NOTRE DAME DISCIPLINE: Kelly has said he intends to make four of the five players arrested by state police on marijuana possession during training camp available to play.
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Zaire dazzled against the Longhorns, missing just three of his 22 throws and collecting 313 passing yards in the lopsided Notre Dame win.
The two QB system won’t last.
Call me old fashioned, but I’m going with the team that has the better lines and better situation at quarterback heading into this one. “It’s about week in and week out as a coaching staff, we have to go out there and get our guys ready to play”. Head coach Brian Kelly says he still doesn’t know if Zaire or quarterback DeShone Kizer will take the first snap or exactly how he’ll play the two when the Fighting Irish open the season at Texas on Sunday, Sept. 4. Or what if Notre Dame makes it to the bye week and realizes its offense isn’t running with the kind of efficiency or explosiveness it wants? They asked us to stop by.
I expect the Notre Dame offense to struggle early regardless of who is quarterbacking. But for now, Kelly sees it as the best option.
“When you know you are going to (play) the whole game, you can rely on rhythm to get yourself going”. His top targets will be John Burt, who led the team in yards with 457 last season, and also Armanti Foreman.
In the end, Notre Dame’s strength on both lines and Texas’s own uncertainly at quarterback will win this game for Notre Dame but not without some collective heartburn from Notre Dame fans.
“They’re going to be honoring their 2006 National Championship team, so they’ll feed off of that”, Kelly said Wednesday.
And those running backs are awfully good, too.
The Fighting Irish also will be debuting a new receiving corps and rebuilt offensive line.
The 6-foot-1, 245 pound former four-star recruit has the keys to the auto now, and there’s plenty of optimism the Crete-Monee High School alum will succeed as The Guy in Brian VanGorder’s defense.
“He’s assignment correct. He makes very few errors, and that’s what we like”, Kelly said. “He knows what he’s doing”.
The offensive line – Yes I mentioned that all the new starters in general worry me, but I’m not anxious about the offensive line. Cole Luke and Shaun Crawford look like lock-down corners, too. Wide receiver Kevin Stepherson and linebacker Te’von Coney were listed on the depth chart this week.
All that inexperience means plenty of question marks. At running back, Notre Dame plans to utilize a three-man rotation of Folston, Adams and Dexter Williams instead of feeding one workhorse back.
Considering the beating that Notre Dame put on Texas when the two teams opened the 2015 regular season, it is not a surprise to see the Fighting Irish as the favorite heading into Sunday’s game. That leaves Strong little margin for errors like missed extra points, dropped punts and other missteps that turned winnable games into heartbreaking losses the last two seasons. Since Lou Holtz left, Notre Dame has won 10 or more games four times: once under Ty Willingham, once under Charlie Weis and twice under Kelly. “But by the same token, I’m not necessarily all in with the idea that if you – the adage if you have two quarterbacks then you really have no quarterbacks, because again, in today’s world of college football, I think you have to have at least two guys ready to take first-team reps and ready to play at a high level because of the effectiveness of quarterback run game in offenses today”. I’ll take Notre Dame in a 27-20 game, but I would be absolutely ecstatic to be wrong.
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After helping the Fighting Irish to a Music City Bowl win over LSU, quarterback Malik Zaire had full custody of the starting role for the first time in his career entering the 2015 opener against Texas.
