Sam Hartman certainly came to play for his Notre Dame debut, but you need to do more than beat Navy to truly take the nation by storm.
Former Wake Forest quarterback Sam Hartman had quite the standard to meet as he entered his debut with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and boy did he not disappoint.
In short, Hartman put on about as efficient of a display as one could ask of him in ND’s 42-3 win, breaking 250 yards while throwing as many touchdowns as incompletions (4).
With his time at Notre Dame getting off to that hot of a start, he has found himself involved in much hype on social media; said hype not only surrounds his potential as a player, but ND’s potential as a contender—a situation that I find quite questionable for a couple of reasons.
For starters, there’s no other way to put it: Navy sucks. I’ll give the Irish credit for the Midshipmen being FBS-level rivals that they met on a neutral field, but that’s about it. Beyond that, they have been historically terrible against Notre Dame (now losing 80-13-1 all-time) and are following up on a 4-8 season. In other words, they don’t exactly make for the toughest season-opening matchup known to man.
My other cause for concern falls on neither Navy nor Notre Dame as teams, but on Sam Hartman alone. It is something that can hang a question mark over any young QB as he creeps closer to the NFL: Inconsistency. While Hartman is undoubtedly talented, his inconsistency found ways to show its hideous face on multiple occasions during his time as a Demon Deacon.
When did Hartman’s inconsistency become such a big problem?
Especially in the past couple of years, Wake Forest has had moments where it’s been ranked as one of the top college football teams in the nation. Entering Week 10 of their 2021 campaign, the Deacons were 8-0 and placed ninth in the CFP poll—their highest ranking ever. However, that all changed once they faced North Carolina.
The Tar Heels, unlike the Deacs, had established themselves as a rather mediocre squad, sitting at a far more disappointing record of 4-4. Yet that visible inferiority didn’t keep Hartman from throwing two interceptions in what was ultimately a 58-55 loss. This may not sound like the end of the world on its own, but upon learning that he had previously only thrown three all season, the optics on the number look a tad worse.
Combining that with a completion percentage of 49% (which was then his lowest of the season by a convincing margin), it can’t be denied that Hartman’s passing play was visibly worse once Wake’s year had really gotten cooking.
But come on, that’s just one game from the better part of two years ago, and it still saw him be responsible for a total of seven touchdowns on the day. With all that in mind, shouldn’t we give the guy a bit of a break? Normally I’d say yes. There’s only one problem, though—it wasn’t just one game. In fact, we saw the inconsistency creep back around just a couple of weeks later against Clemson.
After beating NC State, Wake Forest had returned to the CFP’s top 10, and had to face a defensive-minded Tigers team in Death Valley. If one was not aware of their defensive prowess, they surely witnessed it when Sam Hartman finished the 48-27 loss with only one touchdown to his name. It ended up being his only game all season to see such an underwhelming display.
And then, just a couple of more weeks after that, the Deacs were once again demolished, this time by the Pittsburgh Panthers in the ACC championship (it was Wake’s first appearance in the game since 2006). Hartman threw a whopping four interceptions en route to the 45-21 final—the most he would throw in a game all year.
I wish I could say that these issues didn’t follow him into 2022, but that would simply be a lie, as it was last season’s trip to Louisville that resulted in what is possibly Hartman’s sorriest performance of recent memory.
Just how hard did Sam Hartman fall in 2022?
The Demon Deacons, after going on a promising 6-1 tear, entered the Louisville game ranked 10th in the AP Top 25, once again hitting a threshold that is so rarely seen by the historically troubled program. But it all came crashing down in a 27-point loss that saw the Deacs turn the ball over to the Cardinals a staggering eight times. And how many was Hartman involved in? Six, three picks—doubling his count for the season at that time—and three lost fumbles.
That many turnovers mixed with an unimpressive completion percentage of 57.1% (which would go on to be his lowest of 2022) means his performance was not just bad, but inexcusably pathetic. And that was just part of it, as the very next week had him throwing three more picks before falling to NC State (the first of the three “Tobacco Road” rivals they faced) by two scores.
Now look, I get it: In none of these instances was Sam Hartman the only Demon Deacon to make mistakes, and all of the teams I named deserve some serious credit for their performances. However, each of them were big opponents for the Deacs for one reason or another, whether it be due to facing them at a pivotal point in their schedule (thanks to something like an unfamiliarly high ranking), being an important rival, or both.
Hartman having multiple run-ins with both turnover concerns and statistical drops under those kinds of circumstances paints him out as a QB that is difficult to trust for the long haul, as he could seemingly fall apart at any moment that is bigger than the average game. This is especially frightening when considering that said moment doesn’t even have to be against that great of a team.
There were flaws in every team that downed Hartman’s Deacs
In total, I mentioned five different ACC schools over the course of two seasons: 2021 North Carolina, 2021 Clemson, 2021 Pittsburgh, 2022 Louisville, and 2022 NC State. Of those five, none finished with less than three losses. That means they, at most, were good, not great—and certainly not postseason contenders. Can the same be said about Notre Dame’s upcoming foes? Let’s see.
Upon observing the remaining slate that awaits the 2023 Irish, I notice two things in particular. One is that it does include a couple of CFP hopefuls (Ohio State and USC) that are bound to be more difficult to overcome than any of the ACC teams I just listed. The other thing is that four of those same teams are on the schedule as well, with the Irish having to go on the road to meet three of them.
Lastly, they are also set to take a trip to Durham to face Duke (a nine-win ACC squad that beat Sam Hartman last year) and host Wake Forest (a name that should turn heads for obvious reasons). All in all, not an easy path by any stretch of the imagination.
I hate to be such a party-pooper here, as Sam Hartman truly does deserve praise for how well he showed out in his Notre Dame debut. It’s just that he also had hot games at Wake Forest, days that we would always painfully learn were never meant to last.
Based on the schedule that the coming months have in store for him and the Irish, I’m going to need more than a pretty win over a subpar Navy before I’m ready to put my trust back into the hype train.