Before Notre Dame’s Week 5 matchup against UNC, College GameDay dedicated a section of the show to discuss Marcus Freeman’s signal-caller. The segment cost Pat McAfee some money after he challenged the QB’s arm. At the same time, Kirk Herbstreit highlighted the strong performance of the Heisman contender.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
“Notre Dame QB CJ Carr is getting his reps in,” Herbstriet posted on X on October 3. Herbstreit’s post included a video of his discussion with Carr on College GameDay.
“Congrats on everything you’re accomplishing here in South Bend and being a leader for this team,” Herbstriet said. “Now look at yourself with all those reps, all those game reps.”
CJ Carr looks like a completely different quarterback this season. During the 2025 campaign, the QB took some time getting used to life as a starter at South Bend. He had a few challenging games, especially at the start of the season against Texas A&M and Miami. Carr struggled under pressure and had issues dealing with disguised coverages.
Still, the numbers weren’t bad. Carr threw for 2,741 yards and 24 touchdowns on 66.6% efficiency. As usual, Marcus Freeman’s offense was led by its run game on the shoulders of two first-round RBs in Jeremiah Love and Jadarian Price.
Notre Dame couldn’t make it to the playoffs, and we never got to see Carr play in the postseason. However, the QB started making noise even before the fall camp. Analysts loved his throws at the Manning Passing Academy. Now, Herbstriet thinks that “CJ is the real deal.”
Carr also seems much more confident in himself now. “I think it’s just a little different, Year 2, understanding what it takes week in and week out,” Carr said when Herbstriet asked about how he feels about this season.
“There are no surprises this year. You’ve been through it. You’ve gone through the away games. You played noon games. You played night games. You played in big games. You know, so I’ve been through a lot of different experiences throughout the last year.”
As the Fighting Irish maintain a perfect 4-0 record, Carr has also posted a decent game log. Over his 4 games of the 2026 season, he has thrown for 963 yards, 9 touchdowns, and 1 interception. He has maintained a 70.5% completion rate across these games.
While we’ll see how he plays against UNC, he did stand up to the bet that was put in front of him by Pat McAfee on College GameDay. McAfee had a simple challenge for Carr: Hit the crossbar, and he would donate $250,000 to any NGO of Carr’s choice.
Having accepted the challenge, Carr hit a beautiful crossbar on the ‘T’ of the goalpost. Even McAfee was impressed with the development of the second-year starter.
“I don’t know if they end up winning, but I do know this: the quarterback, for another game, not only did he do something special today whenever he gets across, but his development since the first time we saw him last year until now is something special,” McAfee said.