3 takeaways from CJ Carr’s commitment to Notre Dame Football

Notre Dame football landed the commitment of five-star QB CJ Carr in a big recruiting victory for head coach Marcus Freeman. 

For a long time, it seemed like Notre Dame football was destined to get the commitment of five-star quarterback Dante Moore, who is from the state of Michigan.

Instead, the Irish landed the commitment of another five-star quarterback from Michigan, and that’s CJ Carr, the grandson of former Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr and the 20th overall prospect according to the 247 sports composite rankings.

The Michigan legacy was thought to be a Wolverine lean at one time but this spring, Notre Dame football really put on the full-court press and it worked. Soon after some recent expert projections, Carr said he was announcing Thursday, and when he committed to the Irish, he said he would run through a wall for Marcus Freeman.

That’s a strong endorsement and here are three takeaways from CJ Carr committing to the Irish.

A major recruiting win

We know that elite quarterbacks win in college football and an elite quarterback is something that Notre Dame football has needed for a while. Tyler Buchner, a former top-100 recruit is set to take over the job next season, and the Irish are high on his potential, but getting CJ Carr to commit is just a different level of impressive.

Not only is his grandfather Lloyd Carr, but Alabama, LSU, Georgia, and other programs have offered him recently, so he’s a hot commodity and it just reinforces the fact that Freeman is a difference-maker on the recruiting trail.

And while we’ll touch on what this means for Dante Moore, any way you slice it, this is a major recruiting win for Notre Dame.

Notre Dame likely out for Dante Moore

As I broke down earlier on Thursday, the addition of Carr to the 2024 recruiting class likely ends the pursuit of Dante Moore.

It just always seemed unlikely that Moore was going to wind up in the same class as Carr and it’s hard to see Carr committing this early if he still believed there was a strong chance of Notre Dame landing Moore cause I doubt he wants to wait until 2026 to be the starter.

Of course, Moore and Carr could both commit and battle for the job but one would likely enter the transfer portal and the reporting is that Notre Dame is backing off Dante Moore.

The Irish were considered the leader for Moore and have been for months but Michigan hosted him for a visit. He also visited Oregon, and LSU, and is expected to visit Texas A&M.

So maybe Notre Dame realized it wasn’t the favorite and took Carr, who wasn’t really prioritized by Michigan the way that Moore was. The Wolverines have recruited and hosted three other 2024 QBs on campus already and have a prediction for five-star Jadyn Davis.

That never happened in 2023 with Moore who is still the Wolverines’ only real target. That seemed to be the case with Notre Dame too, which pushed for a commitment in the spring, and when it didn’t get it, it looks like the priority shifted to Carr and it worked, so there’s nothing wrong with that.

Now the pressure is on Michigan to get Moore or Davis. If that doesn’t happen, it’s going to sting for Michigan fans as they watch Carr, the grandson of a former head coach, playing for one of Michigan’s rivals.

A look to the future

Notre Dame was selling Dante Moore on the chance to win the starting job in 2023 and unless Carr re-classifies to 2023, which is an outside possibility, there isn’t going to be a five-star contender for Buchner in 2023.

The former four-star recruit is expected to be the starter this season and he’s going to have the benefit of playing behind one of the most talented offensive lines in college football, as well as what should be a really solid defense on the other side of the ball.

Buchner should keep the Irish contending to be among college football’s elite but Carr could be the missing piece just as Michigan hopes J.J. McCarthy is now.

Either way, the Irish are locking themselves into having a top-100 QB (Buchner was No. 71) starting under center for the next 5-6 years. And when you think about the kind of defensive talent Freeman has been adding, and the expected production on that side of the ball, it sounds very promising for the future of the Irish.