Notre Dame Quarterback Competition Full Of 'Ebbs And Flows'

Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Sanford says after nine spring practices, the quarterback competition among Malik Zaire, DeShone Kizer and Brandon Wimbush remains unresolved. On some days one quarterback might look better than the others, but no one has separated himself from the pack.

“If we’re being 100 percent honest, it’s a typical deal,” Sanford said. “It’s ebbs and flows. There might be a day where DeShone strings together three great practices — and then he takes a step back. That’s what is so positive about this. You don’t really have the flexibility to have those kinds of slumps, because you’re going to fall behind. I thought [Monday] in particular all three guys played particularly well.”

Sanford, who is in his second spring with the Irish, said that he and the rest of the coaching staff on offense continue to chart what each quarterback does with each snap and throw in practice — including figuring in missed routes by the receivers, dropped passes, wrong reads, miscommunication, correct progressions and reads, etc. — to achieve clear and fair data. While Sanford says no one has done anything to secure the No. 1 role, he acknowledged he has been impressed so far with Zaire, who hasn't missed a beat coming off the ankle injury that sidelined him this past season.

“Probably the surprising thing for me was how quickly Malik got off to a good start," Sanford said. "It wasn’t quite the rust early on that we all anticipated. He did a nice job of coming back and playing the game and playing football the way that he left off. Now it’s kind of just getting back to simplifying it and making the game easy. Letting the game come to him, because he can do some great things when things are right.”

Zaire said earlier this spring that he felt confident in his abilities to regain a starting role for the Irish. Sanford agrees that the rising senior has the skills to be the man under center when the Irish open the season at Texas in September, but the coach quickly added that the southpaw has plenty to work on before the team even takes the field in two weeks for the annual Blue-Gold Game.

"For Malik, I think the next step is just crisp, consistent operation. The communication, the going forward in every area of getting all 11 on the same page with confidence," Sanford said. "For DeShone, it’s continuing his process over the last four or five days of just ball placement. I want to see him be very intentional and purposeful with where the ball is placed. ... If he was a consistent ball placement player, which he shows at times to be, he could be an elite player.”

Sanford also noted that Wimbush, a quarterback that head coach Brian Kelly earlier this spring said had the strongest arm on the team, shouldn't be discounted from the race because of lack of experience.

"He really has the full package," Sanford said. "That's the thing that's really exciting about the group. We have guys that can do what we want them to do and what [associate head coach Mike Denbrock], Coach Kelly and myself deem to be important out of that position. We have guys that can do it on the ground, we have guys that can do it by pushing the ball vertically down the field, and we can find completions. We've just got to focus on doing it better and more consistently."

Sanford says he plans to continue tracking each throw and snap in practice, but so far the data from the three-man race hasn't provided much unforeseen twists or turns.

"[The competition] has played out very similarly to what I would expect," he said. "Ebbs and flows. They’re athletes and they are going to have their good days, and days were you level off. The one thing that has been good is that there hasn’t been any horrific type days from anybody. There has been some standout days — and then some flattened off days ... You just never know how it’s going to go. Somebody can really not be up to the challenge of competing, but based off what we know about DeShone, Malik and Brandon they don’t have any wince in them when they think about competing.”