Notre Dame’s coaching staff made plenty of bold statements this spring, but one message came through louder than the rest.
The value of returning a starting quarterback.
For the first time in the Marcus Freeman era, Notre Dame isn’t breaking in a new signal-caller. That stability has allowed Mike Denbrock’s offense to take meaningful strides forward.
With no quarterback competition and no need to learn a new system, CJ Carr has been able to focus entirely on growth, both in command and confidence.
That progress has earned him a level of trust from his offensive coordinator that few quarterbacks reach in year three.
“I just think overall it's his command of our offense,” Denbrock said of Carr’s growth. “He is in a position now where he can steer the ship. Sometimes he steers it in the ditch and sometimes he steers it on the straight and narrow. We're still working through all that. We've got a comfort level there.”
That command was on display during Saturday’s Blue-Gold Game. After a slow start, Carr settled in, made adjustments and played to the level Denbrock expected.
A week earlier, Carr looked even sharper, showcasing his ability to check into better plays and take advantage of just about every opportunity the defense gave him.
“He's done an incredible job of taking command, not only from a leadership standpoint, but making sure if we get a look that it's a little frustrating for the play that we got called, getting us into something a little bit better that gives our guys a better opportunity to be successful,” explained Denbrock. “When you have that, you have a chance to stay ahead of the chains and have a really positive offensive series or game or whatever it happens to be.”
Carr, who threw for 2,741 yards and 24 touchdowns last fall, has also earned the trust of his head coach.
Freeman has noticed many of the same areas of growth as Denbrock and Carr’s ability to get in and out of plays gives Notre Dame a chance to take its offense to the next level.
“I can speak for hours about his arm talent, his film study and all this, but he puts your offense in positions to have success,” Freeman stated. “You don't have to have a coach tell you everything. He's able to understand the play. He's able to see what the defense is doing and put us in a position that usually ends up in a positive way.”
While Carr deserves credit for his development, Freeman emphasized the importance of continuity across the offensive staff.
“That's invaluable to have a true problem solver,” said Freeman. “Again, the accumulation of his preparation with Coach Denbrock being back, Coach (Gino) Guidugli being back, and CJ Carr being back, the experience is what helps more than anything else.”
Carr’s impact has been felt on the other side of the ball as well.
Defensive coordinator Chris Ash noted that Carr has consistently looked for even the smallest indicators from his defense.
“He's looking for indicators, whether a guy's aligned outside, inside, a slight tilt with the inside foot, outside foot back, where are his eyes,” Ash said. “He's done a great job of studying what we do on defense to get an idea of what plays work best.”
Fifth-year senior Jaylen Sneed has seen it firsthand and admitted Carr has caught him off guard more than once.
“CJ's so good at pre-snap, just knowing what he's seeing,” Sneed explained. “If we have one foot up, he'll just know we're blitzing. He'll be like 3 right there. 3, 3,3, and I'm like, ‘Damn, how did he know that?’ So just getting to where we can look the same before every snap and just try to confuse the quarterback.”
Those are the details that separate good quarterbacks from great ones and they’ve made spring practice a daily chess match between Carr and the defense, which only benefits the whole program.
“That's really when you talk about command of the offense and the challenge that we have is to try to eliminate those things and try to take those out of what he can do so well,” said Ash. “It's a competition every single day. He's done a great job. He did a little bit of that last year, but a lot more of it this spring.”
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