For Notre Dame football as spring practices kick off, all eyes are on the quarterback position.
For the first time since 2022, the Fighting Irish staging an honest to goodness competition to see who will be the starter when Notre Dame takes on Miami in the season opener. The competition will almost certainly go past the spring and into fall camp, but there will be some things that the coaching staff, including quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli will be keeping a sharp eye on.
“Team. There’s not a doubt. Team. You gotta be in there, under fire, making decisions under fire. That’s the only way,” the Notre Dame football team’s quarterback coach said during his press conference on Friday. “All the other stuff is great. Like, there’s aspects that you’re going to develop. But like, at the end of the day, your job is gonna be decision making.”
Notre Dame football quarterback coach breaks down QB race
The “other stuff” Guidugli is talking about are what many fans are looking at when trying to decide who will be the starter.
There’s Kenny Minchey’s mobility. There’s Steve Angeli’s veteran presence. And there’s CJ Carr’s strong arm and unknown quantities people want to see as spring pracitce rolls out. But Guidugli is right, decision making is going to be the biggest key when the smoke clears.
“That’s gonna happen under fire,” the quarterback coach added. “Gotta see that this guy can play with anticipation, you gotta see that he’s got the answer when the play isn’t there. You gotta see that he’s got situational awareness. When you get into third down, you get in the red zone, you get into a two-minute situation, putting them in situations and seeing how they react. See how the team responds to them, see how they make the guys around them better.”
All of that confirms that the Notre Dame football quarterback race is as interesting as it seemed at first glance. The next couple of weeks are going to be ones to watch, even if the competition won’t end once spring practice does.