Everett Golson and Malik Zaire: Breaking Down Notre Dame's QB Situation

Not long after Notre Dame football officially announced it would battle LSU in the Music City Bowl on December 30, Irish head coach Brian Kelly said, “There’s competition at all positions.”

But the focus is certainly on the quarterback situation involving Everett Golson and Malik Zaire.

The ensuing competition is a certainty, something that wasn’t the case during the regular season when Golson was the clear-cut starter and Zaire was the etched-in-stone backup.

Beyond the confirmed competition, however, just what shape the quarterback competition will take is unclear, based on Kelly’s comments on Sunday.

“I think we have to, obviously, go into practice with a mindset of getting Everett and Malik both an opportunity to show what they’re made of and how they’re going to compete and allow us the opportunity for them to both grow but, at the same time, see what competition looks like from that standpoint of true competition,” Kelly told reporters.

As Kelly said, there wasn’t a “competitive situation” during the season. Now?

“We’re going to let them compete, and we’ll see where that puts us come game time.”

Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

Notre Dame effectively has “another spring ball” to prepare for the future, starting with the bowl matchup against LSU.

The Irish will hold eight total practices before heading to Nashville, where there will be another five formal sessions—not to mention the other training. However, the timeframe to resolve the quarterback quandary is unclear.

“It may be eight practices. It may be a year,” Kelly said. “But I’m going to have to see what I need to see from both of them.”

Kelly said Sunday he had already had conversations with both Golson and Zaire, and he’ll now pay close attention to their work in practice.

“It will be when I see what I see will be the duration of that competition,” Kelly said.

So what is Kelly hoping to see? For Golson, it seems pretty obvious. Clean up the turnovers, which plagued the quarterback through the final nine games of the season. Golson tossed 14 interceptions and lost eight fumbles (with Notre Dame recovering four others this year) in the last nine games.

"

Everett Golson is responsible for 22 turnovers this year. 85 FBS teams have 21 or fewer turnovers.

— JJ Stankevitz (@JJStankevitz) November 30, 2014"

Of course, Golson’s problems weren’t limited to just turnovers, though better ball security would assuredly solve the bulk of his—and Notre Dame’s offensive—issues.

After completing 25 consecutive passes against Syracuse in the fourth game of the season, Golson only connected on 55.5 percent of his passes in the next eight games, a rate that would have slotted him 90th among 100 qualifying quarterbacks in the FBS, according to cfbstats.com.

Zaire, meanwhile, stepped in during the first half against USC in the regular-season finale over Thanksgiving weekend and went 9-of-20 for 170 yards and a rushing touchdown.

Kelly is looking for more consistency from Zaire in practice.

Julio Cortez/Associated Press

“He has a tendency to fall off his throws a little bit,” Kelly said. “I think we saw that in his game performance. Made some really good throws, but has a tendency to lose his balance in his throws a little bit. Be more in balance on throws.”

Kelly said he’s pleased with Zaire’s handle of the running game, praising his communicative ability with the offensive line.

But whether Zaire or Golson grabs hold of the quarterback job heading into the bowl game doesn’t necessarily finalize the situation moving forward. Asked if the winner of this competition has a leg up going to the spring, Kelly said he is not sure.

“I think it really just depends on upon the factors of what improvements are made, what the attitude is,” Kelly said. “All those things come into play. There’s some things that have to change at that position.

“So we’re going to have to see how quickly they are, if we’re on the right track, if we’re making progress there. That could be an extension into the spring. I really think it’s just a matter of we’re going to have to take it really step by step.”

Those steps start with the bowl preparation and could continue through the spring, summer and fall, for all we know.

“The best I can give you is there’s a way I want that position to operate, and it’s going to operate the way I want it to operate," he said. "If you operate it the way I want it done, you’ll be the starting quarterback at Notre Dame.”

All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Mike Monaco is a lead Notre Dame writer for Bleacher Report. Follow @MikeMonaco_ on Twitter.