Analysis: Will Notre Dame football grab another transfer quarterback in Sam Hartman's wake?

SOUTH BEND — As Sam Hartman enters the clean-shaven homestretch of his one-and-done season for Notre Dame football, thoughts have already turned to 2024.

In the heady aftermath of a 48-20 win over USC that marked Hartman’s first victory in eight career starts against top-16 competition, even the Wake Forest graduate transfer couldn’t help but mention the approaching offseason and his preparation for the NFL Scouting Combine.

“I’ll be training in California for the pro stuff,” Hartman said. “I can walk a little bit higher and taller out there.”

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As for Steve Angeli and Kenny Minchey, the two scholarship understudies in the Irish quarterback room, it will be a mighty wake Hartman leaves for them as he exits the college game after six record-setting seasons.

“Sam is a great football player and a great man off the field,” All-America left tackle Joe Alt said after Tuesday’s practice. “I see those same traits in everybody in our quarterback room. I think their ability to lead and their ability to be productive on the field and be great people off the field is definitely there. I don’t really have a worry in that aspect.”

Then again, asked how often Angeli, the redshirt sophomore from Westfield, N.J., gets to work with the first team in practice, Alt shook his head.

“Every once in a while,” Alt said. “Mostly, it’s just Sam. That’s how it just kind of rolls.”

Angeli has six career game appearances in college, but his only outing with more than two pass attempts was in the 56-3 blowout of Tennessee State. Angeli made the most of it, going 8-for-11 for 130 yards and two touchdowns, but it’s hard to read too much into that cameo against an HBCU opponent.

Alt, who is projected as a high first-round NFL Draft pick next spring, still professed “the utmost confidence in Steve to do the job.”

Even if Angeli has just 45 career game snaps and 14 pass attempts to his name.

“He’s getting better and better every day back there,” Alt said. “His confidence levels are growing, and the trust in him is obviously huge.”

Marcus Freeman considering 'all options' for 2024 QB

After successfully mining the transfer portal for Jack Coan (Wisconsin) and Hartman in two of the past three offseasons, could Notre Dame take the plug-and-play route again for 2024?

“I think all options right now are in consideration,” Irish coach Marcus Freeman said Thursday. “That’s something we said we’ll truly discuss the second bye week on what is going to be a decision moving forward.”

Considering the Monday after USC was essentially an open audition for Notre Dame’s second- and third-stringers, most notably Angeli and Minchey, Freeman’s answer seemed to carry more weight than it might appear to on the surface.

The next bye week falls between a road test at unranked Clemson on Nov. 4 and Senior Day on Nov. 18 against Hartman’s old program, Wake Forest.

Freeman’s stated timeline for a decision on whether to go portal shopping again at the most important position seemingly eliminates a chance for Angeli to shine in relief in expected blowouts of the Deacons and Stanford, the latter in the regular-season finale on Thanksgiving weekend.

The unspoken subtext of Freeman’s comment: Angeli had better light up the sky when the backups hog all the practice reps on the Monday after Clemson.

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“We’ve been in discussions on what we want to do,” Freeman said. “Do you want to take another quarterback or do you not? We’ll make probably final decisions here as we get to the next bye week.”

Freeman noted most Power Five programs around the country carry four scholarship quarterbacks. Tyler Buchner’s decision to transfer to Alabama after a disastrous showing in Notre Dame’s spring game left the Irish with walk-on Dylan Devezin as the fourth man in the QB room.

Four-star commitment CJ Carr, expected to enroll in January, is having a strong senior season in Saline, Mich., and the 2025 signing class got an early boost with the nonbinding commitment in September of four-star talent Deuce Knight of Lucedale, Miss.

“I feel really good about the future of our program at the quarterback position,” Freeman said, “with the guys coming in and the guys we have here. But you look at (scholarship) numbers too. … I’m really pleased with the growth and confident with the growth and the performance of Kenny and Steve Angeli.”

While Minchey drew praise from the coaching staff and his teammates for his scout-team approximation of Caleb Williams in the run-up to USC, the Hendersonville, Tenn., product still has just five career game snaps, all against Tennessee State.

Downside risk comes with any QB transfer addition

Even if Notre Dame goes portal shopping for the third time in four years, there is no guarantee the Irish would be able to secure another Hartman-level impact quarterback.

More than 62% of this year’s Power Five starters at the position are former transfers, so the competition for proven QBs is cutthroat. It’s too soon to say whether someone like Tulane’s Michael Pratt, Duke’s Riley Leonard or Will Howard of Kansas State would be tempted to follow in Hartman’s NIL-lined path to Notre Dame.

What’s more, assimilation on the fly is often trickier than Hartman and Coan made it look. Witness the disastrous year Brennan Armstong is having at N.C. State or the disappearing act Spencer Sanders pulled after bouncing from Oklahoma State to Ole Miss.

And there’s downside risk beyond the poor performance of a grad transfer. What about the potential drag on future quarterback recruiting when a program such as Notre Dame repeatedly turns its back on in-house development?

“That’s a great question,” veteran recruiting analyst Tom Lemming said this week on the South Bend Tribune’s “Pod of Gold” podcast. “I do think they’ve got to start developing their own high school quarterbacks.”

Lemming, publisher of Prep Football Report and co-host of the Lemming Report on CBS Sports Network, noted Irish quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli successfully developed Desmond Ridder, now starting in the NFL for the Atlanta Falcons after taking Cincinnati to the College Football Playoff in 2021.

“If you can’t do it at Notre Dame, you might as well give up,” Lemming said. “If they brought in another transfer, you could be guaranteed that one or two of the guys they have now is going to be leaving. And if it’s CJ Carr, then, geez, that would be really bad for Notre Dame.”

The grandson of former Michigan coach Lloyd Carr stands 6-foot-2 ½, 195 pounds and is rated the fifth-best quarterback in this year’s signing class. At No. 36 overall, per 247 Sports Composite, Carr committed in June 2022 and remains the crown jewel in a Notre Dame signing class ranked seventh in the country.

“CJ Carr looks like the real deal,” Lemming said. “He’s got size, he’s got arm strength, he’s got foot speed. He can run himself out of trouble. He’s very intelligent. He’s got the bloodlines too.”

As for Knight, a 6-4 ½, 195-pound left-hander with a rocket arm and dual-threat capability, Lemming sees plenty of upside for him as well.

“He’s got great height; he can run,” Lemming said. “He’s really got to be developed, and I think Gino could really prove himself by developing a guy like Deuce.”

The stakes couldn’t be higher for Freeman and Co., as they sort through the pros and cons of another dip in the transfer portal.

“I think they could develop CJ Carr as the first high school quarterback to come out of Notre Dame in a long time,” Lemming said. “It looks like he’s got the ability. The guys behind him also look like they’ve got ability. It just remains to be seen how good of a quarterback coach they are and how good of an offensive system they’re going to be put in to make sure that they are successful.”

Follow Notre Dame football writer Mike Berardino on social media @MikeBerardino.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Analysis: Notre Dame football and the Sam Hartman succession plan 2024