KENNESAW, Ga. — Teddy Jarrard, future Notre Dame quarterback, devoted all of Monday morning to English because he was running a little behind.
Working in the home his family is renting on the northwest side of Atlanta, Jarrard read “To Kill a Mockingbird” for a third time, once for each stop of his high school career. He spent two years at tiny North Cobb Christian running the Air Raid, then leveled up to North Cobb as a junior, directing a run-pass option scheme at a public school roughly five times bigger. Now, Jarrard is condensing his final two semesters of high school into one, taking only online courses to satisfy Notre Dame’s admissions department and enroll in college a full year early.
By late May, Jarrard expects to finish this heavy lift, putting the 6-foot-4, 210-pound four-star prospect in position to begin another. To assist him in the goal of becoming the direct successor to CJ Carr as Notre Dame’s starting quarterback, Jarrard joins morning Zoom meetings with position coach Gino Guidugli three times a week. He takes Notre Dame’s strength plan and follows it at a local Crunch Fitness. Jarrard doesn’t have actual classmates alongside him as he analyzes the Harper Lee classic for a third time, but he has golden retriever puppy Goose and black lab Izzee close by.
“Online is a lot easier because you have a lot of resources. The hardest part is you don’t really have a teacher, so you’ve got to teach yourself,” Jarrard said. “It’s been pretty straightforward, maybe it’s a little boring at some of the points.”
The Jarrards have been thinking ahead since Teddy was in eighth grade, starting in high school for the first time as a member of the junior varsity team. Around that time, Teddy started training with Ron Veal, who counts Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields as clients, and harbored dreams of college football.
For how deliberate the Jarrard family has been with their oldest son’s football career, reclassification still feels like a throw of the dice. The first coach to mention it during the recruiting process was Indiana’s Curt Cignetti, followed by Ohio State’s Ryan Day. Notre Dame didn’t bring it up until November, when head coach Marcus Freeman explained during a campus visit that the Irish needed Jarrard sooner rather than later. Jarrard had already been committed to Notre Dame for almost four months.
Fields, Quinn Ewers, Julian Lewis and JT Daniels are among the high-profile high school quarterbacks to reclassify in pursuit of reaching college early. Miami receiver Malachi Toney did it last year, starring in the College Football Playoff as an 18-year-old. However, no player has tried it before at Notre Dame, although Carr briefly considered it.
Instead of going into the portal this winter to find quarterback depth behind Carr, Notre Dame will add Jarrard to the 2026 mix with freshman Noah Grubbs and sophomore Blake Hebert. Jarrard expects to compete for the backup job this fall, but the real battle will begin almost a year from now when, if all goes to plan, Carr heads to the NFL after another strong season. Jarrard is banking on it. And Notre Dame is insuring itself against it.
“It’s a gamble,” said mother Georgia Jarrard. “If CJ doesn’t leave early, you probably don’t have to do it. There’s risk on our side.”
Still, Notre Dame’s next quarterback seems at ease with the wager. A tragedy within his extended family before he started high school helped Jarrard appreciate the rarity of this opportunity — and that every step along the way counts.
Doing something that’s never been done at Notre Dame also has a way of releasing the pressure because it’s impossible to know whether you’re taking the right path when no one has walked it before.
“I’m not gonna be ready, even when I go,” Jarrard said. “Everything has been sped up academically and process-wise. I’m just gonna get thrown in there and figure it out.”
In the Notre Dame football offices last summer, Jarrard stood with Freeman and snapped the picture every recruit takes with the head coach. For Jarrard, the moment was also a nod home to his uncle and aunt, Cory and Courtney Phillips.
The gray T-shirt Jarrard wore — “Love” spelled out in blue block letters, with the continent of Africa replacing the second letter — was a favorite of Jarrard’s cousin Walker Phillips, who died in a house fire four years ago at the age of 10. Cory and Courtney Phillips were traveling out-of-state at the time of the fire and called Georgia, who drove the hour between their families’ homes in the middle of the night. The Phillipses’ older children, Aiden and Cannon, survived.
“It opened all of our eyes to, life is short. Take advantage of it,” Jarrard said. “It changed the trajectory of where I was headed.”
Ever since, Jarrard has worn No. 2, the number Walker wore while playing football, basketball, baseball and basically any sport that came with a jersey, plus golf and gymnastics.
The “Love” shirts came from a foundation called Live2540 in Cartersville, Ga., that provides 26 meals to families in Liberia for each shirt sold. Courtney said that for his present every Christmas, Walker would pick a color and his parents would buy “50 to 100” shirts. In Walker’s memory, the foundation dedicated the Walker Phillips Critical Care Malnutrition Ward at the Jesus Loves Me Children Center in Bong County, Liberia, to help families get medical care.
“He made such an impact,” Courtney said. “Hundreds of people have had their journeys changed by my 10-year old boy.”
Three months after the fire, the Phillipses moved to Kennesaw to try to restart their lives. A month later, the Jarrards bought a home nearby, putting Jarrard on the track that would take him to North Cobb Christian and North Cobb.
Walker’s death is a permanent part of the family story, but the Phillipses didn’t want their nephew to carry it as a burden. Even with their connections at Georgia — Cory played quarterback for the Bulldogs from 1999 to 2002 and Courtney was a gymnast in Athens — there was no push for Jarrard to become a Bulldog. After Teddy committed to the Irish, the Jarrard family got a message from Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo to “Go kick ass at Notre Dame.”
Jarrard welcomes the chance to bring Walker’s story to Notre Dame, though he has already looked through the roster and knows he probably won’t get No. 2. While the Phillipses loved Jarrard’s tribute to Walker, they didn’t want him to feel an obligation to carry the number forward.
“I’ve told Teddy from the beginning, don’t feel like you need to wear No. 2,” Courtney said. “This is your story. It was never something he needed to do for us. It is a heavy weight.”
The quarterback just doesn’t consider it one.
“He doesn’t get to play football anymore, and I’m out on this field. So take advantage of this opportunity,” Jarrard said. “Walker opened all our eyes to that and showed us to enjoy the moment.”
Between throws, Jarrard kept blowing into his fists, trying to get the blood moving. The temperature at Lost Mountain Park outside Atlanta was 37 degrees, with a wind chill of 25 that overpowered his white long-sleeve T-shirt, black sweats and Nike ski cap. At Notre Dame, this kind of workout would move inside the Irish Athletics Center. For now, Jarrard threw on a vacant field next to an empty playground.
“This is awesome. This is great,” Jarrard said, without sarcasm. “You have to like it. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t.”
Jarrard and Veal work for an hour, getting in 75 throws ranging from quick game to RPO to classic play-action. Jarrard gets the ball out quickly, whether it’s firing into the flat or ripping a deep crosser at 30 yards.
Only a few balls sail. The deep crosser is tricky. Jarrard adjusts his stance and shoulders to try to get more air under the throw. Everything else hits Veal in his gloves. It’s part of the reason Veal endorses Jarrard’s decision to reclassify and believes the quarterback will be ready to compete this summer.
“If you can get early development and you maximize your junior year, then your senior year isn’t gonna offer you as much as you think,” Veal said. “I’d rather go to college, learn the program, learn how college works.
“I think (reclassifying) is a plus for certain guys. Not everybody. But guys like him, I think it’s good for him.”
Veal helped develop Justin Fields, who reclassified before enrolling at Georgia and transferring to Ohio State a year later. That worked out. Veal also worked with Julian Lewis, who reclassified before heading to Colorado, where he took over the starting job last November. That’s trending well.
Jarrard’s situation is different. Notre Dame doesn’t want him to play, just to be ready when the job does open. Jarrard will trade playing for a state championship contender for sitting at a national title favorite. His lone season at North Cobb was uneven, which makes sense considering the one-year project. In a second-round playoff loss, Jarrard threw for just 113 yards, with half of his dozen completions on jet passes that felt like handoffs.
Jarrard’s photo still hangs in the hallway outside the coaches’ office at North Cobb, and his brother Gunner will be a sophomore tight end on the team. The North Cobb coaches understand what Jarrard is chasing at Notre Dame, though they built this season’s schedule thinking he’d still be on the roster and had to take a late transfer to replace him.
“I think the more reps and experience you get, the better off someone is,” said North Cobb offensive coordinator Tyler Queen. “And selfishly, obviously, I want him here. You can tell that a kid’s a Saturday player, potentially a Sunday player, when they make the hard throws look easy, and that’s what he does.”
Even if the North Cobb experience didn’t go perfectly, Jarrard learned how to win over a locker room on short notice. By midseason, he started to take more command of the offense. Being more vocal remains a growth area. Now Jarrard can take notes on how Carr does it.
“Just trying to get in the room and learn as much as I possibly can from him because I know it’s probably going to be his last year there,” Jarrard said. “I can go in now, have a year under my belt, and then compete for the starting job, rather than going in and trying to beat out a dude that’s been there for a year and a half.”
As the Lost Mountain Park session ended, Jarrard wanted to rip a few more deep crossing routes. He knows Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock likes to push the ball vertically, so he might as well tune that part of his game now.
“That feeling of throwing a perfect pass, I love chasing that feeling,” Jarrard said. “Maybe one or two felt that way today. You can’t ever be perfect, but some days will be better than others.”
Georgia and Jerry Jarrard will drop Teddy off in South Bend during the first week of June. They may need a moment to process how their oldest son became a potential starting quarterback at Notre Dame.
They’ve lived in three houses, sent Jarrard to three middle schools and two high schools. When they wanted to transfer Jarrard to North Cobb for his junior year to play better competition, the family moved out of the home they owned — almost across the street from the Phillipses — to rent one with a district address. Officials from the Georgia High School Association visited the family in Kennesaw to ensure the move was legitimate.
“I see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Georgia said. “We always tell the kids, if this is something you want, we’re gonna do everything we can to help you get there. Then it’s up to you.
“Some people think we’re nuts. Are you kidding? You’re moving? You’re renting houses?”
If this is what it takes to get Jarrard to Notre Dame, so be it.
When quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli first visited Jarrard last winter, he asked him to remember three formations from Notre Dame’s playbook, then told Jarrard to teach him North Cobb’s offense, then had Jarrard learn a play from Notre Dame’s offense. Then Guidugli asked Jarrard to recite those three formations from the start of the meeting.
“I got all of them right somehow,” Jarrard said.
It could feel like Jarrard is overthinking all this, playing the odds of Notre Dame’s quarterback job opening versus skipping his senior season of high school and leaving home behind. Except that’s not how Jarrard sees it at all.
His family has been grounded by tragedy. They’ve also seen how far their son can take this.
During the family’s first visit to Notre Dame last June, Georgia and her two sons toured on a cold, drizzling day. Their Uber dropped them in the wrong place. The campus felt empty, except for a few professors and a couple of angry swans that charged the family by the lakes. For Georgia, none of this felt like the fun of back home. For Teddy, that might have been the point.
“I think a lot of campuses are similar, more modern. Notre Dame is an older style,” Jarrard said. “The counselors are very strict. They get after you. That’s a big difference from a lot of places.
“Me moving around in high school has helped me make a better decision. I went to the best program last year and it didn’t really work out. I wanted to be at a place where I fit into the culture.”
Three weeks after that visit, Notre Dame offered. One month later, Jarrard accepted.
There was no time to waste.
“We have a different perspective on life now. You don’t know how many days you’ve got here, make the most of them,” Georgia said. “Teddy’s just meant to carve out his own path.”
