Notre Dame Still Working On Figuring Out The Gator Bowl Quarterback Situation

With less than three weeks to go until Notre Dame faces South Carolina in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl, Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman continues to move forward at quarterback, and that means without Drew Pyne. The junior announced just two days before Notre Dame was picked for the Gator Bowl that he was immediately entering the transfer portal ahead of bowl season.

With Pyne gone, the practice reps at the position have predominantly been shared between Tyler Buchner and Steve Angeli. Buchner started Notre Dame’s first two games before his season ended prematurely with an injury to his non-throwing (left) shoulder.

Buchner's quicker than expected recovery has him gearing up for the bowl, but Freeman and offensive coordinator Tommy Rees don’t have roles for the game defined just yet.

"We haven’t defined what exactly the quarterback situation will be,” Freeman said at a Saturday media session. "Both guys have gotten reps with the ones. Between Steve and Tyler, both have had reps with the ones. Tyler’s practiced the majority of all the practices.”

Angeli is a true freshman who has played just a handful of snaps in back-to-back games against UNLV and Syracuse. He has yet to attempt a pass in his first season on campus after enrolling and going through practice with the team in the spring.

"We’ll really sit down, probably next week, and just say hey, what’s the plan as we really start focusing on South Carolina,” Freeman explained. ".... I want all those guys getting reps and rolling. Tyler hasn’t played football for a long time, so just getting him in there with a bunch of different groups of receivers and O-linemen and let him get acclimated. But he’s looked good, he’s done a good job in practice. Steve has done a pretty good job, too.”

Angeli moved from the scout team to No. 2 on the depth chart after Buchner’s injury in the Sept. 10 loss to Marshall. Notre Dame relied heavily on Buchner as a runner in those first two games. His 12 carries for 44 yards against Ohio State represented nearly 58% of the team’s 76 rushing yards in that game.

The Irish morphed into a much better running team over the course of the season after the injury to the San Diego native. The team ran for 206 total yards on 67 carries against OSU and Marshall, but they topped 200 yards in a game six times afterward and averaged nearly 183 yards a game on the ground.

Those improvements should allow the staff to take a lot of the burden off Buchner that was placed on his shoulders in the first two games.

"Where we now as a team versus where we were those first two games, I think, has evolved,” said Freeman. "What we asked Tyler to do that first game in terms of how much we asked him to run, it was a part of the plan versus a defense like Ohio State. You know that, hey we want to run the quarterback a little bit more than usual. That's probably not what we would have wanted to do all season long.”

Buchner completed 56% of his 50 pass attempts and threw a pair of interceptions in those first two games. It’s been three months since he played in a game, so he has to get back up to speed while working on taking care of the football and making good decisions that a quarterback has to make on every play.

He missed 10 games of valuable experience during the season and now he has to work his way back up to speed in practice. Bottom line, he has to continue to develop.

"He hasn’t played football in a while, so for him to get back out there, run around, throw the ball, it’s been good to see,” Freeman commented. "I think our offense is at a different point than where we were those two games. We have an identity and the ability to run the ball and the ability to create, as we say, easy completions. That won’t change with whoever’s at quarterback. That’s our identity .... We have to be able to run the ball. And we have to be able to take advantage of the things that defenses are giving us in the passing game. Those will be the things we ask Tyler to do.”

It’s also been three months since Buchner took a live hit in a game and it will be nearly four months since his last hit by the time the Gator Bowl arrives, because Freeman says there will be no live hits on his quarterbacks during bowl prep.

"You can’t take a chance of your quarterbacks getting hit in practice,” Freeman explained. "Not at this point in the season. There wasn’t one point I lived up the quarterbacks in fall camp. You just can’t take that chance of getting your quarterbacks getting hurt in practice. I know he hasn’t taken live reps. You get bumped enough. You’re wearing the red jersey, but sometimes they run that ball or those D-linemen, they might get yelled at for touching the quarterback, but you’re going to get bumped enough. But we’re not going to live them up. There’s no way.”

As for Pyne, the final question Freeman took from the media was whether or not the door would still be open for the New Canaan, Conn. native. He was a bit less definitive than the “Never say never, but never” response Pittsburgh Steelers head coach gave last year when he was asked if he was considering a move to coaching college football.

“If that decision comes, we’ll look at that that situation,” Freeman said of the possibility that Pyne could ever play at Notre Dame again. "If that comes up in the future, we’ll look at each situation independently. But if that happens, we’ll look and see is this what’s best for our program.”

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