Marcus Freeman pressed for update on deciding Notre Dame starting quarterback

Notre Dame has a quarterback battle that could last as long as into preseason practice this fall in South Bend. Or, as Marcus Freeman said this weekend, until one of the Fighting Irish’s options makes that decision for them.

Freeman was asked for a timeline on a choice in their quarterback competition at a press conference on Saturday. He said he is uncertain when they’ll decide as he believes that it’s up to their quarterbacks to make up their minds for them in how they perform.

“I don’t know when it’s going to be,” said Freeman. “I mean, it’ll be when they kind of determine decisions need to be made, you know what I mean. I’ve always said, like, I don’t truly believe that coaches put a timeline. I think the players kind of decide, um, when decisions need to be made.”

As for how the actual competition is going, Freeman gave an update on it in his answer right before. He said Steve Angeli, CJ Carr, and Kenny Minchey are making the most of the opportunities in their respective reps. Their staff will continue to keep track on each of them in order to give their team a starting quarterback at the right time.

“Yeah, I mean, I think, as a coaching staff, you just want to get them more but they’ve handled it, handled it perfectly, right. They focus on the reps they get. They do the best job they can. If they’re not in there, they’re getting mental reps. They’re helping each other out and are really focused on being the best version of them and that’s all you can ask,” said Freeman. “If you’re worried about anything else then you’re not really helping yourself at all, right. If you’re worried about counting the other person’s reps and, you know, how many completions he has, that’s not helping you be the best version of you. So, they’ve been amazing. They’ve been great. But, just exactly what I thought they would be – mature and guys that take care of business and take advantage of their opportunities that they’re getting.”

“For us, you know, how do we find ways to continuously get them more but understand that we have a team that, that maybe isn’t as deep in those positions right now in the spring? And so, we can’t hurt the greater good of the team,” Freeman continued. “We have to be able to evaluate those guys but we feel like we have done, in the first nine practices, a really good job being able to at least evaluate those guys in a fair way and, again, that’s what we’ll continue to do as we go throughout spring.”

Sometime between now and August 31st, Notre Dame will have named a QB1. As to when that will be, or who it’ll be at that time, though, comes down to who ends that competition between Carr, Angeli, and Minchey.

“As soon as there’s a clear starter, we’ll name a clear starter,” said Freeman.