Hartman Lights Up Gloomy Blue-Gold Game, Leading Team to 24-0 Victory
Freezing rain and snow couldn’t diminish the precision of quarterback Sam Hartman in the annual Blue-Gold Game. He led the Gold team to a 24-0 victory inside Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday afternoon with a near-perfect performance.
On four drives in the first half, he carved up the Blue team’s secondary, connecting on 13 of 16 passes for 189 yards and two touchdowns to go along with a 1-yard rushing score.
Hartman transferred from Wake Forest in January. Over the prior two seasons, he completed 60.8% of passes and accounted for 8,425 total yards and 89 touchdowns. In 2021, he jolted the Demon Deacons to 41 points per game, which ranked fourth out of 131 FBS teams.
“That’s what I expected,” coach Marcus Freeman said. “When we went out to look for a transfer portal quarterback, you don’t look for the second, third or fourth best. You look for the best player in the country that will fit in your locker room. Sam Hartman showed today why he was extremely successful at Wake Forest, and I think he’ll be extremely successful here.”
His performance proved to be a far cry from how he played in the two full spring practices open to the media, where Hartman struggled to move the ball, let alone find the end zone, amidst a plethora of blitzes.
“From practice No. 1 to practice No. 15 has been tremendously different,” Freeman said, “but that’s what it’s all about. It’s the progression, getting better and improving. That’s what you see.”
On Saturday, his primary target was sophomore receiver Jayden Thomas, who snagged four of the six passes thrown his way for 71 yards and a touchdown. Thomas repeatedly worked himself open against experienced Blue team cornerbacks like freshman All-American Ben Morrison and Clarence Lewis.
Hartman also connected with freshman wide receiver Jaden Greathouse four times for 73 yards.
His best throw of the afternoon came on his final pass. On first and ten inside the red zone, Hartman lofted the ball between multiple defenders to the corner of the end zone for a touchdown to wideout Matt Salerno with 8:03 remaining in the second quarter.
From that point on, freshman quarterback Steve Anglie assumed Gold team responsibilities under center.
Tyler Buchner showed noticeable improvements throughout Notre Dame’s 14 spring practices, but he floundered on Saturday.
He completed 8 of 18 passes for 44 yards and an interception by Jaden Mickey on an underthrown pass targeted at Deion Colzie.
Yet it’s too early to count Buchner out, especially after he rebounded from in-season shoulder surgery in 2022 and led Notre Dame to a win over South Carolina in the Gator Bowl.
“We still have a quarterback battle,” Freeman said. “You can’t determine a winner based on one practice in practice No. 15. You can’t base a decision off what we view as a certain outcome. There’s a lot that goes into it. There’s a lot that goes into, not only a quarterback battle, but quarterback play.”
Perhaps some of Buchner’s struggles resulted from poor team building. During the Blue-Gold Game player draft on Thursday, the Blue team prioritized top skill players rather than starting-caliber offensive and defensive linemen.
Hartman experienced far less pressure and was never sacked while playing behind four of the team’s six potential starting offensive linemen in left tackle Joe Alt, left guard Billy Schrauth, center Zeke Correll and right guard Rocco Spindler.
Right tackle Aamil Wagner was the only guaranteed second-string member of the starting unit.
The Blue team’s left tackle Tosh Baker and left guard Pat Coogan were repeatedly beaten by Vypers Jordan Botelho and Joshua Burnham and defensive tackle Howard Cross III, who combined for two sacks and multiple tackles for loss.
“We’ve got to go back and watch the film, but we’re not blocking the end, there’s some protection issues, we’re dropping balls,” Freeman said. “We’ve got to go and look if the routes were exactly precise. I’m always going to defend the quarterbacks because, as I’ve always said, that position is most like the head coach.
“They get praise and criticism. They’re going to praise Sam for how he played today, and they’re going to criticize Tyler.”
Freeman also says he deserves blame for Buchner’s interception.
While also coaching the defense, Freeman flipped on the headset and provided the Blue team quarterback with inaccurate feedback.
“On third down, I went in there and I was like, ‘it’s cover two, it’s cover two.’” Freeman said, “And it ended up not being cover two, so I said I’ll take responsibility for the pick.”
Freeman said he likely won’t name a first-string quarterback until fall camp.
Despite fan excitement over Hartman’s performance on Saturday, Notre Dame will use the entirety of spring when evaluating both quarterbacks and go from there.
“We’ll have to look at the film,” Freeman said. “I know the stats might not say it, but listen, both of them are tremendously talented and we’ll go back and evaluate over 15 practices and continue to look at it as we move forward.”