Notre Dame football must keep tabs on Kenny Minchey as QB sits and waits
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SOUTH BEND — A season-ending Achilles injury to Syracuse quarterback Steve Angeli will keep Notre Dame football from facing its former backup on Senior Day this weekend.
Could Kenny Minchey, stuck behind redshirt freshman CJ Carr, eventually follow Angeli out the door?
“He doesn't know what he'll do after this season,” Irish coach Marcus Freeman said of Minchey on Thursday. “He's focused on being the best quarterback he can be and being ready to go if he's called upon to help this team win.”
Carr has the Irish at 8-2 and ranked ninth by the College Football Playoff selection committee. If he keeps improving at this rate, Carr could conceivably enter his name in the 2027 NFL Draft after just two seasons as the starter.
The 6-foot-2, 208-pound Minchey never got in the game last week at Pittsburgh, despite the Irish building a 37-9 lead with 10 minutes to play.
Coincidentally, Minchey was originally committed to play for the Panthers and coach Pat Narduzzi before flipping to Notre Dame and then-offensive coordinator Tommy Rees late in the 2023 recruiting cycle.
Now 14-of-15 passing (93.3%) for 146 yards in mop-up duty the past three years, Minchey has two years of remaining eligibility after this season. His lone incompletion so far was a deep pass intended for freshman wide receiver Elijah Burress in the 56-30 win over Purdue.
Freshman scout-team quarterback Blake Hebert will be joined next spring by Lake Mary, Florida, recruit Noah Grubbs, a 6-4, 205-pounder rated the 27th best quarterback in this year’s class, according to 247 Sports Composite.
“The conversation I have with CJ is going to be different than (with) Kenny,” Freeman said of the Hendersonville, Tennessee, product. “We talk about ball. We talk about what he's doing, how he feels, what he's (feeling) about the game plan. Are you ready? And I remind him, 'You have to stay ready because you're one play away.' “
Angeli stepped in for a woozy Riley Leonard to lead the Irish to three points late in the first half of an eventual Orange Bowl win over Penn State in the CFP semifinals. Keeping Minchey in a good frame of mind with the transfer portal set to open in January makes a lot of sense.
"We talk about his future and what we all don't know,” Freeman said. “But also, we talk about the present, and that's something that Kenny always brings me back to is the present.”
As in his Sunday talks with Carr, those Freeman-Minchey chats tend to range well beyond the field.
“Every meeting that I have with a quarterback is going to be different,” Freeman said. “Because it's not just football. That's a very little part of the meetings I have with the quarterbacks.
“It's more headspace. It's more life. It's more what's going on with your life, and I can explain and talk about things going on in my life. … We talk about our faith. We talk about our families and a whole bunch of topics.”
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame football keeping tabs on Kenny Minchey as transfer portal looms
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