This past Saturday, the Notre Dame football team played a modified version of the Blue-Gold game with a heavy focus falling on the team’s quarterbacks. Four quarterbacks were present throughout the game, including rising freshman Blake Hebert, rising senior Steve Angeli, rising junior Kenny Minchey and rising sophomore CJ Carr. All eyes were on the three top competitors of Angeli, Minchey and Carr, but for me, my focus was on the heavy competition between Angeli and Carr.
There has been heavy debate on who is going to be the starting quarterback. You could go with Angeli, the man who saved the Irish during the Penn State game, or go with Carr, who shined during the Blue-Gold Game.
“It was a reflection of the first 11 practices,” Marcus Freeman commented on the performance of the three quarterbacks who are currently competing for the starting position and the pressure the competition puts on the coaching staff. “Those guys have been battling, they’ve all improved, you know they’re all doing really good things, and it’s crazy to think that you have three guys who all can lead the program to victory and be the starting quarterback, so we’ll evaluate it, we will talk about it and have a discussion well before. Again, you would like to be able to kinda, going forward, [have] two quarterbacks battling really hard, [but having] three, we have to have a sit-down conversation about what’s best for our program, what’s best for our quarterbacks, and we’ll make that decision.”
Angeli competed in No. 1 series, No. 4 series, No. 7 series and No. 10 series and did not let me down. Throughout the four series, Angeli finished with 108 passing yards, one touchdown and one sack. Opposed to this was Carr, who I noted finished with much higher statistics and outshined Angeli. The big difference that was noticed between the two quarterbacks was distance. As I mentioned, Angeli finished with 108, and Carr finished with 170 passing yards, marking nearly a 62-yard difference. Overall, while Angeli is the more experienced player, having played in the College Football Playoff, Carr pulled through with longer passes and better gameplay overall.
Carr led the quarterbacks, competing in series No. 3, No. 6, No. 9 and rounded out the game in series No. 12. The rising sophomore finished with 170 passing yards, two touchdowns, 28 long passing yards and no sacks. Carr started to hit my radar when he hit two long passes in series No. 3, one to graduate tight end Kevin Bauman for a pickup of 23 yards, followed by a second 24-yard completion to rising sophomore tight end Jack Larson. In the sixth series, Carr continued to prove his ability for long passes with a 28-yard pass to rising sophomore running back Kedren Young, followed by handing the ball off to rising freshman wide receiver Elijah Burress for his first touchdown. Carr’s second touchdown followed in the final No. 12 series with a shot down the middle to rising sophomore wide receiver Xavier Southall to lead the blue team to victory. While some of his passes were incomplete, it is evident that Carr can throw further than Angeli and was more strategic.
All in all, throughout the entirety of the Blue-Gold Game, my attention went straight to Carr as he outplayed Angeli, was more accurate and took more chances in the different series that he was involved in. In my opinion, I believe that Carr is going to be the starting quarterback come the fall season.
