The Notre Dame quarterback room enters fall camp as one of the biggest potential strengths on the roster

Not only is quarterback the most important position in football, but it is the most important in all of sports. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish will be breaking in a new signal caller this season. They will also be working with a ton of talent throughout the depth chart, with a fierce competition yet to ensue.

Fall camp is set to open for Notre Dame on Wednesday. There’s no place to get you ready for the excitement than the quarterback position, the strongest and deepest it has been in a very long time.

Star signal caller

There isn’t any question about who the starting quarterback will be for Notre Dame when they travel to Kyle Field to take on the Texas A&M Aggies next month. That has never been a question within the Irish program.

Thinking back to last season and the Duke Blue Devils 4-0 start to 2023, it seemed highly unlikely that quarterback Riley Leonard would be back this season. It appeared that the 2024 NFL was very much in his future, being projected by several draft pundits to be one of the quarterbacks selected last April.

Unfortunately, an ankle injury he suffered against Notre Dame, and eventually a foot injury, ruined the strong campaign for Leonard. He was left to make a difficult decision to not only come back for his fourth season, but also take advantage of the transfer portal. While it wasn’t an ideal situation, the Irish program did potentially profit big time on the unfortunate circumstance.

As a quarterback, dynamic is the best word to describe Leonard. When he was fully healthy in 2022, he showcased that he is one of the more gifted dual threat signal callers in the country. During that season, Leonard threw for 2,967 yards and 20 touchdowns, throwing only six interceptions and completing 64 percent of his passes. That is a phenomenal first season as a starting quarterback.

Then you add in the 699 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns, and that’s where special kicks in. Leonard is an outstanding athlete who brings tremendous upside to the table. Notre Dame hasn’t had anything like him in quite some time.

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Battle behind Leonard

This is probably the most fascinating storyline of the quarterback room outside of Leonard’s health. This is the deepest quarterback room the Irish have had in some time, and that means the competition level is only going to increase.

The expectation, as of now, is that the main backup behind Leonard will be Steve Angeli. The New Jersey native has shown himself to be dependable when his number has been called so far for the Irish. During the 2023 season, Angeli threw for 504 yards and seven touchdowns. He did so while completing over 77 percent of his passes and only one interception. The majority of that production for Angeli came during the team’s 40-8 victory over Oregon State in the Sun Bowl.

That baseline for Angeli is awesome, but the competition is fierce. Redshirt freshman Kenny Minchey and true freshman CJ Carr are both extremely talented football players. They are both more than capable of unseating Angeli. That battle this fall will be intense.