Sam Hartman Shines Bright In His Notre Dame Debut

Transfer quarterback Sam Hartman showed out in his debut for Notre Dame in a rout of Navy

Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman was the most known commodity in college football heading into the 2023 season. The veteran signal caller played in 48 games in five years at Wake Forest before transferring for his sixth year of college eligibility, yet he was also one of the most overlooked players in the country heading into the season.

Need proof? Despite throwing 77 touchdowns in his last two seasons at Wake Forest, he remains lightly regarded by most of the college football analysts around the country. He is not a Heisman favorite and is not considered a top draft prospect despite the fact last year’s two Irish quarterbacks (who both transferred to other schools due to Hartman’s arrival) combined for 25 touchdown passes last season. Sports books gave him an over/under season total of 26.5.

Hartman is 15% of the way to the over with 92% of the regular season remaining after throwing four touchdown passes to three different receivers in his Notre Dame debut in Saturday’s 42-3 thumping of Navy in Dublin, Ireland.

At least his head coach appreciates what he has in the veteran quarterback.

"This moment isn’t too big,” Irish head coach Marcus Freeman said after watching Hartman’s game one performance. "It’s about him going out there and just executing and what I really, really thought he did a great job was putting our offense in a really good position to execute the play. There was a couple calls that we had that was depending on what the defense was showing, we were going to check into a run or pass or a certain protection. Just to hear the communication of our coaches making sure that Sam’s putting our offense in a great ... just really great situation to succeed was really good.

"I thought just the overall operation of our offense, the ability to run the ball helped Sam a lot, too,” Freeman continued. "We talked about it yesterday in our team meeting, the greatest friend for a quarterback is the ability to run the ball and that was something that our offensive line and our running game did a great job of doing today.”

Hartman was 19 of 23 for 251 yards in his Irish debut. Navy’s defense, the one that returned nine starters and sacked former Irish quarterback Drew Pyne five times last year, barely breathed on Hartman from start to finish. Hartman was able to make pre-snap reads and checks throughout the game that Pyne was not able to make in last year’s game. Navy blitzed him, just like they blitzed last year, but it didn’t matter.

"The overall operation, (offensive coordinator Gerad) Parker to the signalers, to Sam, getting into the right protections, getting to the right checks, executing ... that’s the whole operation and it was really good,” Freeman explained. "I mean .... usually the first game, first time offensive coordinator, first time quarterback, there’s some operations in week zero that you see, like snapping, we didn’t have it.”

In the fashion of a veteran who was voted a team captain by his new team, Hartman was quick to deflect praise afterward.

"I think it’s easy when you have two of the best tackles (Joe Alt and Blake Fisher) in the country,” Hartman remarked. “Two guards (Pat Coogan and Rocco Spindler) who were starting their first real big games and just played unbelievably and obviously Zeke (Correll) at center. I wanted those guys to just make plays in space. I don’t know how many incompletions I had. There was a lot of get the ball in space, which is what we wanted to do.”

Hartman’s four touchdown passes went for 35, 14, 20 and 25 yards. Eleven of his 19 completions went for at least 13 yards; eight of them were 19 yards or longer.

"We had a great plan and we went out and executed it,” said Hartman. “Not really any of my ability, just more guys around us. Like Jaden Greathouse, who’s a freshman, out there making big plays, just no moment’s too big kind of deal. Really it starts up front. I had a lot of time to go through my reads (and) progressions and just felt comfortable. So, it really just starts there.”

The freshman Greathouse had two of Hartman’s four touchdown strikes. They went for 35 and 20 yards. Greathouse had three receptions for 68 yards in his debut. Juniors Jayden Thomas and Deion Colzie were each on the receiving end of Hartman scores as well.

Hartman’s 251 yards on Saturday give him 13,218 in his career and move him to No. 18 on the all-time FBS passing list. He now has 114 career touchdown passes, which is tied with former Florida quarterback Danny Wuerfful for No. 14 on the all-time list. He needs five more touchdowns to move into the top 10 all-time. 

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