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Notre Dame QB Battle In Spring Game Often Misleading Come Fall

A poor spring game last year didn’t stop DeShone Kizer from starring during the regular season.
A poor spring game last year didn’t stop DeShone Kizer from starring during the regular season.
BGI/Andrew Ivins

The greatest intrigue in Notre Dame’s Blue-Gold Game usually occurs when there is a quarterback competition — like there is this season between incumbent DeShone Kizer and last year’s original starter, Malik Zaire, prior to a season-ending injury.

Head coach Brian Kelly has made it clear that the competition for the starting job will carry over into at least August, but noted that this Saturday’s performance in front of an audience still could help the cause for either quarterback, if not both. For at least the first half, both also will be made “live” as far as getting hit. After all, Kizer rushed for the fifth-most yards last season by a Notre Dame quarterback (520), while Zaire was MVP in the 2014 Music City Bowl win versus LSU with 96 yards rushing — and had 87 in three quarters at Virginia last year in game two before suffering his fractured ankle.

“They’ve got to be able to run a little bit,” Kelly said. “… That's the identity of our offense. The quarterback’s going to be a running threat as well.”

One way or another, history shows that followers of the team probably shouldn’t overvalue individual performances in a Blue-Gold Game, especially at QB. Let’s take a few examples over the years, many from the Kelly era:

• In Kelly’s first season (2010), the matchup pitted five-star starter Dayne Crist against walk-on Nate Montana, known more as “Joe’s son.”

It was Montana who stole the show, completing 18 of 30 throws for 223 yards. He tossed three touchdown passes in the first half alone to three different receivers and steered his team to a 27-19 victory against the starting quarterback. It was his shining moment even though he never started in high school and was the third quarterback at Pasadena Community College.

• In 2011, among the four quarterbacks battling for the starting position — Crist, Tommy Rees (who finished 4-0 as the starter the year prior as a freshman), “the future” in Everett Golson and Andrew Hendrix, it was the No. 4 guy — Hendrix — who produced the top all-around day. Hendrix put up the best passing numbers — 10 of 16 for 139 yards — and also rushed for 15- and 10-yard scores to lead his team to a 17-14 victory.

• In 2014, Zaire continued the “tradition” of backup QBs taking the spotlight from the starters. While all the attention was on Golson’s return to school after sitting out the 2013 season for academic reasons, he was so-so in the spring scrimmage (13 of 23 for 160 yards with no scores). Conversely, Zaire made numerous jaw-dropping throws and finished 18-of-27 passing for 292 yards with two touchdowns.

So guess who was a top-five Heisman Trophy candidate entering the month of November and who had yet to throw a pass in a college game until the 12th game of his sophomore year?

• Last year, it was no so much about who did what, but who didn’t do anything. While Golson and Zaire continued their battle, the sophomore Kizer had clearly established himself as transfer material. He was 1 of 5 for three yards in the game, and also was sacked. Even the man behind him, Montgomery VanGorder, was 3-of-3 passing for 43 yards. Kizer began to seriously ponder whether he should take up pitching in baseball.

So naturally … it’s Kizer who statistically has the greatest sophomore year ever by a Notre Dame quarterback, including the sixth highest pass efficiency rating in a campaign.

It took us back to nearly 40 years earlier in 1976, when Nate Montana’s father, Joe, stunk up the joint in the spring game, completing only 2 of 11 passes for five yards and tossing two interceptions. Little wonder that the starting job went to Rick Slager, the game’s MVP with 14 completions for 253 yards.

Don’t get us started with quarterbacks in Blue-Gold Games. From 1986-88, Steve Belles was the QB on the teams that beat starters Steve Beuerlein (1986), Terry Andrysiak (1987) and Tony Rice (1988) — but Belles eventually became more noted for his work on special teams and at flanker.

Remember Chris Olsen, the MVP of the 2003 spring finale? He ended up transferring to Virginia when two weeks into fall camp that year, newly enrolled freshman Brady Quinn began making an impression and moved ahead of him at the No. 2 spot.

A record crowd of 51,852 showed up in 2007 to witness the arrival of “The Chosen One,” early enrollee Jimmy Clausen. The LeBron James of football was a modest 3-of-7 passing for 23 yards. Grabbing the headlines instead was relatively unheralded senior running back Junior Jabbie, who was named the offensive MVP for his 87 yards on 13 carries.

A year earlier, Travis Thomas was named the offensive MVP for his game-breaking 83-yard touchdown gallop that demonstrated he could beat out veteran Darius Walker, who was not “a home run guy.” Guess what? Thomas moved to linebacker that summer.

Maybe the greatest Irish spring game performance ever was by a receiver named Charles Stafford, who caught five touchdown passes from Ron Powlus in the second half alone in 1995. The senior did end up starting that year, but his 18 catches for the season did not quite have the same sizzle.

In 2001, freshman defensive end Kyle Budinscak recorded five sacks and looked like the second coming of Ross Browner. He ended up having a solid four-year career with 11 career sacks, but spring games often can result in misleading data.

The moral of the story is not to invest too much analysis into a spring scrimmage in which the foremost objective for the coaches is to come away unscathed in team health.

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