Marcus Freeman reveals when he would like to decide on Notre Dame starting quarterback

The past two offseasons for Notre Dame brought hype surrounding the starting quarterback. Marcus Freeman was able to attract a top name out of the NCAA transfer portal, finding success with Sam Hartman and Riley Leonard. But this year is a little different, having an in-house competition with guys the Irish have recruited.

CJ Carr and Kenny Minchey are battling it out, with no starter being named after spring practice. So when will Freeman pull the trigger on declaring one the winner? He gave a typical coach-speak, saying Notre Dame will declare Carr or Minchey as the starter when the time feels right.

“I learned early in my career, don’t put a timetable on it,” Freeman said via Golic & Golic. “When we’re confident that the starter is clearly defined, then we’ll name that starter. It could be after the summer. It could be after the first practice, it could be — again, I don’t love the thought of going into the first game without naming a starter, but if we have to wait, we will. I don’t think we will. But, you know, I think, how do we put them in situations where they’re competitive situations where they have to execute? And at the end of the day, who’s executed? Who’s putting our offense in a position to have success?”

Freeman did mention potentially seeing Carr and Minchey continue the competition into the season. Considering how Notre Dame opens up the year, that may be considered a risky move, at least from the outside. Four power conference foes are on the schedule in August and September, beginning with a road game against Miami. Texas A&M, Purdue, and at Arkansas follow.

Neither Carr nor Minchey has significant experience throughout their careers. Both got into last season’s game against Purdue, while Minchey had three appearances during the 2023 season. Competitive snaps were not available though, being when the game was out of hand.

The whole evaluation from Freeman is going to come from practices leading into the year. Positives and negatives came from both, needing to really take the competition by the reins. At the end of the day, Freeman believes whoever does will wind up getting the start against Miami.

“Both of those guys have done a lot of really good things in the 15 practices we had in the spring, and even as we got back here in the summer,” Freeman said. “And so again, there’s different ways to get the results that you want. I think both of them have similar skill sets, but also a little bit of different skill sets in terms of how they can get the outcome that we truly entail. But whoever we end up deciding, or whoever, really — I always say they’re going to decide. We don’t decide as coaches, the quarterbacks will decide who’s the starter. We’ll believe they’ll put our offense in a great position.”