Notre Dame football: Irish will pursue a fourth scholarship quarterback for 2024
Marcus Freeman made up his mind. Notre Dame is once again in the market for a quarterback.
The Fighting Irish head coach told reporters Monday once the 2023 season is over in a few weeks, attention will shift to the necessity of bringing in a fourth scholarship quarterback for 2024.
Yes; necessity. This isn’t a want for Freeman. It’s a need.
“Who that is, how we get to that fourth scholarship quarterback, is still to be determined,” Freeman said. “We’ll look at the portal when the portal opens. We’ll look at different ways to fill that fourth quarterback scholarship. But we do want to be in a position to have four quarterbacks on scholarship.”
Whoever ends up in South Bend will join a young, inexperienced group. Junior-to-be Steve Angeli will be the elder statesman. He has not started a game in his Notre Dame career. Neither has Kenny Minchey, who’s currently serving as Notre Dame’s third-stringer as a true freshman. CJ Carr arrives in the offseason as the Irish’s highly-rated class of 2024 signee.
If it is the transfer portal that yields the fourth scholarship quarterback Freeman covets, it’ll be the third time in the last four years Notre Dame has pulled a QB from there. This time feels different, though, a few weeks before the wheels are actually set in motion.
Ahead of the 2021 season, the Irish wanted a proven starter. They got one in former Wisconsin Badger Jack Coan. Last year, it was the same thing. Proven starter needed. They got one in Sam Hartman. Monday, Freeman didn’t say anything about finding someone like Coan or Hartman. He kept harping on the number four, which translates to a yearning for depth.
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If there is another option like Coan or Hartman, someone Notre Dame knows it can win with right away, the Irish will be all in on him. It’d be foolish not to take the best available option who’s a good fit. But Freeman also said he has a lot of confidence in Angeli and Minchey. He said it could easily be one of those two who start the 2024 season opener against Texas A&M in College Station no matter who Notre Dame lands on as a reinforcement.
The transfer portal is a two-way street. Players must leave one program to join another. Within the last year Notre Dame lost two QBs to the portal in Drew Pyne and Tyler Buchner. Every position must be bolstered to protect against potential exits. A surefire starter could be in the cards, but with the position Notre Dame finds itself in somebody is better than nobody. Freeman made that clear.
“As I told Steve and Kenny, who have done a really good job in practice, we owe it to this program to try to put four quarterbacks on scholarship,” Freeman said. “That’s the number we have allotted for.”
