2016 Notre Dame Football Preview

2016 Notre Dame Football Preview

Blue & Gold Illustrated: 2012 Notre Dame Football Preview

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BY LOU SOMOGYI I f one judged a quarterback strictly by numbers, maybe the easiest position to name a starter at Notre Dame this year would be quarterback. As a passer and rusher, no Fighting Irish quarterback had a better sophomore campaign than DeShone Kizer — and few rivaled him in any campaign. While helping keep Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff conversation into the final week of the regular season with a 10-1 ledger, the Toledo, Ohio, native finished with 3,404 yards total offense, passing for 2,884 yards and rushing for 520. The previous standard from a Fighting Irish sophomore was 3,099 (3,172 pass- ing and minus-73 rushing) by Jimmy Clausen during a 7-6 campaign in 2008. When including bowl stats, Kizer's 149.95 pass efficiency rating is the sixth best in a season by a Notre Dame quarterback who attempted at least 100 passes. The only five ahead of him were: • Clausen's 161.42 in 2009 that made him a second-round draft pick after his junior year. • The late Bob Williams' 161.38 during the 1949 national title season that helped put him into the College Football Hall of Fame. • Brady Quinn's 158.4 in 2005 that placed him No. 5 in the Heis- man Trophy voting as a junior. • Heisman winner John Huarte's 155.1 in 1964 in which Notre Dame was awarded a share of a national title. • Rick Mirer's 150.5 in 1991, when the Irish concluded the 9-3 regular season with a win over No. 3 Florida in the Sugar Bowl. (Note: Kevin McDougal had a 151.3 during the 11-1 season in 1993, but it fell under 150.0 in the 24-21 Cotton Bowl win over Texas A&M.) Meanwhile, Kizer's 520 rushing yards were the fourth most by a Notre Dame quarterback, behind Tony Rice's 934 in 1989 (including the bowl), Rice's 775 in 1988 (including the bowl) and Carlyle Holiday's 666 in 2001. The 6-4¼, 230-pound Kizer also posted 10 rushing touchdowns, the most in a season by an Irish QB. Such data would lead one to believe that Kizer's starting position is one of the few locks during a competitive spring in which more than half of the starters on offense and defense from 2015 must be replaced. Yet a year ago at this time, Kizer was the forgotten man in the race between Ev- erett Golson and Malik Zaire, with Kizer seeing only mop-up work in the spring game, where he completed 1 of 5 passes and contemplated whether he had a future in football. Golson's transfer to Florida State and a season-ending injury to Zaire in week two at Virginia thrust Kizer into the spotlight — especially after leading a fourth- quarter comeback win against the Cavaliers, yet he has established zero sense of entitlement. "I never expect the job to be guaranteed," Kizer said this spring about head coach Brian Kelly's decision to keep the competition open. "For some reason with me, I've never been in a position where I was going to continue to walk into a season and just auto- matically have a job. "In everything I've ever done, all the way back to fourth-grade basketball … it's always going to be a situation where there always is going to be someone there to push you, and that's just the way the coaches I've surrounded myself with like to coach. I love that because now I have to go out there and earn the position … I'm expecting that every season from here on out." The question is whether such intense competition between Kizer and Zaire — with sopho- DeShone Kizer and Malik Zaire provide options at quarterback, but who will have the lead role? COMPETITIVE Kizer fashioned the best season ever by an Irish sophomore quarterback in 2015, passing for 2,884 yards, rushing for 520 yards and accounting for 31 touchdowns. PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA

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