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Incoming Quarterback Ian Book Preparing For Anything

Book was in town this past weekend for the Blue-Gold Game.
Book was in town this past weekend for the Blue-Gold Game.
BGI/Andrew Ivins

Ian Book was a already long shot to play for Notre Dame this upcoming season, but the incoming freshman quarterback became even more of one last week when head coach Brian Kelly joked that the high school senior probably wasn’t expecting to come in this summer and challenge DeShone Kizer, Malik Zaire or even Brandon Wimbush for the starting job.

“I don’t think Ian Book is here thinking he will start,” Kelly said with a smile last Friday when asked about Book and a handful of other Notre Dame signees that were in town for the Blue-Gold Game.

While Kelly has a point — Book said he isn’t expecting to compete for a role in 2016 given the fact that Notre Dame returns an incumbent starter at quarterback in Kizer and two challengers that have already seen the field in both Zaire and Wimbish — it doesn’t mean the 18-year-old isn’t preparing for the unthinkable.

Book said earlier this week after a five-day stay in South Bend, which included everything from film sessions with offensive coordinator Mike Sanford to class with freshman wide receiver Kevin Stepherson to a night on Wimbush’s couch in the dorms, that his focus over the next few months is doing what he can to ready himself for the next level.

“I just have the ‘anything can happen’ mentality where you got to be ready for whatever,” Book said. “I’m really excited to get up there and to get into the competition. A lot of stuff can obviously happen.”

And while it can, the odds of Notre Dame losing multiple quarterbacks to injury or transfer are pretty bleak, and Book knows that. Still, while the wide-eyed high schooler knows that he’s most likely destined for a freshman campaign in a red hat on the sidelines, he plans to give the coaches something to think about when he arrives on campus in early June.

Book said Notre Dame strength coach Paul Longo weighed him over the weekend and he tipped the scale at 208 pounds — up 18 pounds since early February.

“[Coach Longo] said that’s exactly where he wants me,” Book said. “I have been eating a lot. Probably five meals a day and just working out on the plan that he gave all the signees.”

In addition to the weight training, Book said that he’s also already trying to learn Notre Dame’s offensive schemes in hopes of getting ahead as much as he can from a distance.

“I actually wish I would have enrolled early, but I would have had to have told my high school my sophomore year what I was going to do and I had no idea what I was going to do at the time,” Book said. “It just seems like those guys are ahead.”

Sanford seems to understand. Book said that the high-energy offensive coordinator gave him a ‘binder full’ of a playbook before he left campus and started quizzing him on different formations.

“It was really good to see how he ran meetings,” Book said. “They definitely get business done [in the quarterback room], but there is a fun environment in there with everyone laughing and joking. It was good. I would say it was a good vibe.”

Book, who threw for 3,049 yards this past season at El Dorado Hills (Calif.) Oak Ridge High, elected to not play lacrosse this spring and instead focus on football.

“I’m just ready to get to Notre Dame and be there,” Book said.

Kelly is, too. He just isn’t expecting Book to be on the field anytime soon.

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