Everything you need to know about Notre Dame’s first spring practice

Here we go

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish have officially put the 2024 season behind them and are moving towards the 2025 season. Which is kind of not true as the team has been lifting and prepping for spring ball for weeks now… but this is the real marker.

Even Marcus Freeman is living in that world:

“There’s just been a lot of stuff to do and handle from, as you said, the end of the end of season till now. And so you have to plan for spring weeks or months ago, but the reality is I really didn’t focus on the practice until we got out there today. And so it was good to be out there and really to turn all your attention to actually practice.”

And with that, we can jump right into the most pressing issue of the offseason — the impending quarterback battle between Steve Angeli, CJ Carr, and Kenny Minchey.

“They’re going to split reps and each day could be different, but it’s important for us to communicate with them beforehand and no matter if they like what group they’re going with or not, which it shouldn’t matter, that we’re upfront and honest with them and then we give them feedback after each practice and we’ll name a starter when a starter clearly shows that he’s the best quarterback. I don’t want to put a timetable on and I refuse to do that. To me, if you don’t have a decision made by then, it’s going to frustrate you and there’s no need to put a timetable on it.

You let those guys compete and when a starter is determined, we’re going to announce it. But again, I’m excited. I truly love competition. I think it’s going to make all three of those guys better.

It is the first true competition with three guys that I’ve been a part of. But I think it’s going to be a fair competition. I know it’s going to be a fair competition. I’m really excited for it and looking forward to seeing how everyone in that room enhances, but also at some point somebody’s going to be named a starter.”

While Marcus Freeman may not have a timetable for naming a starter — I guarantee you that one or two of the three quarterbacks fighting for the job have one of their own.

Of course, all three quarterbacks do some different things, and with that kind of variety available, the Irish offense will likely have a slightly different look one way or another depending on who is QB1. At any rate… it won’t be an offense that operated like the one last year with Riley Leonard off to the NFL.

“I would think they all have similar skillsets, right? Kenny might argue with me that he’s as good as a runner as Riley (Leonard), but I don’t know. I think they all have similar skillsets with the ability to throw it. The ability if they need to keep the ball in their hands and extend the play or have an option to run the ball, they can.

As we look at it from the big picture is ‘OK, we knew what Riley’s strengths were, we knew what Sam Hartman’s strengths were. Now we have an idea of what the collective group in that room the strengths are. And so how do we tailor what we do offensively to fit the quarterback? And what are we going to ask that guy to do?

You’ve heard me say it many times, great coaches call or ask their players to do what they do well. It is not a playcall that you created. It’s calling what your guys do well. And that’s the objective of the spring is how can we tailor what we do offensively and call things that we believe our quarterback can perform well?”

One thing is for certain, and that’s the fact that the Irish QB room is much better in year four of the Marcus Freeman era than in year one with Tyler Buchner and Drew Pyne. Marcus Freeman, you could say, has a lot more to work with this time around.

“They’ve all got great arms. They all can throw the ball. One’s a senior that has been here that has experience. One’s been here going into a second year and one’s going into his third year. Is that a strength or a weakness? I don’t know. That’s to be determined. I think all three have the ability to extend plays with their legs. They all three make really great decisions. There’s nothing I’m going to say right now to say, ‘Hey, they’re separated.’ Those three are competing. And I look forward to the competition. And at the end of the day, when one clearly shows that he’s the best person to lead our offense, then he’ll be named a starter.”

Perhaps the bigger issue with the Notre Dame offense over the last few years wasn’t really who was playing quarterback, but who the quarterback was throwing the ball to each game (perhaps). The quarterback/receiver relationship has a lot to do with how these position battles unfold, and Freeman candidly discussed that scenario.

“(Jaden) Greathouse will be here. Faison is limited, but it isn’t like there’s a whole bunch of people coming in June that’s going to be different. We’re going to have to count on some of these guys. You’re going to have to count on Faison, Will Pauling and the new guys that are here, some of these young guys, KK Smith and Elijah Burress and Jerome Bettis, the Micah Gilberts.

“You’re going to make them better and also we’re going to evaluate you. The one thing I’ve learned more anything when you evaluate quarterbacks, it isn’t the final result that always tell you if they’ve done a good job or not. Other people see it that way. Other people see, Did the guy catch the ball or not? Is it interception or not? What’s the result or what’s the outcome?

But when you spend time understanding their process, a lot of that time, it’s not their fault. We can evaluate a quarterback based on his decision-making and not look at the result of the outcome of the play. That doesn’t always matter, and that’s what we’ll be able to do when you’re talking about utilizing some younger guys that are less experienced.

But at the end of the day, it’s about making the team better. Yeah, there’s competitions, but the overarching theme is let’s get better as a team. And guess what? There’s going to be some young guys in that wide receivers room that get better fast, and that’s going to make our team better.”

Besides the quarterback competition, Freeman discussed other competitions in the roster, new GM Mike Martin, new DC Chris Ash, and much more.

The first day of practice, of course, is more than just the press conference — it’s about practice.

As with most years, the media will have limited time to view practice sessions — and a lot of that time will be used to take a head count and see who is practicing and who is not. Still, there are bones to be had and we do get some drill work and position reps.

Here’s a good roundup of Wednesday’s clips:

For further analysis and debate about the first spring practice (and more) I highly recommend our good friend Greg Flammang on Hit and Hustle.