Notre Dame Quarterback CJ Carr Impresses In Season Opener

Losing the season opener is never an ideal situation for any program with National Championship aspirations like Notre Dame. Sunday night, they dropped their first game of the season on the road against the 10th-ranked, now 5th-ranked, Miami Hurricanes down in Hard Rock Stadium. There's a lot of takeaways from game one for the Fighting Irish, one of them was the performance of their redshirt freshman quarterback CJ Carr.

Carr, a Saline, Michigan native, was entering his first start in a hostile environment in front of 66,000 plus and quickly put the minds of Notre Dame fans at ease as the night went on. After Miami's first drive of the second half, the Irish were staring at a 21-7 deficit mid way through the third quarter. The redshirt freshman led an offensive surge and tied the game 24-24 with a touchdown run late in the fourth quarter.

Unfortunately, Notre Dame fell short in their comeback attempt, but Carr's performance left many feeling confident in the team's ability to bounce back next week when they host Texas A&M. The 6-3, 210-pound quarterback finished the night going 19-30 for 221 passing yards, had two passing touchdowns, one rushing touchdown and one interception. Carr was two for two on passes of 20 yards or longer down the field, went five of eight for 100 yards and a touchdown when pressured and completed 11 of his 15 pass attempts for 91 yards and a touchdown when blitzed according to PFF.

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman was pleased with his young quarterback's performance in his first career start; Freeman believes this is just the beginning for No. 13.

"He's going to be a really good quarterback," Freeman said about Carr. "He was everything I thought he was going to be. His ceiling is exceptionally high. He's going to have to learn how to take this loss and not let it effect him too much because he's an ultra-competitor. He's a gamer, he performs when the lights are on, he prepares his tail off, he had answers for questions that myself or Coach (Mike) Denbrock would have and he's going to do great things. It's just the start for him."

Carr has been praised for his high football IQ and deep understanding of the game. His first career touchdown pass was a no-look pass to redshirt freshman Micah Gilbert on their second drive of the second quarter. The play was impressive, but Carr's understanding of what was going on really stood out.

"When it's needed, I guess," Carr said about his no-look pass. "We had a three by one set with two ends to the field. They were playing some type of middle field open coverage. It was really low to squeeze a slant in there. I felt backside pressure so I tried to make a guy miss, did it and Micah Gilbert made a great catch and had great effort to get open in the end zone."

Like we saw last season, the next couple months of regular season games for Notre Dame will be crucial. Win and you're in. Similar to last season, the Irish had a quarterback under center who, as the season went on, built confidence around his teammates, coaching staff and the Fighting Irish fan base. Carr has a ways to go before he's a finished product, but his performance in their week one loss instilled a lot of confidence in the people around him to ignite Notre Dame for another potential run at a title.

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