Notre Dame’s 2023 quarterback recruiting plans have been murky at best since they lost their all-in bet on Dante Moore. But, on Monday, those plans finally became clearer when 4-star QB Kenny Minchey decommitted, and news of a visit to Notre Dame this weekend for the Boston College game followed shortly after. Then the crystal balls started flooding in, and well, it looks like things could be happening.
Rumors started to run rampant on Twitter on Monday morning that a surprise visitor would be at Notre Dame this weekend and that Notre Dame might have found its quarterback for the class of 2023. However, by late Monday afternoon, Kenny Minchey announced on Twitter that we decided to decommit from Pitt, and Tom Loy of 247Sports reported that he was visiting this weekend.
— Kenny Minchey (@kenny_minchey) November 14, 2022
Shortly after Minchey announced his decommitment, Loy and 247Sports Director of Recruiting Steve Wiltfong placed Crystal Ball predictions for Notre Dame. Mike Singer of On3 and Matt Freeman from Irish Sports Daily also logged predictions for Notre Dame. Three more predictions for Minchey to Notre Dame have been logged on 247.
Predictions are not signatures, but all signs point to Minchey committing to Notre Dame over the weekend when he visits for the BC game. His decommitment from Pitt is particularly telling for more than just the obvious reasons. As a policy, Notre Dame doesn’t consider committed players who officially visit other schools to be committed. Along those same lines, the staff won’t host anyone officially who is committed elsewhere. Thus the decommitment from Minchey is significantly telling.
Should Minchey, who hails from the same high school as Notre Dame great Golden Tate, commit this weekend and ultimately sign with Notre Dame, it would mark a pretty incredible effort by the Irish to staff to both pivot from the high profile loss of Moore and keep things under wraps while they wooed Minchey. Notre Dame offered over the summer, but at the time, it was reported that there wasn’t a lot of mutual interest. That obviously appears to have changed over the last several weeks.
Notre Dame made a run at Baylor commit Aaron Novosad and Kansas State commit Avery Johnson but was too late with both. Notre Dame got in on Novosad really late while they were early favorites for Johnson before deciding to go all-in on Moore. After getting left at the alter with Moore, it was too late for Notre Dame and Johnson.
Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi openly criticizing former offensive coordinator Mark Whipple’s offense for throwing too much – despite Pitt having one of its best seasons in years – a year ago while praising his team’s less effective offense this year couldn’t have helped the Panthers. Likewise, Notre Dame’s struggles at the quarterback position, despite having an offensive line that has been at times elite, likely made Notre Dame’s quarterback situation look a lot more enticing than it did over the summer when Tyler Buchner was considered to be a lock as Notre Dame’s quarterback of the present and future.
Minchey missed a lot of time during his senior season with a shoulder injury, but before the injury, he was named the most accurate quarterback at Trent Dilfer’s Elite 11 camp over the summer. As a junior, he threw 32 touchdowns to 9 interceptions with a 61.3% completion percentage. In his four starts in the regular season this year, he upped that completion percentage to 73.4% with 11 TDs to 1 INT. Minchey returned for a playoff game to complete 19 of 33 passes for 260 yards and 4 TDs.
There is still work for the staff to do here, and nothing is over until it’s over in recruiting, but if Notre Dame pulls this off, it will be one of the biggest recruiting wins of the Freeman era.
I see what your saying. I’m thinking ahead to next year not the present. I’m pulling for Pyne and Buchner. I would love for one of them to excel because if they do it means Notre dame can win and be a great team. I know it takes more than a quarterback.
You dance with who brung ya, even if she’s ugly.
But you don’t need to get there early….give her a chance to put on some make-up.
And once you get her home safe, you can go to the tittie bar.
Pete, thank you for a rare post on this site that actually makes sense at the QB position.
If PYNE finishes the season with two more wins, and wins the bowl, he’ll be 9-1 as a starter, with a couple of saves under his belt from last year.
That’s a 90% winning rate…same as ARA’s first year.
And Coach Freeman will be 10-3, with a Bowl win. If you are wondering how far back you need to go to find a coach who can tie that winning percentage in year one, it would be Willingham (his only winning season). To actually beat Coach Freeman’s first year WP (77%), you’d have to go all the way back to ARA!
On the other hand, if PYNE unexpectedly craps out (at least unexpected to any of us who actually do know a bit about college football) we run a great risk of ending up with another guy in our “550” club (Brennan,
Faust, Davie, Willingham, and Weis.
The players will decide it by their actions in three games. Not fans in the stands, or pundits on TV, nor online opinion guys…not even the coaches
if the TEAM is even just reasonably prepped.
So bring them on. Declare what you will be in the future by your actions today.
GO IRISH, whip all comers.
Show us your true colors.
BGC 77 82
That is right. You can’t develop Pyne and Buchner because the talent, skill, ability Isn’t there to begin with. Just like a running back who runs a 4.6 forty yard dash. You can’t coach him to run a 4.3. It is hard to evaluate Tommy because of what he has to work with but running the ball on 2nd and 17 and 3rd and 14 back to back against both Navy and Ohio State and he may have done it other games in inexcusable. Even a high school offensive coordinator would not do that.
Can’t develop Pyne and Buchner ?
Hunh.
So Rees should just go with the wildcat the rest of the way?
Put Mayer behind center, eliminating Pyne as the middle man?
Or maybe kick on first down?
No. Bring in and hope you hit on a transfer portal quarterback. Pray if they get this Minchy he is really good. Of course, there have been many supposed great high school quarterbacks who never panned out . As we all know just because they are great in high school doesn’t mean they will be great in college. Ron Powlus, Beano Cook he will win 2 Heisman trophies. How overrated was he?
You don’t seem to appreciate the essence of my reply. Perhaps because you don’t seem to fully comprehend what you posted.
There’s one more practice before BC, a full week before USC, and 15 more practices to get ready for a bowl game.
If you know the “talent, skill, ability isn’t there” to coach up, how would you propose Rees spend all those precious hours?
Before you reply, please re-read the entire thread again. Slowly.
CBSSports article on Top 25 rankings…..says Clemson is overrated at #9:
Quote: “Here’s the truth: Clemson is in the top 10 solely due to brand recognition. That’s it.”
First, that sure does seem plausible. Like ND being a pre-season #5.
But in criticizing Clemson’s ranking, the author references the one common opponent they’ve had with (allegedly underrated) #13 UNC: ND.
While Clemson certainly did not look good vs. ND, the Irish have not played nearly as intense, complete and dominant a game as that against ANYONE in forever. And based on Navy last week, it might very well remain a one-off, black swan event.
If BC beats ND this week, such maddening inconsistency should not reflect even worse on Clemson. That is solely the problem of ND.
Clemson isn’t as talented as the great teams this year. But they’re still darn good, and just ran into an unexpected, well prepared, revved up buzzsaw.
ND fans are bipolar, I’m convinced.
Before the Clemson game, several UHND posters piled on Estime for his “fumbling problems”, and having “ball security issues”.
After Navy, the same bunch has concluded he didn’t get the ball enough, and should have been a much bigger part of the offense.
So which is it, oh ye who declare who should have a job and who must be fired ?!
Different fans, different opinions. Exists everywhere. Come on, is your question real? Are you a Pitt grad and sad about the decommitment?
Ya got me. As for you….
Now that he is de-committed, many more other than ND will focus on him.
Between now and the NLOI signing in December, so much can change. Despite what this weekend brings, I’ll hold my excitement off until signing day. His film shows him to be a great pocket passer, which fits what TR seeks. So it’s clear what Rees sees . . . here’s hoping Minchey sees a future at ND.
Even if he commits…and shows up!..2 very BIG ifs….he won’t be a solution for 2023.
Plan 2023A is try coaching up the kids already in the room.
Plan 2023B is look to the transfer portal.
I agree. I think plan b is the way they should go. I don’t pretend to be an expert but Pyne and Buchner just aren’t good enough imo.
Unless there’s some other kid enrolled at ND, that is exactly how good they are.
Here’s hoping Rees is shown the door at seasons end
I don’t know if its Rees, or the very poor hand he’s got to play.
But it’s worth remebering that ND is not ‘the’ dream job of the college football coaching world it used to be.
There’s only one guy these days who can get whichever proven, experienced, out-of-work coach he wants to show up at his program as an assistant. And it ain’t Marcus Freeman.