Marcus Freeman: Notre Dame quarterback battle is still on
I’m not sure if the announcement will come this week, this month, or sometime this summer, but anyone with a functioning set of eye balls saw what Saturday’s annual Blue-Gold game said in regards to Notre Dame’s quarterback competition.
Barring injury, Sam Hartman will be the starter for 2023.
It really isn’t that hard to figure out, regardless of what spring ball looked like for both Hartman and Tyler Buchner. The two couldn’t have looked more opposite in where their games currently are Saturday.
Yet, Marcus Freeman isn’t announcing a winner in the competition.
No, I think we still have a quarterback battle. You can’t determine a winner or a loser based off one practice, practice 15. And again, you can’t base a decision off of what we view is a certain outcome. There’s a lot that goes into it.
There’s a lot that goes into a quarterback battle, but obviously the quarterback play. And so, I know just being out there, we’ve got to go back and watch the film. We’re not blocking the end, there’s some protection issues, we’re dropping balls.
We’ve got to go and look were the routes exactly precise. I’m always going to defend the quarterbacks because, as I’ve always said, that position is most like the head coach. They get praise and criticism. Everybody’s going to praise Sam for how we played today, they’re going to criticize Tyler. They both probably played pretty well.
We have to look at the film. I know the stats might not say it. But listen, both of them are tremendously talented. And we’ll go back and evaluate all 15 practices and continue to look at it as we move forward. – Marcus Freeman after Blue-Gold game
Like I’ve said throughout the spring, I’ll be flat-out stunned if Hartman isn’t starting against Navy, regardless of a somewhat slow start this spring. Freeman is going to commit just yet and that’s fine, but this not going on significantly longer is important for a variety of reasons, too.
We often overreact to the spring game because it’s our only real sample of actual play to see. Perhaps we’re doing that a bit with one shining and the other struggling, but I’ll be stunned if this competition, battle, derby, or whatever you want to call it, ends up in Buchner’s favor.
