rezac. Of that group, Rezac is also a walk-on and while he performed well in the Blue and Gold Game, likely isn’t going to be leaned on much more than mop-up duty.
It makes sense that Notre Dame would like a veteran player, who did start his career at the position, to work in a room that has a grand total of zero starts in college football. The group has a total of 21 snaps in live games. Steve Angeli was the veteran quarterback in the room.
Since coming back to Notre Dame, Buchner has been the guy the team leans on in practice. While it seems unlikely he’ll step foot back on the field as a quarterback unless the Irish are losing or winning by a lot, he could be a valuable piece as the season goes on.