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DeShone Kizer Targets Growth After First Season As Starter

Kizer finished 8-3 in games he started in 2015.
Kizer finished 8-3 in games he started in 2015.

Twelve months ago at this time, few around Notre Dame’s program expected rising sophomore quarterback DeShone Kizer to carry a lead role with the Irish in 2015.

All of the attention at the time surrounded Everett Golson and Malik Zaire and their impending battle for the starting spot.

Kizer has even admitted that he wondered whether football was the right path for him.

But after the transfer of Golson to Florida State and a season-ending injury to Zaire just seven quarters into the season, suddenly the keys of the offense belonged to Kizer.

The Toledo, Ohio, product performed better than almost anyone could have imagined, directing Notre Dame to a 10-3 finish and Fiesta Bowl berth while falling just short of a College Football Playoff berth.

Still, he’s not satisfied.

“I’ve got to take everything I learned from this season and all the experiences that I’ve had and learn from it and become a consistently good quarterback,” Kizer said at the end of the season. “There’s a lot of spurts in which I looked pretty good this year and also a lot of spurts where I looked awful. Those spurts have to go away. I have to become a consistent quarterback to become anywhere near the style of guy that’s going to be able to go out and win those big games.”

Kizer finished with 2,884 yards, 21 touchdowns and 10 interceptions through the air and 520 yards and 10 scores (a Notre Dame quarterback record) on the ground, although it’s no guarantee he starts in 2016 with Zaire returning and freshman Brandon Wimbush entering year two in the program.

“Being kind of thrown into a situation that I wasn’t expecting this year, to have these guys around me and other seniors out there, to help me become the leader that I am now, it’s been awesome,” Kizer said. “Team 127 is going to be one that everyone is going to remember. Obviously there are some things that we would like to have back, guys playing alongside of us.”

During the lead-up to the Fiesta Bowl, Kizer talked at length about the areas he and quarterbacks coach Mike Sanford have targeted for growth in 2016. It begins with Notre Dame’s red-zone struggles.

“It’s all decision making down there,” Kizer said. “Everyone knows the windows shrink up. There’s not a lot of space to make things happen on my part. When I’m thinking of red zone, I’m just thinking of opportunities that I could lower my shoulder and grab another yard or opportunities to lower my shoulder and grab another yard or opportunities to run through an arm tackle. Things of that nature. It’s not big mind-blowing experiences, but more along the lines of having a new sense of grittiness to go and get an extra yard when you’re down there. Obviously we saw against Stanford that one yard can completely change a game.”

Despite the progress Notre Dame has made in recent years, the cloud hanging over the program is the lack of a major bowl victory since 1994.

“I like where we are,” head coach Brian Kelly said. “We’re going to keep banging at the door. Keep playing Ohio State, keep playing Florida State, keep playing Alabama, keep playing these teams in these kinds of venues, in these kinds of games.

“We don’t want to be playing directional teams with no profile to them.

“Big names, great traditions, New Year’s Six games. Keep playing them, get in them. Keep building your program, keep recruiting, keep doing it the way you’re doing it, and we’re going to win these games.”

The quarterback situation is a main part of Notre Dame solving that equation in 2016.

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