SOUTH BEND, Ind. — With Notre Dame beginning its preparation for Texas in earnest this week, freshman quarterback Brandon Wimbush will begin to fade into the periphery of the Irish offense.
That’s not necessarily a knock against Wimbush, who looks likely to be the sixth freshman quarterback redshirted in Brian Kelly’s tenure at Notre Dame. Barring a significant injury to starter Malik Zaire or backup DeShone Kizer, expect Kelly and offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Mike Sanford to preserve a year of Wimbush’s eligibility by relegating him to the sidelines this fall.
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While working with Notre Dame’s third-team offense during preseason camp, Wimbush flashed his high upside but proved to still be a work in progress.
“The thing we’re working on with him is playing with more tempo, playing with a little more urgency with his feet,” Sanford said. “He’s one of those guys, once we continue to develop his feet and his footwork as it pertains to the timing of the route concepts, he’s going to be special. Even when he got outside the pocket and pulled some balls down in the scrimmage situations, he’s a different athlete out there on the perimeter, let alone the fact he can make all the throws in the offense. He’s got a very, very wide-ranging skillset and for him it’s just reps, it’s just timing, it’s just confidence. And that’s our job as coaches to get that out of him.”
With Zaire, a redshirt sophomore, having three years of eligibility left, Kelly and Sanford will have plenty of time to develop Wimbush if all goes according to plan. Wimbush won’t compete for Notre Dame’s starting gig until 2018, his redshirt sophomore season, in a perfect world.
But Notre Dame hasn’t had a quarterback start the majority of its games in back-to-back seasons under Kelly (Dayne Crist-Tommy Rees-Everett Golson-Rees-Golson were the regular starters from 2010-2014). Never say never seems like a fair mantra for Irish backup quarterbacks.
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Nonetheless, it’d be a surprise if Wimbush played this fall. Sanford, though, thinks the New Jersey native not only has the skillset to succeed, but the right attitude.
“His best attribute is his demeanor,” Sanford said. “He’s level-headed, calm and has great tools to back up that demeanor.”