Why CJ Carr Chose Notre Dame Despite His Deep Family Ties to Michigan

Rich didn't waste a second getting to it. CJ Carr's entire family is Michigan. His mom went to Michigan. His dad went to Michigan. And CJ Carr plays quarterback for Notre Dame.

"You knew, CJ, I was going there first," Rich said, right after mentioning he'll be in Ann Arbor on the 27th for a golf tournament the show will emanate from.

"I knew it. Yes, sir," Carr answered.

Rich, to his credit, owned his bias. "I got to be honest with you. It's tough seeing that ND on you," he said. "It's real tough, but it suits you."

Then came the real question. How does the quarterback with that last name and that family tree end up in South Bend?

The answer starts with a father trying to protect his son from the recruiting machine. Michigan was Carr's first offer, arriving after the last game of his freshman year, a game he played well in. Michigan State came shortly after. And when the Michigan offer landed, Carr's dad tried to bury it.

"My dad actually tried to hide the Michigan offer from me at first," Carr said.

The reasoning was not complicated, and it's hard to argue with. Carr explained that his father had watched a lot of kids get offered at an early age and always thought it was unnecessary pressure to be recruited as a freshman. When his dad played, offers and commitments came junior and senior year. So he sat on it.

The plan lasted about a week and a half. Jay Johnson, then at Michigan State, called wanting to talk, and Carr's dad assumed correctly that an offer was coming. That forced his hand.

"Well, I was trying to hide this from you, but I can't," Carr recalled his father saying. "If Michigan State is going to offer you now, so Coach Harbaugh had called last night. They want to offer you."

Carr got on the call with Michigan State, said thank you, and noted that Michigan had been first. He called it a crazy week and a half in his family. What his parents told him next is the part worth pausing on.

"We love Michigan. I went to Michigan. My mom went to Michigan. My dad went to Michigan, but you got to make a decision for yourself," Carr said, relaying the message. So he kept it open and let the process take him where it took him.

Rich gave the parents their due for that. As he put it, you have to let your kids come to conclusions themselves and find their people and their place.

Carr's sophomore year took him around the Midwest, to Wisconsin, Michigan State, Penn State and Notre Dame. At that point Marcus Freeman wasn't there yet, and Carr admitted he visited without really considering it. Freeman's hire changed the temperature. People spoke well of him, and Carr loved Tommy Rees, who was at Notre Dame at the time.

The other half of it is what Michigan didn't do.

"Michigan, they didn't really recruit me," Carr said. From his perspective, they assumed his family made the outcome inevitable, which he called understandable. Rees took the opposite approach and told Carr he'd recruit him as hard as he could until he heard no, showing up at the school and making Notre Dame's want for him obvious.

That landed. Four or five visits later, Carr had his answer.

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