Notre Dame QB CJ Carr: Why the Fighting Irish LOVE Playing for Marcus Freeman

CJ Carr comes from a family that bleeds Michigan, and he plays quarterback for Notre Dame. Rich was never going to let that go.

"It's tough seeing that N and D on you," Rich told him. "It's real tough, but it suits you."

The origin story is better than the rivalry joke. Michigan was Carr's first offer, arriving after the last game of his freshman year. His father tried to hide it from him.

"He had seen a bunch of kids get offered at an early age and he always thought it was just unnecessary pressure to be recruited as a freshman," Carr said. When his dad played, offers came junior and senior year. So the Michigan offer stayed in a drawer, right up until Jay Johnson at Michigan State called and it became obvious a second offer was coming.

The confession followed. Coach Harbaugh had called the night before. Michigan wanted him. Get on this call with Michigan State, say thank you, but know that Michigan was first.

"It was a crazy week and a half in my family when those first two ones came," Carr said. What came with it was permission. His mother went to Michigan. His father went to Michigan. His grandfather is Lloyd Carr. The message was still that this was his process and his decision.

Notre Dame was not the plan. Carr visited around the Midwest as a sophomore, and at the time Marcus Freeman was not there yet. Once Freeman was hired, and once Tommy Rees came at him with the approach that he would recruit Carr as hard as he could until he heard no, the calculus shifted. Four or five visits later, Carr decided.

"This is the place for me. This is home. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

Rich, who covered Bo Schembechler's final season and openly admits he rents Rudy hoping the guy pops a quad, has one problem with all of this. He cannot bring himself to dislike Freeman.

Carr's explanation was consistency. Freeman recruits a certain way and then shows up on campus exactly the same way, on and off the field.

"When things are going great, I want all of you guys to feel the praise," Carr quoted him as saying. "And when things are not going well, I want everyone to blame me."

The competitiveness is not a talking point either. Freeman is in the weight room early, then in the office grinding tape all day, then trying to rip his players' faces off during Thursday and Friday whiffle ball. "He's just a competitive sucker, and it makes you want to play for him."

The best evidence came secondhand from Riley Leonard. Notre Dame beat Texas A&M in week one, lost to NIU in week two, and Leonard walked in Monday of week three expecting to get his face ripped off. Freeman was sitting there smiling. All right, how we feeling? You ready?

That composure now has a slogan attached to it. This year's phrase is leave no doubt, which head strength coach Landow framed through fighting: the best fighters never left it to the judges.

"That's kind of what we did last year," Carr said of being left out of the College Football Playoff. "We left it up for chance."

On the Heisman hype, he was unbothered to the point of being dismissive. What matters is the people inside the building believing in him and counting on him. "The individual awards, it's kind of just noise."

He was more animated about the Manning Passing Camp, where Todd McShay of The Ringer said Carr had the best showing he has seen recently. Carr's takeaway from Peyton Manning was mechanical and specific. Let your feet speak to you. If you feel yourself hitching on a route's footwork when you should not be, move on to the second read. Asked whether he was aware the whole time who was talking to him, Carr did not hesitate. "The whole time."

The conversation closed on something heavier. Carr's parents run the ChadTough Foundation, named for his little brother, who died at five years old when Carr was 10. Rich put the site on screen and told Carr it is great to see who he has become.

Then he asked one more favor. Find Rudy. Tell him Rich called him twitchy.