Notre Dame kicked off their August practice on Friday after a very successful recruiting cycle. For the 2022 Fighting Irish, all eyes are on the quarterback battle.

Head coach Marcus Freeman took the podium following their practice, answering questions about various things. The topic of the quarterback battle between Tyler Buchner and Drew Pyne arose.

While Freeman remained non-committal about who may be ahead in that battle, he did have some interesting comments regarding Buchner. The Notre Dame head coach specifically mentioned how he is coming along as a passer.

“You saw some good things from the offense, some good things from the defense. In terms of Tyler Buchner, you know what? We all know he can run. So it's really good for him to progress in terms of being a passer, staying in the pocket, making good decisions, you know, because it's always easy to take off and run,” Freeman told reporters.

Freeman confirmed the battle for the starting job was between Pyne and Buchner, despite the latter missing the last two practices prior to Friday's session.

“Really, it's a two-quarterback battle right now between Tyler and Drew. I think they all had major strides in the spring. You know, Tyler missed the last two practices, one was being the spring game and the practice before that. But, you know, he got 13 really good practices in, and I thought both of those guys had extremely good spring,” Freeman told reporters.

Buchner joined Notre Dame in 2021 as a four-star recruit, per 247Sports. He made 10 appearances his freshman year, racking up six touchdowns in total and racking up 634 total yards. 336 of those yards came through 46 carries, an average of 7.3 yards per carry.

The Fighting Irish will look for their dual-threat signal-caller to improve in the passing game this upcoming season.