South Bend, Indiana, will be home to one of college football's most competitive starting quarterback battles over the next few weeks.
Riley Leonard, the veteran signal caller who led Notre Dame to the College Football Playoff Championship game against Ohio State this past season, joined the professional ranks in April after the Indianapolis Colts selected him with a sixth-round pick. This year, sophomore Kenny Minchey and redshirt freshman CJ Carr are among the quarterbacks looking to fill the void he left behind.
ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit ultimately will not have a say in who will be the Fighting Irish's starting quarterback for their season opener against Miami on Aug. 31. But he did give strong praise to one of the players in the running for the role.
"Man, Notre Dame, there's something about this CJ Carr," Herbstreit said at the Personnel and Recruiting Symposium in Nashville this week, via FootballScoop.com's John Brice. "I'm super high on him."
Carr appeared in just one game for the Fighting Irish during his freshman season. He earned playing time late in Notre Dame's dominant 66-7 win over Purdue on Sept. 14 but did not record any passing statistics in the contest.
Prior to joining the program in 2024, he was a consensus four-star recruit. ESPN, 247Sports and Rivals.com had him listed as the No. 1 recruit in the state of Michigan and a top-50 prospect nationally, while On3 ranked him third in the state and No. 209 overall in his class.
Carr is a third-generation college football figure, but he is the only one in his family with ties to Notre Dame. His grandfather, Lloyd, served as Michigan's head coach from 1995 to 2007; his father, Jason, also played for the Wolverines.