No. 1 Hurricanes tasked with stopping Notre Dame’s ‘top-shelf’ QB C.J. Carr
· Yahoo Sports
CORAL GABLES — The No. 1 Hurricanes’ pass defense has been the team’s biggest weakness this season — especially in their close road win over North Carolina on Saturday. The secondary will not get a reprieve this week, either.
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Miami’s defense will be tasked with stopping No. 4 Notre Dame’s star quarterback, C.J. Carr, who has been one of the nation’s best signal-callers this year.
“He’s as good as any player in the game,” Miami coach Mario Cristobal said on WQAM’s “The Joe Rose Show” on Monday morning. “… He is very poised. He’s incredibly athletic, accurate, can extend plays. He’s a top-shelf, NFL-draft-pick quarterback.”
In his second year as Notre Dame’s starter, Carr is completing 66.7% of his passes. He has 18 touchdowns and only one interception.
Pro Football Focus gives Carr an 87.7 passing grade, which ranks 10th nationally among quarterbacks with 200 or more dropbacks.
The Hurricanes have struggled in coverage this season. The Hurricanes rank 122nd nationally in pass defense, allowing 251.9 yards per game. They will need to improve in a hurry, as Carr poses the toughest challenge the defense will face during the regular season.
Miami defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman said Carr does many things pre-snap that can make life difficult for opposing defenses.
“He’s up there, he’s trying to undress the defense,” Hetherman said. “He wants you to tip your shell. He wants you to tip your blitz. He wants you to tip your coverage. I think they do a lot of hard-count stuff — situations where I think they’ll go faster to try to figure out what we’re lined up in or try to figure out where we’re at. But I just think he understands the game. He understands the shell. He knows where to go with the ball.”
Hetherman said Carr is good at misdirecting defenses and finding the open receiver.
“He knows when his first read is not there, where he’s going second,” Hetherman said. “He does a really good job of looking things off of his eyes.”
Carr’s first career start came against Miami in the Hurricanes’ season-opening victory last season. Cristobal said it was clear even in that game that the Notre Dame quarterback was a high-level player. Carr finished that game with 19 completions on 30 attempts for 221 yards and two scores. He threw one interception.
“Right away, you saw in that game that he was on his way to being an elite player,” Crisotbal said, “and by the second half, he was doing elite things. So he’s a guy that has continued to develop as a passer, as a runner. A guy that has complete control of the offense, very accurate, gets them in the right place, understands where pressure is coming from, understands where he’s protected, where he’s not protected, gets them in the right run-game stuff, extends plays, hurts you with his feet. And he’s become the complete quarterback and arguably one of the best players in college football.