SOUTH BEND — “One play away” is the refrain for any backup quarterback, and the same will apply for the runner-up in this “too close to call” battle between Notre Dame football quarterbacks CJ Carr and Kenny Minchey.
No one knows that better than former Irish star Brady Quinn, whose Sept. 6, 2003, debut in the season opener against Washington State was brief and wholly unexpected.
“I’ve had a chance to run into those guys on campus and talk to them a little bit,” Quinn told the South Bend Tribune earlier this summer. “Look, they’re both extremely talented or they wouldn’t be here. Great kids. Really sharp. It’s going to be tough because I think whoever ends up being the guy, the guy right behind him is one play away, and he has to keep that in his mind.”
Carr, a redshirt freshman who ran the scout team until throwing elbow issues cropped up in late September, has yet to throw a pass in a college football game. Minchey, a third-year sophomore who decommitted from Pittsburgh near the end of the 2023 recruiting cycle, has yet to misfire (on three career attempts) in a college game.
Whoever starts the Aug. 31 season opener at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium will have plenty of help surrounding him. Quinn quickly realized that when he was pressed into service for a few handoffs in relief of Carlyle Holiday against the Cougars.
“That’s how my freshman year started out,” Quinn, a college football studio analyst for FOX Sports, recalled at the Golic Family Foundation golf outing. “I was the backup and I got to play that very first game. It was a drive that went down for a touchdown to take us into overtime, and we ended up winning on a field goal.
“You never know when your number is going to get called. That’s the thing both of these guys have to realize. Not thinking so much the short term, (but) thinking long term of their own development and staying ready to help out the team.”
Current Irish offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock was coaching offensive tackles and tight ends for second-year Irish coach Ty Willingham in 2003.
Quinn, Notre Dame’s career leader in passing yards (11,762) and touchdowns (95), went on to make his first career start in a loss at Purdue three weeks later.
“At that point in time (against Washington State) I wasn’t sure if I was the ‘backup’ until Carlyle backed up and someone grabbed me,” Quinn told reporters in November of 2006. “I guess that was my answer for that.”
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame football legend Brady Quinn weighs in on QB battle. ‘Both extremely talented’
Reporting by Mike Berardino, South Bend Tribune / South Bend Tribune
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