Why Marcus Freeman said Sam Hartman to Notre Dame is a 'win-win'
The NCAA transfer portal is polarizing. Some love it. Many hate it. Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman? He’s not in a position to take a stance. It’s his job to utilize the portal regardless of what he thinks of it.
“I could complain. I could say I love it. But the reality is, it is what it is,” Freeman said on ESPN’s College Football Live on Friday. “My only focus is to say, ‘How do we capitalize off the portal and the way college recruiting is and NIL and all these different things that go on in college football right now.’ That’s where my mind is.
“We have this thing called the transfer portal. How can we use it to enhance our roster with very specific needs? That’s how we’re approaching it.”
The very specific need for Notre Dame was a quarterback. The enhancement is Wake Forest’s Sam Hartman, who announced his decision to transfer to Notre Dame on Thursday. Just like that, the Fighting Irish are bringing in the ACC’s all-time leader in touchdown passes (110).
There are several other monikers for Hartman. ESPN insider Pete Thamel called him “the biggest move maybe of the portal this whole offseason.” He also bestowed upon him the title of “linchpin for Marcus Freeman in his tenure.”
“He’s really going to help give an element of downfield dynamism in the pass game that was missing at Notre Dame,” Thamel said.
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Hartman lit up opposing defenses for 7,929 passing yards and 77 touchdowns through the air the last two seasons, and he did it operating the slow mesh offense. The doubters’ knock on Hartman is that he’s a system quarterback. They say he can’t put up such prolific numbers without the slow mesh, a concept that buys a quarterback some time by tucking the ball in a running back’s cradle during an option concept.
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Playing in Notre Dame’s offense is a chance to prove the detractors wrong.
“He was looking to get to an NFL-type system,” Freeman said. “A pro-style type of offense. That’s obviously what we have with coach [Tommy] Rees and our offensive system. I think it’s a win-win for everybody. I look forward to getting him here and seeing how he’ll fit into our offensive scheme and how we can tailor our scheme around our quarterbacks.”
Thamel said all Notre Dame is missing is a playmaking wide receiver to complement Hartman’s deep ball prowess. Rising sophomore Tobias Merriweather could blossom into that type of player. Or perhaps the downfield threat comes in the form of one of Notre Dame’s four highly-touted wide receiver signees in the recruiting class of 2023.
Or, maybe, it all circles back to one of Freeman’s favorite words: enhance. Hartman could be the type of signal-caller who brings the best out of everyone, from Merriweather to sixth-year graduate student and former walk-on Matt Salerno to incoming Virginia Tech graduate student transfer Kaleb Smith.
“Having a quarterback like Sam Hartman in your program is going to elevate the play of everybody,” Freeman said. “The quarterback room, the wideouts — everyone on the team.”
