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Newsstand: Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson mystified by Irish adoration for Notre Dame QB Sam Hartman

IMG_9992by:Tyler Horka•11/23/23•

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hartman (47)
Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson chats with Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman, and Sam Hartman is on the right in another photo. (Photos by Matt Cashore/USA Today (left) and Chad Weaver (right))

The love affair Notre Dame fans have with one-year rental quarterback Sam Hartman has resembled a raging flame all year. As soon as Hartman lit up Navy for 4 touchdowns in Ireland on Aug. 26, all bets were off. Everything was on the table.

Everything hasn’t always been that easy. There were back-to-back games in which Hartman did not throw a single touchdown pass but was intercepted twice against each opponent, Pitt and Clemson, for instance. The Irish are a three-loss team, and Hartman did not fare well in any of the defeats.

But he’s reciprocated his affinity for all things Irish every step of the way, even saying he’d like to brings his kids, if he’s fortunate to someday have them, back to South Bend to relish in the glory of a Notre Dame football Saturday.

It all culminated with the stadium speakers playing “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston while showing Hartman on the video board late in the Irish’s 45-7 Senior Day victory over Wake Forest. That was the sixth and final game Hartman ever started at home in South Bend.

Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson, who coached Hartman for five seasons in Winston-Salem before Hartman transferred to Notre Dame, seemed to take offense to the bit.

“Here’s a guy we recruited and we developed, and they are putting on a video of him, saying ‘We will always love you,'” Clawson said. “I’m like, you only dated him for a couple of months. It can’t be love. We are the ones who love him. We had five years with him. You rented him for a season. They bought him and rented him for a year, and now they love him. When that video played, it’s just like, holy cow, this is where college football is.” 

Clawson continued, “Sam and I had a great discussion before the game and after the game, and I love the young man. I really do. I don’t blame him at all for what he did. That’s the system now. For him to have the opportunity to have that experience, and make that type of money in one year, who can fault him?”

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Quote of the day

“Any time you have pieces of success, it builds more and more belief. I talked about it before, like, ‘Hey man, we can be down, we can not play our best. We can play good and then have a team come back. We can be down in overtime and still come back.’ “There’s things there that now they can point to and say, ‘Oh, we can do this.’”

— Irish men’s basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry on the progress of his team

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