Notre Dame football kicked off fall camp on Wednesday, giving the media members and fans their first taste of what the team might look like in 2024. While the first practice can be overhyped and overanalyzed, it is always great to get the players back on the field. It just means that football is coming.
The side of the football that has the Irish fans most curious is on offense. There is plenty of talent, but seeing the identity under offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock is something everyone is looking forward to, and doesn’t have a great feel for yet. We do know that the quarterback room is loaded, which was on display on Wednesday.
According to Bryan Driskell, the publisher over at Irish Breakdown, there was some rust to work through but some tremendous moments. It all started with former Duke signal caller Riley Leonard , who took all the reps with the ones during the first day.
Here is what Driskell said about Leonard:
Overall, Leonard had some good moments but you could tell he was still getting used to being in charge of this offense. There were a couple of instances where Denbrock corrected him on not properly setting the protection, and late in practice he threw off his back foot a couple of times with pressure in his face. It was a solid day for Leonard, who threw some really good deep throws, went through his progressions well and didn't rush into throwing check downs.
Behind Leonard, Steve Angeli is the early favorite to be the main backup for the Irish. There seems to be mixed reviews on the New Jersey native. Here is what Driskell had to say about Angeli.
Overall, Angeli wasn't sharp from an accuracy standpoint. His throws were high quite a bit, which was an issue earlier in his career. Angeli was rushing his arm motion a bit, which caused his release point to be a bit too high, which was causing him to have all the high misses. It's an easy correction and can be an issue early in camp for quarterbacks, who can battle a little bit of rushing their mechanics on day one and two of practice.
One of Angeli’s main competition for the backup role is sophomore signal caller Kenny Minchey. From the sounds of it, he had a really positive day.
Sophomore Kenny Minchey had some of the best throws of the day. I couldn't chart Minchey since he was on the far field, but what we could see today he was pretty sharp. The older quarterbacks were a bit erratic early in drills, but Minchey was steady and had some very impressive throws. He threw a great deep ball for a big gain during a team period and had an impressive seam throw to Cam Williams for a big gain as well. Minchey looked a lot more confident early than he did in the spring, so it was a very good first day for Minchey. One of his misses was a deep ball to Cam Williams that would have been caught if Williams didn't slow down late in the rep.
Perhaps the most exciting quarterback on the roster is true freshman CJ Carr . He has been viewed as the future of the Irish program. It appears that Carr continues to impress.
Freshman CJ Carr was very sharp during individual drills as well. He carries himself with a lot of confidence and throws the best ball of the group. He dealt with a lot of pass rush pressure during the team, but he showed very good accuracy during the team sessions when he did have time. His ability to quickly set his feet against pressure and accurately get the ball out was impressive. Carr has also filled out a bit during the spring.
This is the most talented quarterback room that Notre Dame has had in a very long time. The most exciting part is that they could still get a lot better. We saw that on day one.
Most Popular
Comments / 0