Notre Dame’s spring QB competitions are always the worst

Not that it matters

Notre Dame is almost at the finish line with spring football. The Irish will play in the annual Blue-Gold Game this Saturday, and then we’re all taking a ride on that long offseason roller coaster for the next 4 months.

It’s difficult to measure how successful the spring practice period actually was until the fall, and by then, it doesn’t matter much to the overall conversation. Spring football generally offers two main outcomes — reassurance or chaos. Will we know (or at least think we know) what the depth chart will look like in September, or is there too much uncertainty to have any real sense of what this team might look like?

In Notre Dame’s case this spring, I think we’re getting a bit of both (which feels like a normal thing). Despite injuries, and players being held out of spring ball, most of the team looks solid or has the potential to be solid come fall. The quarterback situation though… is a little different.

I keep hearing that no matter who eventually wins the quarterback competition between Steve Angeli, Kenny Minchey, and CJ Carr, Notre Dame will be in really good shape for the 2025 season. That may be true, but it still doesn’t mean these QB competitions aren’t the worst.

While spring should (and does) provide a lot of answers for the fall, the whole QB thing is always messy. As Marcus Freeman has said, the players are the ones that will determine the length of time this will take for a decision. What does that mean? Well, to be blunt, guys want to know if they have a transfer decision to make.

There’s almost no outcome that doesn’t eventually have one of the three hitting the transfer portal. An argument can be made that if Angeli wins, there’s a chance both Carr and Minchey stay in South Bend, but I’m not sold on that particular scenario being anything more than hopeful.

It’s why spring QB competitions are the worst. We’re probably about to see a guy that we all celebrated as a recruit and hoped the best for — leave to play somewhere else. It’s unlike any other position in football, and these are the stakes involved. It really just kind of sucks.

With minimal viewing by the fans and the media, the Blue-Gold Game likely won’t provide much clarity for us, but it will definitely provide more fuel for a hot take summer — also the worst.