Jack Coan Always Had The Advantage In The Notre Dame Quarterback Battle

It’s funny how things work out sometimes.

Jack Coan wasn’t good enough to be offered a scholarship from high school by Notre Dame, at least not in football.

Now, he’s their starting quarterback.

Notre Dame didn’t offer Coan, a 3-star prospect, a scholarship. He had Big Ten offers from Michigan, Nebraska, Indiana and Wisconsin, which is where he spent his first four years. The one-time Notre Dame lacrosse commit got barely a sniff from the Irish coaching staff, who signed Avery Davis to play quarterback in the 2017 class.

Coan was excellent as a Badger, leading them to the 2020 Rose Bowl, which it lost to Oregon (28-27). He completed nearly 70% of his passes in 2019. He set the groundwork for the Notre Dame quarterback job with that Rose Bowl season.

Coan hurt his foot in 2020, losing his starting job to Graham Mertz, who was a redshirt freshman last season.

Mertz is a quarterback Notre Dame fans likely know well. The Irish coaches made a hard run at Coan as part of the 2019 class before ultimately settling on Brendon Clark. Mertz had a pass efficiency rating of 277.1 in his first start (a 45-7 win over Illinois), which was the third highest single-game performance in Wisconsin history.

Welcome to the transfer portal craziness, where your instant fix can be just one phone call away. A kid who didn’t seem like a good fit in the Notre Dame offense four years ago now looks like he could be the solution to a problem.

Coan is the bridge quarterback between Ian Book and perhaps Drew Pyne or Tyler Buchner or maybe a prospect still in high school.

A few years ago, Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly would’ve had to endure starting the season with a relatively inexperienced quarterback. This is a precarious place to be in Division I college football unless it’s Alabama or Clemson, where the next five-star QB can be plugged in after, say, a Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence is drafted first by the NFL and replaced by D.J. Uiagalelei, or Alabama's Mac Jones gets replaced by former five-star Bryce Young after he is picked in round one.

Which brings me to my point since I bring a relatively fresh set of eyes to Notre Dame football.

Based on Thursday’s full practice, Coan was perhaps slightly better than sophomore backup Pyne. He didn’t appear to be immensely better.

There are all sorts of caveats and landmines that come with trying to gauge quarterback quality in preseason. I watched one two-plus hour practice. The coaching staff has watched both players for dozens of hours in various settings.

Coan played mostly against No. 1’s while Pyne played with and against mostly No. 2’s.

Coan was everything that Kelly has said he is.

Accurate with a quick release. He made decisive decisions. And he has a strong arm.

Weeding through Kelly’s quotes, aside from the obligatory superlatives, he said that Coan came from a system that was more “drop back and play action” and that he needed to work on some of the “nuances” of the position at Notre Dame. That included getting the footwork down. Read: Notre Dame plays with more offensive pace than Wisconsin.

Getting back to the scrimmage.

Coan was better than Pyne early but in the live 11-on-11 segment at the end, it’s possible to make a case that Pyne was just as good. Even better at times.

Pyne made two nice touchdown passes in the goal line series. He also ran the ball a few times when the offensive line caved. He’s more familiar with the system, which should count for something.

Indications are that the quarterback is going to have to deal with some growing pains from the offensive line. Mobility in the pocket is going to be important.

It’s not that Pyne is better than Coan.

I’ll defer to the professionals on this one for now but I do know something about quarterback battles.

The tie is always going to go with the experienced transfer. Coan came to ND for a reason and it wasn’t to sit on the bench and back up Pyne. This was the implicit promise that Kelly made. He was more than likely going to be named the No. 1 quarterback.

From this lens, Kelly took a gamble.

He decided Coan was an immediate upgrade.

This isn’t to say that Coan didn’t earn the job. He deserves a chance.

What it means, though, is the quarterback battle should be viewed as ongoing even though Coan is the starter.

In a best case scenario, the Irish have two starting quarterbacks.

If that happens, then it’ll turn out to be a shrewd move by Kelly.

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