Coming into this season, Notre Dame's quarterback coach Gino Guidugli was a relative unknown on the Irish coaching staff. Guidugli was hired in May of 2023, he took over for former offensive coordinator and quarterback's coach Tommy Rees who accepted the offensive coordinator position at Alabama. Guidulgi was a former quarterback for the University of Cincinnati from 2001-2004, had a short stint in the NFL and the CFL before starting his coaching career in 2010. He was at Central Michigan from 2010-2016 and eventually returned to his alma mater in 2017 and remained until he got the job offer from Notre Dame.
Since his arrival in South Bend, Guidugli worked with back-to-back transfer portal quarterbacks. In 2023, Guidulgi worked with Wake Forest transfer Sam Hartman who led Notre Dame to a 9-3 regular season record, threw for 2,689 passing yards, 24 touchdowns and eight interceptions. Last season, he worked with Duke transfer Riley Leonard who passed for 2,861 yards, rushed for 906 yards, had 38 total touchdowns on the season and led Notre Dame to a 14-2 record and an appearance in the National Championship.
As promising as Leonard's performance was a season ago, we had yet to see a quarterback fully developed by Guidugli at the collegiate level led the Fighting Irish, but with head coach Marcus Freeman electing to forego the transfer portal this past offseason, we knew that the starting quarterback for the 2025 team would be a 'home-grown' kid; enter the Michigan native, redshirt freshman CJ Carr.
Carr was named the starter the final week of fall camp. The 6-3, 210-pound quarterback out-battled redshirt sophomore Kenny Minchey in a competition that was too close to call for the majority of fall camp. Carr was elected the starter and played his first meaningful snaps against Miami down in Hard Rock Stadium in week one. From the start it was apparent that Notre Dame, not only made the right choice at quarterback, but showed the ability to develop a quarterback and put the days of utilizing the transfer portal behind them for this position.
Notre Dame is now in their second bye week of the season. Through seven games, Carr has completed 65.8% of his passes, thrown for 1,758 yards, 14 touchdowns, four interceptions and rushed for two additional touchdowns. Minchey has been limited in his playing experience in the first half of the regular season, but has made the most of his opportunities going 8 for 9 with 95 yards. Guidugli has showcased his abilities to develop a young quarterback into a Bonafede starter. Now, Carr has hit a bit of a mid-season slump and it will be up to the Fighting Irish quarterback coach to get things turned around before they play Boston College on November 1.
Guidugli's abilities to develop a quarterback weren't only on display in South Bend. Former Notre Dame quarterback Steve Angeli transferred to Syracuse in the spring portal window and put on a show in New York. Through the first four weeks of the season, the New Jersey native led the country in passing yards and helped Syracuse pick up a signature win this season over Clemson on the road. Unfortunately, in the game against the Tigers, Angeli went down with an achilles injury and will miss the rest of the 2025 season. He ended the year with 1,317 passing yards, 10 touchdown passes and two interceptions through four games.
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