The ND QB Conundrum

[NDFAN2008]

We coulda had Jaxon Dart from Ole Miss 3 years ago but decided to roll with Buchner

 

[InKellyWeTrust]

Buchner had a 20 point higher rating through 3 games in 2022, than RL through 2 games in 2024.

 

[INLaw]

It's painfully obvious that this team needs continuity, a guy who is able to grow into the role and not a one-and-done, plug-and-play, ready-to-eat meal type of transfer qb. All of our transfer qbs (at least until proven wrong about riley) have been unsatisfactory to some degree. We need a developed Notre Dame Man, not a transfer qb who only has one year to grow into the role.

Yep start CJ ket him grow up with the young backs and offensive line so a year or two we have something real

 

[tko]

I'm sure Leonard will start at Purdue because of "experience,' but if he struggles and Freeman fails to handle it, we are in for a spiral. He's going to lose that locker room. One issue I hate seeing is I feel like, in this age of transfers and NIL, coaches fear benching the guys they brought in because of the optics for more additions going forward. What a kick in the groin yesterday was.

 

[FDNYIrish1]

You can’t sacrifice the good of the program for deals you made for a transfer QB. I’d feel infinitely more confident with Angeli back there. I do not like the body language of our WRs when RL misses badly on easy throws. He’s a great kid but has massive accuracy issues.

 

[MacIrish75]

Freeman has to feel like he’s coaching for his job. If he rolls with Leonard and the results remain the same, we have affirmation that he really can’t hack it.

We’re gonna have confirmation one way or another in extremely short order.

 

[stpeteirish]

How do you lose to Northern Illinois? No explosiveness

Jerimiah Love my man. Use him better

 

[stpeteirish]

I'm sure Leonard will start at Purdue because of "experience,' but if he struggles and Freeman fails to handle it, we are in for a spiral. He's going to lose that locker room. One issue I hate seeing is I feel like, in this age of transfers and NIL, coaches fear benching the guys they brought in because of the optics for more additions going forward. What a kick in the groin yesterday was.

Perhaps Freeman will realize he needs to win now and stop worrying about future talent acquisition

 

[N_D_Fighting_Irish]

There is no conundrum. Leonard makes the offense one dimensional, and we have a coordinator that wants to pass to setup the run. Even if the coordinator focuses on using Leonard’s strength, Leonard’s body is not built to withstand the constant hits. Freeman must make a change. Our QB situation is similar to when Buchner clearly showed he was not capable. Buchner's injury bailed out Freeman from making the difficult decision. It was difficult considering we had no viable options back then, but now we do so Freeman must act. Give the other QBs a series here and there, and let Leonard run the red zone offense.

 

[mrmcgrail]

Time to see what this ad is made of. He didn't hire Freeman he needs to sit him down and say one more of these and you're done this is Notre Dame

 

[CANONIZEFATHERSORIN]

Sam Hartman wins this game 10/10 times

And he isn’t even on an NFL roster now

 

[IrishSteelhead]

Time to see what this ad is made of. He didn't hire Freeman he needs to sit him down and say one more of these and you're done this is Notre Dame

Wonder how MF would handle that. I think he would be receptive. Maybe he needs it.
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[Terry Jillery]

I think he needs to announce today that there’s going to be an open competition at QB. Carr looked the best in the B&G game. If he doubles down on supporting Leonard I can’t watch.

Would Saban, Meyer, Smart, etc keep playing him?

 

[Irish Knuckles]

Yep start CJ ket him grow up with the young backs and offensive line so a year or two we have something real

this is the type of thing we need to do as a program. outside of a hand full of teams, reloading every year for "championship run" isn't realistic. making the playoff every year or 2/3 is realistic for ND, but we should be geared towards a serious run every 3 or so years +/- a year. teams like ours that keep replacing portal free agents with other portal free agents is silly and unrealistic. our situation buys us one or two wins a year the cost of two or so wins the next year.

 

[ResLife Hero]

Our OL is trash but very young, and we've got no reason to believe a championship is on the table this year. Put in Carr, stock up on blood pressure medication, and focus on developing the tools we worked so hard to get on campus. The defense will keep us in just about any game.

 

[BeatSC]

Give Angeli the first three possessions and if he gets a TD he gets an additional possession. Then give it to Minchey with the same opportunity and then Carr. Or any of them ball out they play remainder of the game and start the following week. Leonard is out of the equation. He is most responsible for that woeful offensive outing in our ugliest upset in history. He can transfer again.

 

[Giddyup]

Should we know tomorrow who is getting 1st team reps at qb?

 

[CANONIZEFATHERSORIN]

Give Angeli the first three possessions and if he gets a TD he gets an additional possession. Then give it to Minchey with the same opportunity and then Carr. Or any of them ball out they play remainder of the game and start the following week. Leonard is out of the equation. He is most responsible for that woeful offensive outing in our ugliest upset in history. He can transfer again.

This scheme literally cannot be worse than what we had Saturday

 

[Sea Turtle]

Should we know tomorrow who is getting 1st team reps at qb?

It's going to be RL. The entire offense is built around him. They can't change it.

Comforting.

I posted what MF said before the game. MD said 'he is what he is' about him.

The offense, once again, is a trainwreck.

 

[CANONIZEFATHERSORIN]

Our OL is trash but very young, and we've got no reason to believe a championship is on the table this year. Put in Carr, stock up on blood pressure medication, and focus on developing the tools we worked so hard to get on campus. The defense will keep us in just about any game.

O line didn’t play like trash

It's going to be RL. The entire offense is built around him. They can't change it.

Comforting.

I posted what MF said before the game. MD said 'he is what he is' about him.

The offense, once again, is a trainwreck.

Don’t even say it

 

[Giddyup]

It's going to be RL. The entire offense is built around him. They can't change it.

Comforting.

I posted what MF said before the game. MD said 'he is what he is' about him.

The offense, once again, is a trainwreck.

What offense? Wouldn’t be hard to insert a guy who can throw deep in there. Offense might even improve shockingly.

 

[PigtownIrish]

Building the offense around RL is a lame excuse. What were they doing to do if he got hurt?

 

[irishff1014]

Building the offense around RL is a lame excuse. What were they doing to do if he got hurt?

You don’t build your offense around a 1 year player?

 

[IrishLax]

IMO, there is nothing wrong with going into the portal for a QB, we just had coaches pick the wrong guy. I would bet dollars to donuts that Ohio State is about to go undefeated with the guy we passed on and they recruit a 4-star or 5-star style guy every year.

So speaking on the coaches, the "how we got here" is Tommy Rees because of the Buchner decision over McCarthy which will go down as an all-time recruiting miss. I have never been more wrong than I was about McCarthy vs Buchner and that was mainly because of "trust the coaches" and the fact that both camped for Rees and Rees picked Buchner.

Prior to Rees, we went from Kizer (NFL draft pick) to Wimbush (high upside but ultimately busted) to Book (NFL draft pick). Regardless of what you think about Kizer and Book they both played well enough to get drafted. He inherited crap (Pyne + Clark both never should've gotten scholarship offers) but had three years to get someone and whiffed every time... the most egregious being McCarthy and putting all of the eggs in the Dante Moore basket.

There is an alternate universe where we just finished having McCarthy start for three years and are moving on to CJ Carr true freshman (or having someone else win a battle). But this is 85% on Rees and 15% on whichever coach (Freeman, Gino, Parker, whoever...) made the decision to go with Leonard over Will Howard.

I'm of the opinion we should just cut bait at this point and either give Angeli his chance... because we saw in the Sun Bowl he is smart, a decent athlete, and while he doesn't have a big arm he can push the ball moderately down the field with accuracy... or play for the future with Carr and take your lumps now. Because we aren't winning anything meaningful with Leonard at QB.

 

[NDPhilly]

I don’t know if I can fault the staff for taking Leonard, seemed like most people had him over Howard purely based off upside. Seems like revisionist history.

 

[IrishTusker]

So it sounds like ND coaches can't really be trusted to evaluate QBs, even QBs that want to come to ND.

 

[IrishLax]

I don’t know if I can fault the staff for taking Leonard, seemed like most people had him over Howard purely based off upside. Seems like revisionist history.

Yeah ultimately the coaches get judged by results. They took the high upside guy over the one with a bunch of production. It isn’t working out for them.

I don’t fault their logic in making that calculated choice, but they get paid millions of dollars to be correct.

 

[Sea Turtle]

I don’t know if I can fault the staff for taking Leonard, seemed like most people had him over Howard purely based off upside. Seems like revisionist history.

If Howard had come here and Leonard went to Ohio State, the results would be the same.

It's the head coaches and their staffs. It's obvious at this point.

 

[Irish2155]

Just play him. Next week. Let the dude rip

 

[ulukinatme]

IMO, there is nothing wrong with going into the portal for a QB, we just had coaches pick the wrong guy. I would bet dollars to donuts that Ohio State is about to go undefeated with the guy we passed on and they recruit a 4-star or 5-star style guy every year.

So speaking on the coaches, the "how we got here" is Tommy Rees because of the Buchner decision over McCarthy which will go down as an all-time recruiting miss. I have never been more wrong than I was about McCarthy vs Buchner and that was mainly because of "trust the coaches" and the fact that both camped for Rees and Rees picked Buchner.

Prior to Rees, we went from Kizer (NFL draft pick) to Wimbush (high upside but ultimately busted) to Book (NFL draft pick). Regardless of what you think about Kizer and Book they both played well enough to get drafted. He inherited crap (Pyne + Clark both never should've gotten scholarship offers) but had three years to get someone and whiffed every time... the most egregious being McCarthy and putting all of the eggs in the Dante Moore basket.

There is an alternate universe where we just finished having McCarthy start for three years and are moving on to CJ Carr true freshman (or having someone else win a battle). But this is 85% on Rees and 15% on whichever coach (Freeman, Gino, Parker, whoever...) made the decision to go with Leonard over Will Howard.

I'm of the opinion we should just cut bait at this point and either give Angeli his chance... because we saw in the Sun Bowl he is smart, a decent athlete, and while he doesn't have a big arm he can push the ball moderately down the field with accuracy... or play for the future with Carr and take your lumps now. Because we aren't winning anything meaningful with Leonard at QB.

Still makes more sense that BK called the shots on QBs while he was here. He liked the low hanging fruit. Soon as BK was gone in a matter of months Rees landed Hartman, Carr, Minchey, and nearly Moore before he flaked. That trio goes against the previous ideology.