With Notre Dame football now officially off and running for 2025, one key question lingers
Those school-record 14 wins after playing a program-record 16 games? History. A postseason run that included a win in the first College Football Playoff on-campus game in history and a major bowl victory (and then another) for the first time since 1993? Already in the rearview.
Pieces in Place: What's left on the Notre Dame football national championship checklist heading into 2025?
That season was special in so many ways, but that season is so over. Put a period on those plays and those players and catalog 2024. Time to begin a new book and start the first chapter of memories in 2025.
'Two-thousand 24 has nothing to do with this 2025 team,' head coach Marcus Freeman said.
Preach. It doesn't. It won't.
Family Matters: Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman is disappointed for Charles Jagusah, not upset with him
Still, as the pre-practice stretch lines ran a half dozen or so deep inside the Irish Athletic Center, 2024 in some ways felt like it had ended just last month. In others, it felt like forever. Another team at another time did all of that. This is a new team in a new year with a new direction. The same goal that's been around these parts since 1988 remains – win the school's 12th national championship.
It didn't take long on Thursday to realize that everything about Notre Dame football feels different than this time last year. Just look at the most critical position on the field.
All eyes were on those guys in red (don't-touch) jerseys. Except those that were watching the wideouts that at least – finally – look the part. Or on a defense that (whisper voice) might be even better than last season. Or along the offensive line that has some seriously massive men.
'It's a deep room,' Freeman said of the O-line, though he could say that about four or five rooms in the Gug in 2025. These Irish are loaded.
With Thursday the only day for media to observe a practice from start to finish, your head had to be on a swivel. Watch this guy and those guys and that group. It was eclipse-like viewing. Look, but don't look too long.
It would've been easy for Freeman to step to the front of the Notre Dame Stadium interview room early Thursday afternoon following the 90-minute workout and deliver a whopper of an opening statement.
But what would classify as a one?
For this team, for this season, it would be naming a starting quarterback before Notre Dame again opens on the road, again over Labor Day, this time at Miami (Fla.), site of its final win in, wait for it, 2024.
Going that easy route (this is our guy) would go against everything Freeman has preached since he burst through that locker room door on the other side of the stadium tunnel in December 2021, not long after being named the 30th coach in program history.
Choose Easy? Not Freeman. Not ever. Choose Hard. His first season and his second, and even his third were hard. His fourth will be. Nothing is ever easy about Notre Dame football.
Instead of naming a starting quarterback, Freeman said ... nothing. No starter named. No starter hinted at. Even off the record, those around the program won't say. Let the process progress. It wasn't going there on Thursday.
When might it? Deep breaths. Give it time. The next time Freeman is scheduled to meet the media is Sunday, August 17. Two weeks before that opener under the moon in Miami, Notre Dame should have its starter at quarterback.
No commitment to a quarterback Thursday likely came as a slight surprise to some (we see you). When Steve Angeli announced before the end of spring practice that he was going into the transfer portal and eventually going to Syracuse, the assumption was that freshman C.J. Carr was set to be QB1. He still could be.
When it was time to go seven-on-seven on Thursday, sophomore Kenny Minchey ran with the No. 1s. When it was time to go 11-on-11, there again was Minchey running with the ones. It might just be the way the reps were split on Thursday. On Friday, Carr could get the first call.
Still, Thursday wasn't nothing. Maybe it's something.
An open and shut competition looks open, even after safety Tae Johnson did his best Kyle Hamilton/first day of practice impersonation (Culver, 2019) and picked off Carr twice on throws into the middle of the field. The day ended with a Karson Hobbs interception of a Carr pass that receiver K.K. Smith bobbled.
Freeman reserved judgment on Carr until he could return to his office and break down exactly what happened. One day, good or bad, won't decide this starter. Give it a few more days, a few more reps, and see where it goes. If it was Minchey on Thursday, it might be Carr on Friday. Both of them on Saturday. Neither of them on Sunday.
Let the process progress.
'It's going to be consistency,' Freeman said of what will push one guy ahead of the other at the depth chart finish line. 'They will determine the starting quarterback.'
And determine the course of a 2025 season that's officially off and running. One day down, many more to go. Where does this all lead? Who leads it? Whatever happens, we already know this:
It won't be easy.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at tnoie@sbtinfo.com
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Will it be C.J. Carr or Kenny Minchey at quarterback for Notre Dame football?
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