What makes Notre Dame QB Steve Angeli so calm, cool and collected?

Bergen Catholic and Notre Dame quarterback signee Steve Angeli went into the New Jersey Non-Public A State Tournament last November with an undefeated record and top-five national ranking per MaxPreps on the line. The Crusaders faced off against archrival Don Bosco Prep – two programs that are very familiar with each other and already played earlier in the season.

Angeli finished 9 of 14 for 100 yards and one passing touchdown in the 28-7 win for Bergen Catholic. His numbers weren’t gaudy.

What didn’t show up on the stat sheet was him leading the troops and helping his coaching staff win the chess match at the line of scrimmage. Based on Bergen Catholic’s alignment, Don Bosco Prep’s defense would expect a certain play and overload on that side to stop it.

“Bergen’s coaches were waiting to see Bosco’s defense and then were coming in with a call late,” said Angeli’s private quarterbacks coach Matt Bastardi, who coached the Irish gunslinger for around the past decade. “Every once in a while, Bergen would have to use a time out, but you saw Steve directing everything at the line.

“Players were asking for the call, and Steve was telling his guys to wait, got the play from the sideline, tells something to his offensive line, looks back and communicates with his running backs, make a gesture out to the receivers and quickly runs the play. I can’t tell you how many times that happened with under six seconds left on the play clock. Every time, Steve handled it.

“He didn’t get up or down – didn’t get excited or nervous. It was pretty cool to see. That’s what you want and need in your leader.”

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Angeli was an Under Armour All-American recruit who held scholarship offers from the likes of LSU, Michigan, Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State and many others. Regardless of recruiting rankings, Angeli, who had a 17-1 record as a high school starting quarterback, is a decorated signal-caller.

But it’s not the physical traits that are his top quality. It’s the mental component that makes Angeli different.

“He’s very level in his demeanor at all times,” Bastardi said. “It’s an internal thing in his persona. I’ve known him for a long time, and he’s never gotten riled up during workouts. He goes along with things.

“If he’s to miss a throw, there’s no negative overreaction. He flushes it and forgets it. That’s one of those things that it rarely shows up at a combine. He’s a coach on the field and doesn’t lose focus and concentration. He’s been like that since I’ve known him.”

This article originally appeared in the Blue & Gold Illustrated recruiting magazine that covered the 2022 class. Click here to order your copy!

Calm, cool and collected

To not have anything faze you is an uncommon trait. In analyzing how Angeli got to this point, it all starts with his family. His parents, Janos and Stefanie, did a great job raising him. Steve’s two older brothers, Jack and Nick, were key figures for him, too.

“Being a third child, Steve had this extrasensory perception of what was going on around him,” Janos Angeli said. “His older brothers were great. Some brothers will wrestle and beat each other up; our boys weren’t into that.

“Part of this is Steve being the youngest and looking up to them and seeing them doing their sports and succeeding. He figured out the outcomes in sports and that things aren’t personal.”

There’s not a position on the field that’s more criticized than the quarterback, but from a young age, Angeli learned to not let those things affect him.

“He does not take things personally,” Stefanie Angeli stated.

It’s not just on the field where Angeli stays even-keeled. When Brian Kelly left his post at Notre Dame to become LSU’s new head coach, he didn’t flinch.

“He doesn’t over-worry about things he can’t control,” his mother noted. “He was not concerned. Coaches come and go; it’s about his teammates. That’s not to say that he doesn’t love his coaches and want them to be there, but first and foremost, it’s about his team.

“That’s something parents don’t understand. We think about who is leading them, but he felt less affected by the coaching news and was more focused on Notre Dame and the class he helped recruit. That’s something we as parents couldn’t understand; we looked at it differently.”

Yin and yang

Angeli welcomes the limelight but never gets a big head. He’s very competitive but has a healthy understanding of moving on after a big win or crushing defeat. Angeli is also very confident in his abilities but won’t get cocky.

A lot of credit goes to Nick and Jack in terms of how Angeli is wired.

“He’s very close to his older brothers, and they played a lot of sports together,” Bastardi explained. “When you’re confident in what you can do – and I don’t mean that in a braggadocios way – that goes along with handling things with a proper demeanor. Since a young age, he’s been a very good athlete.”

Nick played four seasons at Fordham (2014-17) on the Rams’ defensive line. Jack graduated from Penn State in 2015 and now works for Goldman Sachs in Chicago. Whether it was playing basketball, cornhole and throwing the football around, there was always a healthy balance that made Steve who he is today.

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“Competitive but nurturing,” Bastardi said of the brothers. “In other words, it wasn’t about taking Steve out back and beating him by 30 points in a sport. They would compete together. When they went one on one, it wouldn’t get nasty and ugly. With them, they were always trying to help and work with Steve. They had competition, but it was never nasty, which is pretty cool.”

Steve, who enrolled early at Notre Dame in January, met with the media Feb. 4, and BlueandGold.com asked what he credits his calm, cool and collected demeanor with. He echoed what his parents and quarterbacks coach said without hesitation.

“I think that’s credited to my family,” he said. “My two older brothers played sports growing up, and I learned from them and saw their success and how they carried themselves. I took what I could from them.”

Going beyond the stat sheet

Angeli is a competitor and made himself readily available during the offseason camp circuit. He threw at the Philadelphia Elite 11, New Jersey Rivals camp and Future 50 camp all last year. Recruiting pundits saw him at those events, plus the four days of practices of the Under Armour All-America Game and the all-star game itself.

BGI was at many of those events, watched Angeli closely and was impressed with him, but Angeli kept dropping in the rankings. After the postseason all-star games concluded, Angeli fell from the No. 398 overall player to No. 604 per the On3 Consensus Recruiting Ranking, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. One thing is for certain; Angeli isn’t offended or affected at all by his rankings tumble.

Angeli didn’t put up eye-popping numbers in Bergen’s conservative, run-first offense. He’s not 6-5 with insane arm talent.

“With Steven, you’re getting something else,” Bastardi explained. “And by the way, if he were throwing 25 or 30 times per game, he’d be putting up big numbers. That’s just not Bergen, and you learn to live with that as a quarterback.”

Angeli may not have all the God-given physical traits of a five-star quarterback, but he has a lot of qualities that won’t be clear for those making the recruiting rankings.

“Most of the time, those things are about the physical, ‘wow’ traits,” Bastardi added. “But if I’m an offensive coordinator, I’d put my trust in a kid like Steve because he knows the offense, what’s expected, and if there’s a breakdown in communication, he’ll still do things like the coach wants it done. That’s invaluable; it really is. It’s very impressive for Steve to do that at a young high school level.”