Quarterback Spot Up For Grabs… Again

NOTRE DAME, IN (UHND.com) – Charlie Weis has changed his starting quarterback twice already this season after starting the year with Demetrius Jones under center and the position will be up for grabs once again this week in practice with Jimmy Clausen getting back to the point health wise where he is capable of starting.

After getting the start in the last two games, Evan Sharpley has shown Weis enough for him to have a good handle on what he’s got in the junior quarterback. In two starts, Sharpley has completed 34 of 60 passes for 257 yards with two touchdowns and 1 interception against USC and Navy. Ok numbers, but hardly the type of stats that make a third start a no brainer if Clausen is healthy enough to play this weekend.

“We haven’t practiced yet, but they’re both in the running,” Weis said Tuesday. “I’ll definitely let you know this week when we get to that point, but they’re both in the running.”

Hardly a ringing endorsement for Sharpley who took over for Clausen after Clausen got banged up in the Boston College game.

“I don’t think what you want to be doing here is each week say, well, who’s going to play the best for us against Air Force, who’s going to play the best for us against Duke, who’s going to play the best for us against Stanford,” said Weis. “I’m at the point right now where I want to win this game, and simultaneously, I want to start — I want to start building some upward momentum.”

With Clausen healthy and ready to play, it seems pretty clear if you read between the lines that he will be the starting quarterback this weekend. Weis spoke a lot on Tuesday about building momentum over these final three games heading into the spring and into next season and for the first time this season didn’t speak specifically about playing the quarterback who gave the Irish the best chance to win this particular week.

“Now that you’ve got two guys that are both pretty much at the same health here now, I think that you have to plan on doing it for the stretch, not just doing it for this week,” he told the media Tuesday. Compare that to the answers he was giving three weeks ago when he named Sharpley the starter stating that he gave the team the best chance to win that week and again, signs point to Clausen starting since he is widely considered the future at quarterback for the Irish.

While Weis wouldn’t commit to either quarterback as the starter Tuesday, he did say he would know fairly soon who would be starting relatively soon. “I want to get through today before I get my mind with where this is going to go. But what we’re not going to be doing is going 50-50 on the reps all week long. That’s not the way it’s going to work. It might be a little bit closer to that today, but it’s not going to end up that way.”

If Clausen showed Weis enough in practice on Tuesday to show that he is healthy enough to start, I think we’ll see Weis name him the starter either Wednesday or Thursday. After watching Sharpley play two full games as the starter from start to finish, it seems abundantly clear that Weis’s statements all season of Clausen being the more accurate quarterback are dead on.

Sharpley has completed a little over 50% of his passes, but has also missed quite a few open receivers over the last two weeks and at times held onto the ball too long which resulted in sacks for the opposing defenses. Heading into last weekend’s game, Navy had collected just five sacks all season, but registered an additional four against Notre Dame thanks in part to Sharpley’s indecisiveness in the pocket.

With the Irish sitting at 1-8 coming off a loss to Navy, there isn’t a whole lot left to play for this season for the Irish and Weis’s comments on Tuesday basically concede that he wants to build for next season as well as finishing off this year with some kind of positive. “There’s no rule that says that how you play in the last three games is going to have anything to do with San Diego State, but I think the better you play down the stretch, the more information you have going into the spring,” said Weis.

Whatever Weis decides, he said Tuesday that he’s spoken with both quarterbacks and both know what the situation is. “I’ve already talked to both of these guys, so it isn’t like — they know that when they’ve been in here, things haven’t gone great for either one of them. It isn’t like either one of them is coming up there and saying, hey, I’ve done a great job, it should be me.”

Weis is also looking to make this the last change he makes under center for the rest of the year to stop the revolving door at the position this year. “I think that I need to make sure that I get us settled for this week so that we’re not going into playing that musical quarterback situation because whenever we do this week, now that you’ve got two guys that are both pretty much at the same health here now, I think that you have to plan on doing it for the stretch, not just doing it for this week.”