Notre Dame quarterback battle will heat up says new Offensive Coordinator

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Chuck Martin coach with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish

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Chuck Martin, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish’s new Offensive Coordinator, believes the spring practice could find the team their quarterback whether it’s freshman sensation Gunner Kiel or not.

When asked if he’d like to know, clearly, who was the team’s number one after the spring practice he told ESPN.

"I think you'd love to have one," said Martin. "Is it realistic? I don't know. I just think it will play out in the spring. Maybe somebody takes it and runs with it and just comes into their own and they've played themself ahead of the other group. If it's not that, they're gonna work hard this summer with our strength staff. They'll throw it around on their own this summer and then you still got a long evaluation period in the fall.

"So for me it's not, it would be awesome if we did have a clear-cut starter but it's not, 'Oh my goodness we don't have a starter.' It won't be a big deal to me, and I don't think it would be a big deal to Coach [Brian] Kelly. We've been doing this long enough. You can name your starter before the first game, the day before the first game and it can be fine. He can go and win the Heisman Trophy. There's no magical answer. It's not when you have to name a starting quarterback."

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Previously Martin was Notre Dame’s safeties coach. He is now charged with sorting out the puzzle of Tommy Rees and Andrew Hendrix and the promising new players Everett Golson and Gunner Kiel.

Head coach Brian Kelly said “I think it's pretty obvious we've got four quarterbacks that all can compete at the BCS level…Those are what our meetings are about right now, to be quite frank with you. What do you guys do after signing day? Well the question that you just asked, that's what we're posing in the staff meeting room. So we're designing a plan to go out and attack that. I think as we get closer to spring ball we'll probably have a better answer for you as it relates to specifically how we're gonna go about and do that."

Kelly said that the offense is not where he would like it to be, two years into his time at Notre Dame but it’s hoped that Martin can bring the department up to speed.

Martin says the priority is figuring out where each quarterback is physically and mentally before finding out who stands out from the pack.

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