At Notre Dame, Sam Hartman Enters Summer as the Unquestioned “King of the North”
On Thursday, Sam Hartman posted a photo of himself on Instagram with snow falling around him inside Notre Dame Stadium.
He included the caption: “First Shift at the Northern Wall #kingofthenorth.”
Was this a cryptic declaration to announce that he’d dethroned the incumbent with Tyler Buchner in the NCAA transfer portal?
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It’s unclear if that was Hartman’s intention or if he’s simply a Game of Thrones reference from a player enjoying his first time based in a cold-weather climate.
Given the bond Buchner and Hartman developed this spring amidst a quarterback competition, I'd lean more toward the latter.
“Tyler helped me a lot. He could have easily brushed me off or kept me out of the loop,” Hartman told NBC Sport sideline report Caroline Pineda during Blue-Gold Game. “He’s been one of the main reasons I had success today and had success this spring.”
In the scrimmage, Hartman completed 13 of 16 passes for 189 yards and two touchdowns to go along with a 1-yard rushing score and led the Gold team to a 24-0 victory.
Whatever his intentions were on Instagram, Hartman is Notre Dame’s unquestioned king under center going forward.
I’ve written several pieces highlighting that Hartman and Buchner were engaged in a true quarterback competition, even if Hartman entered the spring as the slam dunk favorite.
First of all, Hartman’s numbers over the last five seasons are staggering.
He’s completed 59.7% of his passes for 12,967 yards, 110 touchdowns and 41 interceptions.
Hartman is currently 19th all-time in passing yards. If he throws for 3,700 yards, a feat he accomplished in 12 games last fall, he’ll wrap up his career as the third most prolific passer in the history of college football.
Buchner is one of the most talented quarterbacks in the country — I have little doubt of this, especially considering his 4.5 speed and dynamic arm talent. No matter how well he played this spring, it was going to be tough for someone who’s played in 13 games over the last three years (which includes a high school senior season lost to COVID-19) to overcome so much proven experience.
Of course, Hartman still had to show marked improvement this spring as he transitioned from Wake Forest’s slow-mesh offense to Notre Dame’s pro-style system.
He struggled to handle defensive pressure on blitz days. That included two practices open to the media, where Buchner appeared to outplay Hartman.
But over the last week or so of spring, Hartman’s grasped off the offense compounded.
“From practice No. 1 to practice No. 15 has been tremendously different,” Fighting Irish coach Marcus Freeman said, “but that’s what it’s all about. It’s the progression, getting better and improving. That’s what you see.”
That included learning often taken-for-granted aspects of playing quarterback like huddling, taking snaps under center and knowing how to get to practice.
“It’s just understanding what the coaches want from me and what the guys are doing,” Hartman said. “I think you come in during the spring and you’re just trying to learn people’s names, what building you need to go to, what time you need to get to things, where’s your locker, what color your group is wearing.
“All of that stuff, it’s tough and you take it for granted when you’re old in the program and not being a young guy.”
It appears the national college football world is taking notice of Hartman’s on-the-field progress at Notre Dame.
The odds of Hartman winning the Heisman were +3000 a few days after he transferred to Notre Dame — the 15th-best odds in the country at the time.
Today, he’s +1500, which ties him for fifth with UNC’s Drake Maye and LSU’s Jayden Daniels.
For now, the odds of Notre Dame winning the national championship are still much lower at +3000, on par with Washington and Oregon and behind Florida State and Penn State.
If Hartman continues his rapid ascent within Notre Dame’s pro-style offense and plays at a Heisman level, perhaps Notre Dame will become a true championship contender, even while playing against three projected top-10 opponents on the 2023 schedule in Ohio State, USC and Clemson.
Over the next few months, Hartman will continue learning the playbooks while developing better chemistry with Notre Dame’s talented-yet-unproven group of pass-catchers, which should help him take the offense to an even higher level.
“You’re a new guy on the block and these guys took me in,” Hartman said. “We try to work as much as we can outside of practice. A lot of it will come in the summer.”