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Notre Dame will inevitably insist that the quarterback competition be open this spring and into the preseason. Irish head coach Brian Kelly will spend at least a few weeks insisting that Jack Coan, Drew Pyne and Tyler Buchner all received equal reps in training, including rising junior Brendon Clark if his knee is good enough. healthy. Offensive coordinator Tommy Rees offered the “open” honor last week.
But Notre Dame would not have brought in Coan as a Wisconsin graduate if he was not going to be immediately put in pole position.
“We’re still in the business of creating competition and improving this team,” Rees said Wednesday. “We had the opportunity here with the numbers to add a quarterback to our roster. We felt there was a need for a veteran presence in the room.
Coan started 18 games for a viable Power Five program, completing 69.6% of his passes and throwing 18 touchdowns against just five interceptions. He started a Rose Bowl after winning 10 games in 2019. He has the resume to start for the Irish on his own, and not just because of the situation.
“We definitely added the voucher to Jack,” Rees said. “He’s an extremely mature child. He worked his tail to put him in a great position here at Notre Dame. He’s someone I can’t wait to work with and choose his brain while also helping him understand what it means to play quarterback at Notre Dame and grab that attack.
Pyne did little to impress, let alone distress. Clark is a separate injury issue going forward. And Buchner hasn’t played competitive football since 2019. Coan’s arrival was necessary, and not just as a veteran as Rees praised him.
Buchner’s luck will come, and if he succeeds every stint this spring, then maybe that luck will indeed be in 2021, but it would be a meteoric rise, even if Rees feels like he’s been recruiting Buchner “for 10 years” .
This recruiting gained momentum after Buchner impressed during a camp on campus, a moment that included some of the best quarterbacks in his class, intentionally in the Notre Dame setup.
“When we were in this camp situation it was very clear to everyone there was a competition,” Irish recruiting coordinator Brian Polian said in December. “There were quarterbacks in that class who knew, ‘I’m here with three or four other guys and I’m trying to be the one they offer in the class.’
“It’s by design. We have to know who is going to stand up when they know they are being evaluated and who is going to compete. [Buchner] competed and he looked great. We have never looked back.
Notre Dame didn’t look back when much of the recruiting industry did after watching Buchner at Camp Elite 11 last summer, his only public show since the 2019 season. The Echo Chamber amplified concerns about his throwing mechanics, a worry that might have been enough to scare the Irish off considering their last experience with a highly recruited quarterback.
Rees would have none of that, by then the offensive coordinator and therefore with more influence on how to handle a quarterback’s throwing movement.
“For me, it’s pretty much the base, through the trunk and then making sure the target line, eyes, and body position are all defined,” Rees said. “It’s less about the exit point and more about ensuring that we are able to get the base right, get the right target line, work on the kernel, and then make sure we’re really getting close. from the shoulder and it’s for me. where I tend to cut it.
After all, Buchner’s throwing motion served him well enough to win scholarship offers from Notre Dame, Alabama, Georgia, USC and Oregon.
“You don’t want to go into an area, unless it’s something really extreme, where you’re messing around too much with how a kid has thrown a ball their entire life,” Rees said. “He threw football the right way for 18 years to get to Notre Dame. I’m not talking about Tyler here, I’m talking about generalities here.
“If we feel that there is something that needs to be changed there, then we probably haven’t done our job during the evaluation period.”
If Buchner’s throwing motion turns out to be nothing more than a narrative, not a concern at all, then maybe the Irish will have a quarterback competition over the next 208 days. While this serves the content machine greatly, don’t hold your breath.
It’s a nod to Coan, not a criticism of Buchner.
MISCELLANEOUS OFFENSIVE QUOTES
Somewhere in the transition to the early signing period, Notre Dame’s coaching staff stopped offering snippets on every signatory. The drill has always been filled with repetitive platitudes, but it provided content when it came time to discuss Cane Berrong or receiver Jayden Thomas.
If that’s the biggest loss, however, so be it. Less dramatic in February, the emerging offseason, is value-added.
Between the December signing period and the nominal day last week, Polian offered information on three offensive non-quarterback players:
On the tackle Joe Alt: “In our own data, which we were going to release to the media today (in December), at one point we had rated (Joe Alt) at 240 and were playing on the tight side as a junior. Now you see he’s increased 40 pounds, he’s 280, he’s moving great.
On the tackle Blake Fisher: “It’s worth mentioning Blake Fisher, the mayor, who runs the chat between all commits. For example, the work they did with (consensus four-star linebacker) Prince Kollie – was shaken up a bit by the departure of Coach (Clark) Lea to Vanderbilt. The way they were, the way they circled around him for a few days and helped him calm down, be there for him and support him as he worked for a change there. …
“We can’t ask them to talk to anyone. It doesn’t follow the rules. … I had several guys who told us, once they got there later in the process, maybe a guy who signed up in the fall, maybe a guy who signed up Six to eight weeks ago, they talked about welcoming this committed group. “
On kicker Joshua Bryan, signed despite Jonathan Doerer’s return for a fifth season giveaway: “I don’t want to rely on a freshman. It’s not great. It’s hard to do. … In an ideal situation, you would like to have a guy on your campus for a year to hope to prepare him and prepare him and help him grow physically and get stronger. It allowed us to do that.
“Now this is one of those places where the NCAA relief in regards to players on your program who have exhausted their eligibility to go back to the original program, this guy doesn’t count against your 85, so we were lucky in this case. . When we got into the summer I was guessing we were going to have to identify a kicker that could come in here and do it like a real freshman. This is perhaps one of the few cases where the circumstances of everything going on around us in the world could have helped us a bit.
Micah Jones TRANSFERS
In the slightest shock of the offseason, receiver Micah Jones entered the transfer portal on Monday morning. Jones’ only appearance in 2020 was on Senior Day, a day the junior’s name was called out among seniors leaving the Irish program.
In three seasons, he appeared in five games and never made a catch. While his announced class of receiving rookies has yet to come to fruition (Kevin Austin, Braden Lenzy and Lawrence Keys), Jones has struggled even harder than his counterparts. Recruited to be the next Miles Boykin and only signing up a few weeks after the memorable Citrus Bowl-winning Boykin touchdown, Jones never went up the Notre Dame depth chart. He spent his second season entirely with the Irish Scout team, for example.
Jones will graduate this spring with three years of eligibility remaining. While the transfer portal is already overflowing, a former four-star prospect yet with the physical size should grab the attention of some midmajors across the country.
Thank you, Notre Dame. I entered my name in the portal. pic.twitter.com/UFGojEptCB
– Micah Jones (@ mej2018) February 8, 2021
Using Polian’s description of the NCAA’s 2021 scholarship count relief, and with only Doerer and defensive tackle Kurt Hinish qualifying as players who returned despite their seemingly exhausted eligibility, Our Dame will have to drop to 87 fellows by September and Jones’s departure lowers that number to 89.
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