Marcus Freeman calls Syracuse QB Garrett Shrader 'special'

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman knows that his defense is up against a difficult challenge this week. Playing Syracuse, Freeman can’t bank on his offense to win in a shootout, so he needs the defense to have a strong game. That’s going to be tough against a team with a talented running back in Sean Tucker and a special quarterback in Garrett Shrader.

While speaking to the media, Marcus Freeman praised Garrett Shrader.

“The quarterback is special,” Marcus Freeman said. “I know he’s a veteran guy. Played two years at Mississippi State and in his second season here.”

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“But the one thing you’ve seen is, I saw a stat, that he’s been with four different offensive coordinators. So, he understands the game of football. He’s not just a one-system guy, and he can extend plays with his feet, he can run, he’s got a good arm, makes good decisions, and so it’s going to be a huge task for us when you talk about a quarterback that can run it, throw it, makes good decisions, takes care of the football.”

That’s the concern when a team plays against Garrett Shrader. He’s not going to make mistakes, you have to force them. However, that’s incredibly difficult to do when a quarterback is athletic enough to avoid the pass rush and create plays.

“We’ve got a tall challenge for us,” Marcus Freeman said.

Marcus Freeman on his own quarterback

Notre Dame has had issues at quarterback this season. Tyler Buchner, the team’s starter for the first two weeks, went down for the season with an injury. He was replaced by Drew Pyne, who has been consistently inconsistent for the Irish. However, Marcus Freeman has seen improvement in Pyne.

“If you look at Drew Pyne the UNLV game versus the Stanford game or maybe the first half of Cal, that’s the law of progression. Drew wasn’t perfect the entire game. But he was able to execute maybe even when he didn’t have a successful play the play before,” Marcus Freeman said.

“To continue to have the mental confidence to go out there…Consistency is something that we all as a program have to improve at. But I think what Drew did was he was able to not let one bad play turn into two or turn into three on Saturday. Nobody’s perfect. He’ll tell you he’s played better this year, but I think there was growth.”