Sam Hartman defines success at Notre Dame in 2023

Sam Hartman defined success at Notre Dame for the 2023 season but didn’t put an exact number on it, aside from performance.

Hartman transferred from Wake Forest for his final season to give it one last shot at college glory. Then comes the NFL.

But it seems like Hartman has quite the opportunity for success at Notre Dame.

“I mean, I think first and foremost is just, again, getting back to where I felt I had the respect of the team at Wake, up at Notre Dame and I think it’s not to compare the two schools, it’s more of just each at each school you’re going to reach kind of the like, you know, the top of the mountain of leadership and respect on your team and I mean, I think something I always think about is just, you know, you have guys that play with you and you have guys to play for you,” Hartman said on The Paul Finebaum Show.

“And I think the No. 1 thing for me right now is get the team to play for me. And it helps in the offseason, it helps in the training to, you know, try and be out in front and trying to do the right things.” 

Hartman truly tried to keep things in perspective. Basically like playing the game of football like when they were kids.

Except this time, Notre Dame has higher expectations. But Hartman’s advantage is keeping it simple and fun.

Head coach Marcus Freeman seems to have all the confidence in Hartman.

“But you know, sometimes it’s sitting back and being in the middle of lines, the back of the lines and trying to just see how things operate, how things work,” Hartman said. “Because as I’ve been playing as long as I have, I have ideas of how things should go but coming into school you kind of learn different ways that might be better might be worse, but you got to be able to take everything as it’s given to you. 

“And I mean I think also along with that is just playing with boys all the time and trusting the guys around me and trusting the coaches and trusting Coach Freeman to put me in the best spot. If I can complete those things and you know, stay in the kind of the middle of the bumpy road that we’re on together then it’ll be a good, fun year.”