Well, that didn’t take long. Late Monday night, the Fighting Irish received the commitment from graduate transfer quarterback Jack Coan in an effort to strengthen the roster ahead of a 2021 rebuild without Ian Book.
A former Notre Dame lacrosse commit, Coan later blew up as a quarterback coming out of Sayville, New York, and while setting several Long Island passing records, he decided to pursue football instead. There was some talk about Notre Dame still pursuing him for the gridiron but he committed to Wisconsin in the spring before his senior year of high school in the same class the Irish signed (then!) quarterback Avery Davis.
Eventually landing as a high 3-star prospect, Coan played in limited garbage time as a true freshman for Wisconsin behind Alex Hornibrook and then when his teammate began dealing with concussion issues Coan grabbed several starts in 2018. Two seasons ago, Coan started the entire season for the Badgers but suffered a non-contact foot injury shortly before the 2020 season and missed the entire year.
Scouting Report
Height: 6’3″
Weight: 221 lbs.
Completions: 297
Attempts: 437
Percentage: 68.0%
Passing Yards: 3,278
Passing Touchdowns: 23
Interceptions: 8
Rushing Touchdowns: 5
Coan certainly adds some much needed size to the Notre Dame QB room and has a developed veteran college frame with plenty of muscle. He has nice calm feet in the pocket and is comfortable both under center and in shotgun. As you’d expect, he’s adept at selling play-action coming from Wisconsin’s offense.
His arm strength certainly doesn’t jump off the screen but he shows nice touch on some of his intermediate throws. Of course, the Badgers offense typically doesn’t force a quarterback to do a million different things, however, his completion percentage would seem to suggest competent accuracy.
Coan stands tall in the pocket and slides around really well. At times, he shows impressive twitch to shuffle away from pressure and make a throw. He also looks comfortable throwing over the middle of the field. All of these areas could be major changes to the way the offense operated under Ian Book.
Concerns?
Obviously, picking up a much different offense from the one he learned in Madison could be challenging. I don’t think he has really outstanding arm talent by any means and Tommy Rees & Co. would definitely have to tailor things to his strengths. I don’t see a great deep ball passer. Hopefully, he can improve in this area coming off his foot injury.
At one point in high school, Coan was a pretty impressive athlete. He’s packed on quite a bit of weight over the last 4 years and doesn’t quite seem that explosive anymore. That being said, we know his legs were never going to be utilized at Wisconsin in a way they could be at a place like Notre Dame and I think Coan is going to surprise some people with his ability to pick up first downs and run into open space when it’s provided. I’m sure designed runs for him would be scrubbed from the playbook (except maybe short yardage) and this could be a big adjustment for the offense in a post-Book world.
Overall, this is a nice pick up and while we have all off-season to talk about the shuffle at quarterback we think Coan should be the slight favorite to open the 2021 season at Florida State as the starter for Notre Dame.
One of my predictions finally pans out! It’s been like five years; I had to be right about something eventually.
Assuming he has recovered from injury, I think he’s the overwhelming favorite to start the season as QB1 next year, particularly if Clark is done for good. Pyne has strong career-backup vibes (he’s teeny and has a very weak arm; it’s like a lesser version of Tommy Rees the quarterback) and Buchner played one year of high school football against low-level competition. If he doesn’t start game 1, I’m guessing it’s because Desmond Ridder became available or something rather than somebody else from the roster.
I kind of get Ian Book vibes from Pyne. Not big, good enough mobility, theoretically pretty accurate, not going to wow you with the deep passing game. The problem with that, is that very few college QBs also possess Book’s ability to avoid making the big mistakes. You can get away with making big mistakes if you can also make big plays downfield. Unless Pyne has similar decision-making ability to Book, I agree with your estimate that he is likely a career backup.
He’s both smaller and, unless something has changed in the last year, has a notably weaker arm than Book. I’m pretty not-optimistic on Pyne, and it seems plausible that Clark might not play again, so I think this was a good take as a bridge to Buchner (who hopefully pans out).
You would think even if Ridder were available that he would not want to come to ND now with another grad transfer, no?
Correct; I’m hoping they back-channeled it and Riddler said no. Otherwise, in the unlikely event Riddler wants to come you just take him and tell Coan he’s welcome to look elsewhere if he wants. This ain’t beanbag.
For those unsure of the pick-up, think of it this way:
At the very least, the floor of the 2021 team just got higher.
Yeah that’s the bright side.
Exactly. This does not make us more likely to win playoff games. We’re not winning playoff games next year.
It does make us more likely to beat USC. That’s valuable!
I suspect we’ll miss Book. Despite his well discussed shortcomings, he’s going to be hard to replace.
Looking at his film, his passes seem to be a little bit further downfield into tighter windows than we saw with Book. Meaning, he seems to have a bit more confidence in his arm and his vision. (I might not be screaming, “throw the damn ball” as much) Also, he can move around some in the pocket and he can run when forced out. I will bear in mind that this is highlight film but, I’m pleased that this kid is on the roster. More than likely he starts in Tallahassee.
Yea not sure why Eric thinks not a great deep ball passer. Granted it’s a highlight film but he seems to throw a beautiful deep ball.
If he can be accurate, and our WR’s can step up, then he could have a huge year.
I guess it depends upon what we consider a deep ball.
He has a couple very nice 30-yard throws in the air in his highlights but not a big arm for much longer, it seems.
Book seemed to hate throwing deep balls. Any thoughts on if we think that will change with Coan?
Yea the question is: was that from Book or was that from the coaches somehow?
I think it was mostly Book’s extreme reluctance to throw INTs, combined with WRs not being great downfield. I remember a bunch of plays where it was clear there was a WR running deep, but ball never thrown (probably for good reason).
So, if I had to guess, I’d say a bit of coaching to not throw INTs, and a bit of whatever naturally led Book to throw so few.
That sounds right. Though it seems our WR’s have recently done a great job making plays running deep (down the sidelines esp.) – especially with our big-bodied guys.
i see. i figure those are “deep balls” where he throws it in stride to WR’s that have beat the defense.
Really like this pickup. One of Coan’s strengths seems to be going through progressions pretty quickly and throwing with confidence and anticipation. When Ian was on he played like that, but he wasn’t always on. He’s obviously not as mobile as Book and that’s going to both cut a lot out of the playbook and cut down how much we gain from QB improvisations, but that’s workable.
We don’t know the severity of Brendon Clark’s injury, of course, but we do know that he needs surgery on his knee and we know that he tore his ACL in high school. We also know that with the surgery, he’s not going to be able to participate in spring ball at least so the staff won’t get a clear view of what they have in him until the fall at the earliest. There’s just no way they could take the risk of going into the season with a QB depth chart of Pyne, Buchner, and Mini Powlus. Coan provides an immediate known commodity, a veteran presence, and a higher floor for the QB position.
Looking at the film, Coan moves (slides) in the pocket well and makes quicker decisions than Book. He can run but is not as shifty or quick as Book. I think he’ll get rid of the ball quicker, so I don’t think him not having Book’s elusiveness is a big issue. At first glance, if our young receivers can develop I think Coan can be a good QB for us.
How the QB room plays out will have a lot to do with Clark’s injury. If he can play by the fall, I think you could well see someone (Clark or Pyne) enter the portal.
Serious question, as you seem to know a bit about him Tindma. Was he not going to start this year at Wisconsin? If that’s why he transferred, yeah, we get depth and a higher floor, but still a second string Big 10 QB.
Or is he transferring for a different reason? I don’t know, hoping you or someone else here knows?
If he can complete passes more than 10 yards downfield on a regular basis, he will be a good addition. I liked Book, but boy did he have limitations that the good teams could take advantage of — namely, an unwillingness to throw passes farther than 10 yards.
I see why you have to take someone to get a veteran in the QB room, but this is pretty uninspiring. A former 3-star, pocket passer with very limited mobility and no scrambling ability is pretty meh. His game log career history against P5 opponents is meh.
I suspect 2020 will be a typical Brian Kelly year where multiple QB’s start. Hopefully it’s Buchner proving he’s good enough to take over in the middle of the season when Coan loses a game that we’ve been used to winning under Book.
The floor might be higher (fairly marginally, IMO, especially if Buchner could be somewhere in between Bo Nix and Sam Howell as a freshman), but the ceiling certainly isn’t.
https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/players/jack-coan-1/gamelog/
It’ll certainly be a lot to lose from a mobility standpoint, but if he’s accurate he could have a big year.
For QB’s context is everything, so giving him a talent upgrade at ND vs. Wisconsin will only help him.
Buchner is a lower-ranked prospect than Bo Nix and didn’t play high school ball last year. No particularly good reason to think he’d be better than freshman year Bo Nix.
Because he didn’t get to play his senior year and was the 66th best prospect instead of the 33rd? Each player is different, each team and situation is different. There’s plenty of good reason to believe that Buchner will be able to fit in the Notre Dame offense, which is probably better than the Auburn offense anyways. No guarantee, but there’s no good reason to dismiss the possibility, either.
He didn’t dismiss the possibility – anything is possible. He just said there’s no particular reason to think he’d be better than Nix as a freshmen. You could offer some of that evidence if there is some.
There’s no “evidence” at hand, because it’s predicting future events. Short of crystal balls, no one can offer anything for sure.
But just because Bo Nix played at one level at a different school in a different conference doesn’t necessarily correlate to Tyler Buchner to playing at a lesser level simply based off a recruiting ranking. Plenty of players ranked under Buchner (65th, .969) have done well as true freshmen, like Kedon Slovis (705th, .868), Sam Howell (93rd, .958). I’d find it just as unlikely to say Buchner should do better than them.
No one knows for sure what Buchner may or may not be able to do as a freshman at this point. Which is probably why you take a flyer on an injured grad transfer QB who can steer a P5 offense, but certainly has big limitations.
I think that’s exactly his point. One can hope magically that Buchner will come in and give steady QB play – better than Nix, but that’s all it is a kind of blind hope.
Buchner’s the #3 dual threat QB recruit in the country, I wouldn’t consider it blind hope that it would be wishful to imagine he could contribute early. Quite to the contrary, in fact, in 2020, true freshmen QBs without a ton of experience get a chance to sink/swim very early across several the sport.
This is moving the goalposts: “he could contribute early”
Before it was: “Be better than Bo Nix.”
Meh, whatever, the facts remains the same. I do think Tyler Buchner could have a better freshman season than Bo Nix despite the fact Buchner was a .969 recruit and not a .985 recruit and didn’t play as a HS senior. That means very little with Nix in a poor Auburn offense/coached team and Buchner at Notre Dame.
Also, if we’re really getting semantic and pedantic, my initial comment was “The floor [with Coan] might be higher (fairly marginally, IMO, especially if Buchner could be somewhere in between Bo Nix and Sam Howell as a freshman), but the ceiling certainly isn’t.” leaving the door open on an “if” that Buchner may/may not even have the ability to live up to that.
Which is still a very fair and true thing to say, considering Coan wasn’t great against tOSU/PSU and will go 21 months and a major injury in between starts.
We should bear in mind that this will in effect be Buchner’s senior year in HS, experience-wise. The game will be very fast for him.
Sure, but there’s the same step up for anyone going from HS to college, no matter how much they play in HS. Buchner is also an EE, so it’s not like he won’t have the opportunity to acclimate and the advantage of time also on his side, to an extent.
Again, I think it’s dangerous to be too reliant on rankings for a dude who hasn’t played competitive football in a year. Particularly one who would be starting behind a mostly retooled OL in the fall. It just all sounds really dodgy to me unless we’re cool with tossing off 2021 as a rebuilding year.
What difference does it make how many stars he was in HS four years ago? Do you still talk about how many stars JOK was rated? I find this to be a genuinely faulty line of reasoning for any player more than a year into his college career.
His mobility looks fine to me. He’s not Book, but he’s also 3 inches taller so perhaps we’ll fare better on offense for all those games when Rees decides to tether his QB within the pocket for no good goddamn reason. When forced to scramble and given some open field, he’s not slow.
Leaving the starting QB job to Buchner, Pyne or some walk-on is akin to saying “I’m cool with losing at least 4 games in 2021”. I think it would be utter insanity to assume that Buchner’s natural talent will be enough to overcome having one season of competitive high school football under his belt, which will have been nearly two years in the rearview.
Frankly, I don’t understand how anyone could take issue with adding a quarterback to the mix who has 18 big-boy college starts and has posted a QB rating that’s basically equivalent to the guy leaving who started for us the past three years. There’s no reasonable defense for it.
Why would Ovie Oghoufo enter the transfer portal? Seems like he’d be poised for a lot of playing time next year.
3 years and he hasn’t played much. Plus I think he’s the same rushing DE position as Foskey and Botelho.
Don’t think it will be a big loss. I’d hope they use Cross or even Mills as the heavy DE more next season if DT’s are running so deep.
I don’t know how many plays he played but the state line for him last year was: The 6-foot-3, 240-pound junior played in 11 games for the Irish in 2020 and recorded 13 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss, 2.5 sacks and recovered one fumble.
That seems like a decent contributor in a backup capacity.
Yeah, not saying it wouldn’t be nice to have him it would for depth purposes and since he’s at least got more experience than most the DE left (which isn’t saying much)..But I’d rather see Foskey and Botelho get the snaps from that position anyways.
right that’s true, though you always need 3 deep on the DL with injuries, etc. Somehow we were pretty lucky with injuries this year. I can’t think of one serious injury this year (O i guess just Patterson). That won’t be repeated.
We also have Nana who is coming off an injury. I was optimistic about his potential coming out of high school so hopefully he can be ready to give meaningful backup snaps next year as well.
It might be a bad sign that we really have not heard Nana’s name mentioned over the past year or so.
I think that Ovie leaving is a significant loss in terms of d-line depth. One of the best parts of the line in recent years is their ability to rotate in fresh bodies — even if Ovie was playing fewer snaps than the two in front of him, he could go all-out on the snaps he played.
That’s what I was thinking, which is a little odd why he’d leave (that is, if he was going to be a contributor).
NaNa is the other position as the strong-side d-end. However, this is a problem since really they only have Justin Ademilola coming back there next year. But Oghoufo wasn’t playing that position anyways, he’s a weak side d-end. Which is why I said for strong side guys, hopefully they can use Howard Cross or Rylie Mills there, especially if the DT has MTA and Hinish back.
Oghoufo is a loss in the sense that a 3rd string DE is gone, but that shouldn’t be the end of the world even with rotation. Just think: Oghoufo was a 3rd string this year, and he didn’t play much. It’ll be the Foskey and Botelho show next year as weak side DE. Would have been with or without Oghoufo, really.
Jack Lamb also to the transfer portal. Which shouldn’t be too much of a loss with all the bodies they have at LB.
It’s very rare but it is possible that a player take their name back out of the transfer portal. I wonder what the stats are on that?
Agree. I think he could have contributed in a rotational arrangement, but there’s also reason to believe that he would be leap-frogged by someone younger like Botelho. Unless Lea was the only reason he was here, his leaving suggests that he wasn’t exactly primed to top the depth chart anytime soon.
Any chance we get in on the
Charleston Rambo sweepstakes? I imagine he’s got some speed we could use.
Name alone we gotta make it happen.
One hope that becoming a legit and solid top 5 program, even if not elite, is that we can start to get a higher quality and number of graduate transfers – which can make it far easier to fill the inevitable hole here or there.
I was super optimistic about transfers at first, but after seeing letdowns like Pryor (seemed like he was hyped as coming in to start or at least be in a 3 man safety rotation) I’m starting to be a little more reserved with my expectations for them. I thought that McCloud and Ben were good contributors this year though
Well I don’t think anyone thought Pryor was going to be a stud just because he was a former high-end recruit.
I also think that we have just now solidified ourselves as this top program being in the playoffs 2 out of the last 3 years.
That’s not showing up in our high school recruiting, but it already arguably has shown up in the grad transfer market. McCloud and Skow were fairly good pickups given their prior production, and Pryor was a VHT-level recruit who could have gone elsewhere. Also Coan was pretty clearly the best QB in the portal at least as of yesterday.
But, that’s the level of player you can typically get there. Not sure Justin Fields is going to happen again any time soon.
Burrow did it too. Miracles do happen, eh?
I don’t know about stud, but I hoped he might deliver meaningful minutes at a position of short-term need and he barely logged a snap back there.
He really seems to go through his progressions well. Book at times struggled with this but made up for it with his legs and overall quick decision making if the first read was available. But, Coan really seems to be able to quickly go from 1st to 2nd read which probably contributes to his high completion %.
I would love to see more play action from the ND offense. We showed all year (other than Clemson #2) that we could run the ball effectively but never seemed to punish opponents for crashing linebackers towards the LOS with play action. It seems this would have helped us get some more vertical passing either up the seams or creating 1 on 1 matchups for our big WR down the field but we rarely took advantage.
I remember watching the Rams on MNF a few weeks ago and even though they aren’t an elite running team they run play action an absurd % of the time and the stats show it is very effective. We need to use being a physical running team to advantage to help our less than elite passing attack.
The numbers show that play action is more successful than not play action, and there actually isn’t any correlation between how good you are at running the ball and how effective your play action game is.
Which makes it even more imperative to add more play action to our offense!
Maybe I missed it, but is he enrolling this spring or will he be joining up in the summer and then officially enrolling in the fall?
I think he’ll be here for spring.
Coan was the best QB recruit available in the portal. I don’t know if he will beat out Buchner or not. He may in September, but lose the job over time. Who knows. He may start the whole year and let Buchner/Pyne learn.
We will have difficulty taking in undergrad recruits and matching up their classes/academic progress, etc. If we think we have difficulty in recruiting out of high school, it is probably worse for undergrad transfers. Alohi Gilman is the exception to the rule, but he came from the Naval Academy. No academic issues there. Thus, the Justin Fields of the world, and unfortunately probably the Charleston Rambos won’t be coming even if they wanted to. I do agree we should try to get him. Our WRs are more inexperienced next year than the ones that returned this year.
You have to assume grad transfers are non-NFL caliber players who perhaps want a chance to show something for the NFL, but are more likely legit players who want to play one more year in a different system or place for whatever reason. They plug a hole. You can’t expect them to be Russell Wilson.
The best you can legitimately expect is Nick McCloud or Bennett Showrenek. I was upset when we took Skowrenek. i thought it would mean no playing time for Austin, Lenzy, Keys, Johnson and Watts. Injuries put him front and center, but I am still disappointed, presumably more talented athletes, didn’t step up and take advantage of those injuries. He did and played well, but his lack of speed at the field WR showed. He should have been backing up McKinley.
Same for McCloud. Even Lea admitted that playing a grad transfer and a freshman at CB meant we had some issues. He was right.
Adding a 19 game starter, whatever his limitations may be, into a QB room that has a grand total of 7 passes thrown, four of them by someone who won’t even be available in the spring, was critical. He is not Ian Book. He will do some things better, some things worse. He is a good add.