Marcus Freeman addresses why Notre Dame didn't add backup QB from transfer portal

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish know their starting quarterback in 2026 is going to be CJ Carr. That’s a blessing in a sport where that position rapidly turns over. What head coach Marcus Freeman doesn’t know yet, however, is who the backup quarterback is going to be.

Freeman recently shared that the team had internal discussions about adding a veteran transfer to be a backup. Despite that, Notre Dame wasn’t able to find the right fit in the Transfer Portal.

“It was a topic we discussed,” Marcus Freeman said. “When you talk about, hey, we wanna go find somebody that’s an older college football player that wants to come to Notre Dame and be a backup quarterback to CJ Carr, and that means he has to beat out Blake [Hebert] and that means he has to beat out Noah [Grubbs] and whoever else in the future. The reality is that we didn’t find that person, and I don’t know how, really, we sought that person. It was just a conversation that we had.”

Notre Dame has lost last season’s backup quarterback, Kenny Minchey, to the Transfer Portal. He’d land at Kentucky. Depth quarterback Anthony Rezac is also on the move, going to South Dakota State. There’s still time, but Freeman has not added a quarterback to the roster at this point. There are still quarterbacks available in the portal, but it’s often the case that veterans are looking for playing time. So finding someone ready to be a backup, and at a price that makes sense, is always difficult.

Currently, Notre Dame has a limited number of backups. Most notable is Blake Hebert, who Marcus Freeman mentioned. That roster doesn’t yet include two incoming freshmen in the 2026 recruiting class. Among them are Teddy Jarrard, a four-star recruit and the 17th-ranked quarterback, as well as Noah Grubbs, a three-star recruit and the 55th-ranked quarterback.

“We’re confident in our quarterback room. Confident saying we know who our starter is gonna be,” Freeman said. “But it’s gonna be a great battle as you go through Spring, as you go through Fall Camp, to see who our backup will be as we get ready for the season.”

The Transfer Portal is set to close on January 16th. While teams can still add players after that point, it can become difficult to get players on campus before the semester starts. There also won’t be a window in Spring for more players to potentially enter the Transfer Portal.