Notre Dame Football About to Become the Everett Golson vs. Malik Zaire Show

The old axiom that unequivocally states that having two quarterbacks essentially means you have none never envisioned having Everett Golson and Malik Zaire on the same depth chart. 

And as Notre Dame opened spring practice early Wednesday morning, fans and media members took their first look at Golson and Zaire, rebooting a position battle that will be one of the most high-profile quarterback races in the country. 

It's hard to reach any conclusions after scouring YouTube for clips of drills performed in shorts and helmets. But you can't blame fans for getting a little crazy about one of the most important decisions atop coach Brian Kelly's spring objectives. 

On Tuesday, Kelly met with the media to answer questions about his team. It was no surprise that the first two questions he answered were about "the quarterback situation," and it was an even smaller surprise when Kelly remained non-committal about the position. 

"I really don't know," Kelly said when asked about the position battle. "I think it's going to take us some time to get a feel for how this competition is going to go."

What Notre Dame's head coach is doing makes sense—especially as the offense infuses ideas from former Boise State offensive coordinator Mike Sanford, brought to South Bend to shake things up and solve the turnover bug that has plagued the Irish offense since Kelly came to town. 

In 2012, the Irish rode an offense equipped with training wheels to the national title game. Going vanilla, a young Golson played facilitator, handing the ball to Theo Riddick and Cierre Wood while looking to All-American tight end Tyler Eifert in single coverage.

Last year, Kelly opened things up for Golson...and the Irish proceeded to turn the ball over 26 times, finishing 101st in the country. The same thing happened in 2011 when the Irish tried to run Kelly's idealized spread.

So even with an early-season highlight reel that had Golson among the country's finest playmakers, coughing up the football at the rate Golson did put his starting job in question moving into his final season of collegiate eligibility. 

Enter Sanford.

An outsider on a staff that's long involved coaches with years of connectivity to the Irish head coach, the 33-year-old assistant's job this spring is to bring uniformity to a quarterback position that's long looked like a grab bag.

"I want to see a consistency and attention to detail more than anything else. Eradicate any of the gray area as it relates to the fundamentals of the quarterback position," Kelly said Wednesday. "We're not going to open it up to interpretation. ... There's no misunderstanding about what's being taught, how it's being taught or what's expected." 

Those expectations have those who watch Notre Dame football already handicapping the race for the starting job against Texas. But those actually in charge in South Bend have done the opposite. 

When pressed for specifics, Kelly did his best to remove any assumptions—especially when it came to the future of Golson, who has a transfer and immediate eligibility available to him after he graduates this May. 

"The only thing that I've ever said to Everett is that you have to come in here and compete for the starting quarterback position," Kelly said. "He has bought in 100 percent to competing for the quarterback position here at Notre Dame. ... His actions, what he's communicated to me, verbally communicated to me, he's 100 percent committed to competing for the quarterback job here at Notre Dame." 

As we saw from Zaire in his gutty effort against LSU, a competitive nature flows through his veins. Now it's up to the young quarterback to treat this spring like the bowl game, taking his passion from the playing field back to practice. 

With 14 practices left in spring and only limited windows of viewing to peek inside the race, expect every statement to be parsed for meaning and every rep shared on social media to be evaluated. 

Today, Golson ran with the first team. Come Friday? Who knows.

Let the (spring practice) games begin. 

*Unless otherwise noted, all quotes obtained firsthand.