BLUE AND GOLD GAME:Speed, versatility key to quarterback's game
By NOAH AMSTADTER
Sports Editor
By NOAH AMSTADTER
Sports Editor
Kevin Rogers said it best.
"The day and age of the immobile quarterback, the guy with cement shoes on, is gone,'' the Irish offensive coordinator said after a recent practice. The message is clear. No longer will the Irish stand for an immobile thrower. The future leaders in the Irish backfield will look more like Michael Vick than Ron Powlus.
Enter Carlyle Holiday.
The rising sophomore quarterback can throw, as he showed during his senior year at San Antonio's Roosevelt High School, passing for 719 yards.
"We tried to have the ball in his hands as much as we could," said Holiday's high school coach, Glen Hill. "We didn't have the receivers that I'm sure he has there but he was able to get the ball there regardless."
But Holiday's arm is only one of many aspects to his game. Ranked 48th on the Chicago Sun-Times list of the top 100 players in the country, Holiday totaled 876 yards and scored 13 touchdowns on the ground in 1999. And his skills extended beyond the gridiron.
Irish head coach Bob Davie loves to talk about Holiday's athleticism, and with good reason. A four sport letter-winner, the 6-foot-2 guard was a four-year starter on Roosevelt's basketball team, finishing with more than 1,000 career points. He also competed in track and field and baseball, clearing 6-6 in the high jump and starting in center field his senior year. Holiday also excelled in the 110-meter hurdles during his two years on the track squad.
Today, the 19-year old focuses on his goal of gaining playing time in the three-headed monster that is the Irish quarterback position this spring. But he still finds time to show off an on-court talent that led schools such as Oregon and Wake Forest to recruit Holiday as a basketball player.
A member of Diaper Dandies, along with teammates Abram Elam and Jerome Collins, Holiday's Bookstore Basketball team has advanced to the final field of 16 teams in the tournament.
"I've never really seen anything like it," Holiday said of the 30th annual Bookstore tournament. "The people go out there and play hard no matter what, whatever skill level they are and just try to win. It's really competitive."
So is the quarterback position.
Coming to play
After his stellar senior season, Holiday was a hot commodity in recruiting circles. After talking to a variety of schools — including Texas A& M,where his older brother Terrell Haynes played in the late 1990's — he narrowed his choices down to Nebraska and Notre Dame.
Although Nebraska had only Eric Crouch at quarterback and an offense that seemed more suited to his skills, Holiday chose to spend his college years in South Bend.
"I always wanted to come to Notre Dame and be a quarterback really," Holiday said. "Nebraska's a great program but I just felt this was the place for me really. Everybody wants to come here. It's basically been a dream of mine."
When he arrived in the fall, it soon became apparent that there was much to learn. In high school, Holiday was allowed to roam free and use his athletic ability to take his team into the end zone. The focus was on results and athleticism, rather than teaching skills.
"My high school offense really was based on mostly on athletic ability," Holiday said. "We didn't work on the fundamentals of being a quarterback really."
As a result, Holiday's throwing abilities were behind the other quarterbacks. While his arm was strong, he struggled to get in position to make the pass. With the Rogers' help, that ability is now harnessed."
"There was a lot of mechanical work," Holiday said. "Coach Rogers has helped me significantly on that. I've got a quicker release now."
After Notre Dame's overtime loss to Nebraska, team doctors discovered starting quarterback Arnaz Battle sustained a broken wrist and would likely miss the remainder of the season. Gary Godsey started the next two games, but it was soon obvious that the Irish offense could not function without a mobile quarterback.
But rather than putting in Holiday, considered the best athlete out of a group of three freshman quarterbacks that also includes Matt LoVecchio and Jared Clark, the coaching staff chose to go with LoVecchio, who seemed to grasp the offense quicker. Holiday explains that the quick change in the quarterback depth chart proved detrimental.
"I didn't get that many reps because of the quarterback situation," he said. "I played on scout team a couple of times so I wasn't able to learn what the offense was doing on some weeks. When I'd get in there some weeks they'd already be ahead."
LoVecchio started the remaining eight games on the Irish schedule, and while Holiday was considered the first quarterback available off of the bench during many of those games, Davie kept him off the field to preserve a fifth year of eligibility.
It was the first season in more than 10 years that Holiday watched from the sideline.
Rising up
While most players from Texas get chills just thinking about the unseasonably cold South Bend weather, Holiday's childhood helped him prepare for his college years. With his father in the military, he spent his grammar school years living in Alaska.
"It was nice. It was cold but it was nice," Holiday said. "It was a great experience to go through really, just to say you were up there."
What Holiday didn't expect coming to Notre Dame was the amount of walking he would have to do. He was assigned to Carroll Hall, a small dorm roughly 10 minutes walking distance from the center of campus and nearly a mile away from the athletic facilities.
"It's a cool hall but it's not cool when you've got to come all the way across campus to go to practice or something like that," Holiday said. "I say they need to supply us with trollies or something. If you have a bike or a car it's cool. But I love it out there, the guys out there are cool."
It was as a youngster on that military base in Alaska that Holiday first set his hands on a football. Even at age 8, everybody knew that he had the skills and leadership qualities to play quarterback.
"That was something I wanted to do," Holiday said. "I had the ability to do it and everybody had faith in me to do that job."
He also had some heroes to look up to. Although Holiday grew up idolizing NFL star Randall Cunningham, he had the opportunity to watch his older brothers star on their high school teams. Anthony Holiday is now a running back at Sam Houston State, while Haynes played the same position for Texas A&M.
"I really liked to watch my older brothers play," Holiday said. "They were great athletes. Anybody who just excels at what they do I like to watch."
While many focused on his athletic accomplishments, the place where Holiday felt he needed to excel most was in the classroom. In high school, he was a member of the National Honor society as well as taking part in a group that worked with the local city council.
"We went to all their meetings and we partnered up with a commissioner. There were about 11 of us and 11 of them. We just partnered up and saw what they did, what it was like to run a city. It was fun."
Holiday came to Notre Dame intending to major in computer engineering, but like many intended engineers, changed his mind and switched to the College of Business Administration, where he intends to major in marketing or finance.
Still, Holiday contends that academics were one of the deciding factors in his decision to choose Notre Dame.
"Without that I wouldn't even be here right now," he said. "That was the first thing that I concentrated on in high school. That got me here. That's what I really like about me — my academic accomplishments before my football accomplishments."
Friends, not foes
This spring, the Irish coaching staff decided to give each quarterback an equal amount of repetitions in practice and let them battle for the starting spot. With Battle moved to flanker and Godsey now at tight end, only the three freshman compete only with each other for playing time.
In fact, Davie has suggested a situation in which two, or possibly all three, will take snaps at critical moments during the season.
"We're going to have to use two in a game," Davie said. "There's too much ability at that position to say, OK, this guy's the quarterback and that's it. I could almost go out on a limb here in April and say you're going to see two quarterbacks playing; you may see three."
Such a platoon system is just fine for Holiday. "It's OK with me," he said. "If it does happen you've just got to get in there and do whatever you can. Some people run it. It's worked and it hasn't worked. It's up to Coach Davie really."
While the coaches still say the position is wide open, Holiday concedes that it is unlikely either he or Clark will wrestle the starting spot away from LoVecchio.
"Matt's played eight games," Holiday said. "He has a lot of experience and he's a smart kid. It'd be hard to say somebody could take his spot right then. You've just to go out and compete and try to get whatever you can."
Holiday now feels more comfortable playing the offense with the first team, as a result of his increased reps in practice.
"Now this spring we're getting the same amount of reps," Holiday said. "I'm learning a lot more, I'm starting to pick things up a lot faster."
His only struggle so far is maintaining the same level of play day-in and day-out. In a scrimmage earlier this spring, he completed only one pass, fumbled a snap and was "touch sacked" twice. He did, however, have two rushes for more than 10 yards.
"My thing right now is that I need to develop a little bit of consistency," Holiday said. "It's been up and down in the spring. I just need to go out and keep competing and when the game comes up try to do what I can.
Despite the battle for playing time, the three freshman quarterbacks remain close friends off the field.
"We're friends," Holiday said. "We talk about each other in a good way. It's a competitive thing at the quarterback situation right now. It's a friendly thing, it's a friendly competition really. We just chill and when football's here we do that but when it's over, we just hang out."
While Holiday looks forward to the chance to impress coaches in Saturday's Blue-Gold game, he is most excited about playing in front of a cheering crowd once again, an experience he missed for the first time in over 10 years last season.
"I'm looking forward to playing in front of fans, really," he said. "It's been a long time."
All Sports Stories for Friday, April 27, 2001
