Notre Dame Offense Shows Continued Growth In Yesterday's Jersey Scrimmage

Notre Dame Offense Shows Continued Growth In Yesterday's Jersey Scrimmage

We're now less than a week away from Notre Dame's 2026 Blue Gold game and yesterday morning, the Irish wrapped up their jersey scrimmage. Both sides of the ball were extremely competitive throughout the practice, and we saw what we expected from an offense with a coordinator heading into his third season and a returning starting quarterback. Head coach Marcus Freeman was pleased with what he saw from this unit and it started with the big boys up front.

"I think the entire offensive line as a whole, that first group, has done a really good job of gelling together," Freeman shared. "Today is a day you go live and you can see if we can run the ball or not. You know, when you go thud, you blow the whistle when you think they're going to go down. We were able to run the ball today. That left side has done a great job. Anthonie Knapp, the transition from tackle into guard has been a smooth transition.

"I'm not surprised because he's an athletic guy; he's a tough guy," Freeman continued. "We've always thought that was his more natural position, but he had to play left tackle for us, and he's done a tremendous job. Will Black, the growth from year one to where he's at now has been tremendous. He's had high upside the whole time since we recruited him until he got here. But now he's really developing that into a unique skill set."

Their returning signal caller, CJ Carr, also had a really good practice. His command of the offense was on full display and the offense reflected his competitiveness and his leadership. There was a noticeable difference when No. 13 was in command of the huddle; the offense was efficient and made the most of it's opportunities with Carr leading the charge. Freeman was very pleased with what he saw from the Michigan native Saturday morning.

"He has tremendous physical talent," Freeman shared. "He has the ability to put our offense in a position to have success because of what the defense is presenting. It's probably one of his greatest traits. I can speak for hours about his arm talent, and his film study but he puts our offense in positions to have success. He's able to understand the play. He's able to see what the defense is doing and put us in a position that usually ends up in a positive play. It's invaluable to have a true problem solver. Again, that's an accumulation of his preparation. But the experience helps more than anything."