Freeman praises QB Carr's 'rare' early success

CJ Carr hardly won the offseason contention to go Notre Dame's starting quarterback, but the second-year subordinate has afloat capitalized connected his opportunity, and manager Marcus Freeman is taking notice.

"It's uncommon to beryllium a second-year assemblage shot subordinate playing successful your 5th [career] crippled and performing astatine a level he's performing at," Freeman said Monday. "It's rare. But I deliberation CJ Carr is rare."

Carr recorded his archetypal vocation 300-yard passing show successful Saturday's 56-13 rout of Arkansas, finishing with 354 yards and 4 touchdowns, portion completing 22 of 30 passes. His 294 passing yards successful the archetypal fractional marked the third-highest full successful squad history, and his 4 touchdowns were the second-highest full successful squad history. The 4 touchdowns besides were tied for 2nd astir by a existent freshman oregon redshirt freshman successful Notre Dame history.

Through 4 games, Carr has 1,091 passing yards with 9 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. He ranks 2nd nationally successful full QBR.

Carr, the grandson of longtime Michigan manager Lloyd Carr, competed with third-year sophomore Kenny Minchey successful the outpouring and preseason camp. Minchey's beardown signifier performances suggested helium mightiness get the archetypal accidental to start, but Freeman went with Carr, who saw enactment successful lone 1 crippled past autumn and had nary walk attempts.

"He has this unsocial trait that precise fewer radical have," Freeman said. "He is ... a competitive, selfless individual. It's not astir CJ Carr. He's not truthful competitory that, 'I privation to beryllium capable to propulsion for this amount.' It's like, 'Whatever we got to bash to win, if I got to motivate, if I got to work, if I got to enactment my caput down and tally if I got to propulsion the ball,' immoderate it takes to win, like, helium has that trait. He hates to lose, and past he's mature successful the mode helium prepares."