Just over one week before Notre Dame opens the 2025 season, head coach Marcus Freeman has landed on CJ Carr as the team’s starting quarterback.
The Irish announced on Tuesday that Carr beat out Kenny Minchey for the starting job going into the Aug. 31 season opener against Miami.
After the team’s final offseason scrimmage on Sunday, Freeman told reporters he was not yet ready to make a decision about the quarterback battle.
“We’re still in a competition,” Freeman said. “We’ll go back and evaluate today’s practice and make a decision. We’ve got to make a decision here soon. I don’t want to put a timeline on it, but they’ve both been playing really, really well.”
Notre Dame entered the spring with a three-way quarterback competition with Carr, Minchey and Steve Angeli. It became a two-person battle after Angeli committed to Syracuse after entering the transfer portal in April.
Angeli played a crucial role in Notre Dame’s 27-24 victory over Penn State in the College Football Playoff semifinal. After Leonard suffered an injury late in the second quarter, Angeli went 6-of-7 for 44 yards on a drive that ended in a field goal to cut the deficit to 10-3 at halftime.
That was Angeli’s only appearance in the game, as Leonard returned to start the third quarter.
Among the two remaining contenders for the job, Minchey has more college experience as a member of the 2023 recruiting class. A 4-star prospect coming out of Pope John Paul II High School in Tennessee, he has only attempted three passes over the past two seasons.
Carr, a redshirt freshman, originally committed to Notre Dame in 2022, two years before he graduated from high school. The grandson of former Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr was a 4-star recruit and sixth-ranked quarterback in the 2024 class, per 247Sports.
This will mark the first time since Ron Powlus in 1994 that Notre Dame will enter the season with a freshman starting at quarterback. DeShone Kizer in 2015 is the last freshman who started a game for the Irish.
Notre Dame and Miami are both entering this season ranked in the top 10 in the Associated Press top 25 preseason poll. The game will be played at Hard Rock Stadium on Aug. 31 at 7:30 p.m. ET.
Source link
