Rakes Report #259: Assorted thoughts on the Notre Dame quarterback situation
Looking at Marcus Freeman’s decision to make it a Carr/Minchey race, plus checking in on the transfer portal and the basketball rosters.
~optional musical accompaniment~
1) This was a very sensible decision by Marcus Freeman. If Steve Angeli hadn’t seized the job over the course of the spring and it was close, then going with the younger options and letting a good soldier like Angeli seek a quality landing spot for his final two years of eligibility could work out best for everyone. Maybe there was a world where you try to take all three into August camp but there are only so many reps to go around and at some point you need to start making choices.
2) Let’s reverse engineer the operation: While we don’t actually know the upsides of the three quarterbacks, going from recruiting ranking and in-person reports on arm talent* we can say that C.J. Carr at least appears to have the highest. He’s also important to the Freeman project, committing in June 2022, before the head coach’s first season. His retention was a must for however this shook out.
* On the pod last month, Inside ND Sports’ Eric Hansen — who has seen many a Notre Dame practice — talked about Carr slinging it in last spring’s jersey scrimmage as an almost religious experience.
3) That meant either Angeli or Kenny Minchey would be the odd man out. If you’re keeping Carr, is Minchey a better complement as more of a runner? If you think both Minchey and Carr have proven their floors in practice, do you also want to maximize potential upside? The other factor is that once Angeli graduates, he can enter the portal at any point. Minchey will not have that option until December. This arrangement would avoid the situation of “Carr gains momentum as the clear Irish starter over summer, a starting position elsewhere opens up, Angeli takes it, true freshman Blake Hebert* is your backup quarterback on a team with postseason aspirations.”
* Or Tyler Buchner. While the QB room was crowded in 2024, Freeman said last week the potential was there for Buchner to slide over. This seems like the best use of the Gator Bowl MVP’s talents for the fall unless he makes an incredible leap as a wide receiver.
4) Best guess at how this plays out: By the end of the season/hopefully another deep postseason run, there’s a clear winner between Carr and Minchey and the other transfers to use their remaining eligibility elsewhere. Your 2026 depth chart is one of Carr/Minchey, then Hebert, then current verbal commit Noah Grubbs (a consensus four-star out of Florida). Any sort of injury and this obviously gets scrambled but doesn’t seem like we’ll be in the transfer market come December.
5) There’s no rule against dreaming about the situation of Minchey winning the job, winning the Heisman, winning the national title and going pro, leaving the starting position to Carr for one-to-three years. I’m going to get into some potential downsides below so let’s throw out some upside cases, right?
6) Both Carr and Minchey have already redshirted, meaning there is no eligibility benefit to either of them potentially sitting out this fall if they were to lose the job. Regardless of how many games either plays, Carr will have three years of eligibility remaining and Minchey will have two when the 2025 season concludes.
7) I’d be a little surprised if the Minchey/Carr winner exhausts their eligibility in South Bend. If either is as good as we hope, it seems more likely they set their sights on the NFL.
8) Freeman quote from the close-of-spring press conference when asked if he would consider using two quarterbacks this season:
“Yeah, I could see us utilizing two quarterbacks in different situations, but we're going to have a starter and then you'll have a guy that can help our football team win games. If that means we have a special package for a guy, we will. But I am not a huge proponent of having truly two starters, but that decision is going to be made when they help us make that decision. And I don't ever want to put a timetable on that. Let's hope this is before the first game, but at the end of the day, I believe there has to be one guy that is the starting quarterback.”
9) This feels like a legit race to start against Miami, which is totally fine at this stage with all the tools these two possess and months before a decision will have to come to allow enough time for the winner to prep for the Hurricanes. While Carr might be the favorite to start, the idea that Minchey winning means something went wrong is something you should strike from your mind. Both these guys are good.
10) Angeli’s relief effort in the Orange Bowl is what he’ll be most remembered for, but let’s not write off the Sun Bowl performance1 as a big boost for the Irish going into the 14-2 season. The Irish had suffered the early November loss to Clemson that resulted in a malaise for the rest of the month and went into El Paso down the three best players on the offense in Joe Alt, Blake Fisher and Audric Estime. Angeli stepped in, played an incredible game (15 for 19, 232 yards, three touchdowns, no picks, QBR of 96.1) and left no doubt as the Irish got their tenth win.
11) I’m sure Angeli would have loved to be the one who took Notre Dame on another deep postseason run, but this is about as good of an exit as you can have considering he leaves with his degree and something close to 100% approval rating among Irish fans, which will be good for a lifetime of free beers if nothing else. It would not be a good sign for the aforementioned Irish fans but it’s possible his esteem grows if he shines elsewhere while the remaining options struggle in comparison. The less we’re saying “I wonder how Angeli would have looked in that game…” and simply cheering him on the better.
12) That transitions us to the potential downsides. We think we have an idea of floors and ceilings for these players, but they’re only guesses. We could be in the position of seeing Angeli tearing it up for Syracuse while the Irish offense struggles in an opening loss at Miami. There would be a bye week to stew, then a very anxious tailgate awaiting the home opener against Mike Elko’s Texas A&M defense.
13) There’s also the possibility that the coaching staff messes up the rotation in some way, as this is a challenge Freeman has yet to face. In 2022, it was all Tyler Buchner (and then all Drew Pyne after the Buchner injury), in 2023 it was Sam Hartman all the way and in 2024 it was Riley Leonard all the way, even when he was dinged up in Week Two and should have been pulled.
Brian Kelly was good at balancing complicated quarterback situations on the way to successful seasons (Everett Golson and Tommy Rees in 2012; Ian Book and Brandon Wimbush in 2018; Jack Coan, Buchner and Pyne in 2021) and nabbing a couple of bowl wins over LSU but when he messed it up in 2011 (Rees and Dayne Crist) and 2016 (DeShone Kizer and Malik Zaire) it resulted in two abominable losses to start the season and a calamitous 4-8 record, respectively. Freeman’s culture is the envy of the sport but this could test it.
14) Credit to Gino Guidugli for keeping his quarterback room together during the 2024 offseason. If Angeli had left, there’s a chance the Irish would have lost the Orange Bowl. If Minchey had left, the current situation might be even trickier.
15) While we’re crediting quarterback coaches, Tommy Rees’ last four commitments gained at Notre Dame were Angeli, Minchey, Carr and Hartman. Pretty solid run.
16) Angeli committing to Syracuse means he will have the opportunity to wreck the Irish’s season on Senior Day but I’m hoping the talent gap is wide enough that isn’t the case. While Kyle McCord put up numbers for the Orange, Angeli is stepping into a team that has a way tougher schedule (road games with Miami, Clemson and SMU in the ACC, plus Notre Dame and Tennessee in non-con) and without the weapons McCord was afforded in 2024. (If you listen to the pod you have heard this way too many times, but I remain so annoyed we didn’t get to focus on Syracuse upsetting Miami due to it occurring at the same time as Irish/Trojans.)
Some fun things: If you want to see Tennessee spin into immediate crisis, UCLA defeating Utah and Angeli knocking off the Volunteers in Week One would certainly get you there. (The game is at Mercedes-Benz, so Angeli will be comfortable with it.) I’m glad Notre Dame has a Week Two bye so we can focus on Syracuse/UConn. And who knows what 2026 will hold, but Angeli has another year of eligibility and the Irish are scheduled to play a road game against Syracuse.
16b) This isn’t really tied to the quarterback situation but while we’re talking Syracuse: Trebor Pena was set to be their leading returning receiver (84 catches, 941 yards, nine touchdowns in 2024) but entered the portal earlier this month prior to Angeli’s commitment. Pena was initially tied to Miami and there was some discussion of Southern Cal as a possible destination but on Saturday Pena committed to Penn State.
This is notable because his presence on the Orange, Hurricanes or Trojans would have ticked up the difficulty level for those games. If the Irish see him next season, that either means a playoff rematch with the Nittany Lions or two extremely disappointed teams are having the saddest possible Pinstripe Bowl. Pena is another sign that Penn State is all in on 2025, which could mean some very fun James Franklin sideline shots if things go sideways.
As of this writing, the only non-QB scholarship transfer out from the spring portal is Kennedy Urlacher, which is a pleasant surprise. Like we mentioned above, graduate transfers can go in at any time so that’s in play for veterans but we’re going off the information available now. This was going to be a whole section on guys who had exited but I guess it’s now dedicated solely to the rising sophomore.
Urlacher had a lot of potential and his efforts against Purdue last season seemed like they would at least translate into being an option wrecker. However, you can make the case he was the fifth safety — behind Adon Shuler, incoming Hokie transfer Jalen Stroman, Luke Talich and rising Tae Johnson — and that’s the kind of depth you don’t always get to retain.
Projecting forward a bit after the 2025 season, with Stroman out of eligibility and Shuler potentially being awesome (yay) and opting for the NFL (oh), maybe Urlacher’s presence will be missed in 2026 but it’s just not a thing you can really worry yourself over too much in modern college football. Trust Freeman (and hopefully Mike Mickens) to fill out the roster and continue the run of bringing in salty veteran defensive backs via the portal.
While we’re talking transfers, let’s close out with a check-in on basketball. On the men’s side, Tae Davis — the team’s second-best player player — transferred to Oklahoma, but they were able to retain Markus Burton. The idea of pairing Burton with incoming five-star Jalen Haralson is really exciting, especially if there’s any progression from the rising sophomores or another immediate contributor from Haralson’s class, which was ranked seventh by 247 and sports three additional four-star top 120 players.
So far there’s only one transfer in: Northern Arizona’s Carson Towt. Towt led the nation in total rebounds last season at 6’8”. He’s not much of a rim protector (under a block per game) and could be a dangerous late-game option as his free throw rate has gotten worse over the course of his college career, bottoming out at 38% in the most recent season. But he’s 57% from the field and should be a great energy option inside if nothing else as Micah Shrewsberry attempts to take a leap in his third season.
Things are more complicated on the women’s side after a disappointing close for Niele Ivey and company. It turned out the dominant first quarter against Michigan was more of an aberration than a return to form and the Irish could not hold onto a third-quarter lead against TCU in the Sweet Sixteen. For a team that had been No. 1 in the nation in February and had two national commercials, it was a brutal conclusion to the season, winning fewer total tournament games than last year’s version.
The big headlines came in the aftermath, with a roster churn that included Olivia Miles opting not for the WNBA but for TCU and raised questions about the inner workings of the locker room. Being down to three scholarship players before incoming transfers were announced is definitely A Thing we needed to look at, but it did get slightly overblown when you consider the individual cases. For example:
A huge chunk of the roster simply ran out of eligibility. While we’re on that, congrats to No. 3 overall pick Sonia Citron, as well as Maddy Westbeld and Liatu King on their draft days.
Emma Risch had her first two seasons end with injury and the idea of a fresh start closer to home makes sense. Her minutes distribution at the beginning of this season was odd but there’s no way to know how much of that was an attempt at injury maintenance versus pure basketball decision making by Ivey.
Kylee Watson earned her degree, saw many of her older peers leave and ended up playing much closer to home at Villanova, after some smoke she may be joining Miles in Fort Worth.
Miles herself is an interesting case, but an understandable one. She early enrolled and is finishing up her second degree — that’s a great deal of time in South Bend. If the reported/rumored NIL number for the Horned Frogs is anywhere near accurate, she will make considerably more in her one year there than her first year in the WNBA, which is getting a new CBA next season that should result in a large bump in salaries.
The loss that is most troubling is Kate Koval. The class’ top post prospect, early injuries to Westbeld and Liza Karlen inverted the usual progression for a freshman: She was starting and getting a ton of minutes early, and then that waned over the course of the season. (Koval played 30 or more minutes in the wins against USC, Texas and UConn around the holidays and then didn’t crack 20 minutes after the calendar flipped to 2025.) Ivey did try to work in the trio of Koval-Karlen-Cass Prosper together for a few minutes per game in what I assumed was preparing for a monster front court like UCLA, but it ended up not being enough to have a successful season nor keep Koval around. (She did struggle to finish at times — 45% from the field — which likely hurt her case.) Worth noting Koval’s unique family situation in all of this, as most players are not directly affected by Russia invading their home country.
I’m very sad that when Miles is drafted next year she will go into the league with Horned Frog graphics and not the monogram. I do not know what went down between her, Ivey and anyone else on the team but it’s a shame they couldn’t work something out to keep her at Notre Dame for her final season. I very much support players getting what they can, but I do wish we could find a happy medium between the anti-sellout culture of the 1990s and the present-day “Get that bag” mantra, which means maximizing profit over any other consideration is a given and criticism is considered pocket watching. She’ll obviously always be welcome back — two degrees, six triple-doubles, innumerable acts of basketball beauty while wearing blue and gold and green — but it’s not going to be the same as if she had gone straight to the league or stuck around to make another run at greatness. What is that worth? I don’t know the exact answer, but it’s something.
The sputter at the end has raised questions about Ivey’s stewardship of the program, particularly the minimal high school recruiting (three one-person classes out of the last four years). There is such an incredible amount of transfer churn in the women’s game right now and I’m not sure going with large high school classes is a sure-fire solution. For example, the Trojans brought in three Top 20 recruits this past season and two of them are exiting after one year despite the fact JuJu Watkins’ injury means plenty of perimeter minutes and touches next season. There is likely a happier medium to hit but I understand the idea of a smaller recruited roster and subjecting yourself to the whims of the transfer portal to fill out your team every offseason.
I’ve also seen concerns expressed about hiring a first-time head coach to succeed Muffet McGraw. This seems silly to me, because as disappointing as the final weeks of the season ended up being, we’re still talking four consecutive Sweet Sixteens and some form of an ACC title in three straight seasons. This can’t be the ceiling, but it’s still been mostly successful. I would also add that due to her building the program from scratch, McGraw should have had a great deal of influence in who took it over after her retirement.
All of that said, a big season coming up for Ivey and the team. They’ve added some rotation players from the transfer portal, but the overall talent level currently isn’t where it needs to be to make a run at returning to the Final Four despite the presence of a national player of the year contender like Hannah Hidalgo. Visits have been ongoing, however, and it’s good to remember Karlen and King didn’t commit until early May last year. If Prosper and K.K. Bransford can take playmaking leaps — both were top recruits, and Bransford showed flashes of real craft to her game before her injury — that would help the cause, as would any contribution from incoming five-star freshman Leah Macy, who had leg surgery of some sort earlier this year and whose status is unknown.
Before we go, congratulations to all the Notre Dame players who were selected in this weekend’s NFL Draft. Not a new thought but rather remarkable the Irish made the run they did while injured and without any tip-top draft picks among the upperclassmen. Makes me feel better about both the coaching job in 2024 and the potential for 2025 and beyond to be pretty fun.
I have one newsletter planned for May but if events necessitate another one we’ll get to it. Pod schedule a little more up in the air but keep your eyes (ears?) on the feed. Go see Sinners, it rocks. I think that’s it? Until we gather next time, take care of yourselves and each other.
this is a really enjoyable watch if you have ten minutes at some point this week