FSU football: Brian Kelly announces QB Jack Coan will start against FSU

FSU football will host Notre Dame in their season opener on September 5. One of the biggest question marks for Notre Dame has an answer, as head coach Brian Kelly announced Jack Coan will start at quarterback against the Noles.

It’s not a surprise as most pegged the Wisconsin transfer as the starter once he arrived on campus in the spring.

Kelly announced the news after one week of fall camp. Jack Coan will replace Notre Dame’s all-time winningest quarterback, Ian Book.

Book was a fourth-round selection of the New Orleans Saints in the 2021 NFL Draft.

Jack Coan was the backup quarterback behind Wisconsin starter Alex Hornibrook. The latter should ring a bell for FSU football fans as Hornibrook transferred to FSU in 2019 to play for Willie Taggart.

What does Coan bring to the table for Notre Dame? Well, he’ll be playing behind a new offensive line and is a pocket passer.

Coan passed for 2,727 yards while completing 69.2 percent of his passes. He threw 18 touchdowns and had five interceptions. One thing of note, opposing defenses sacked him 29 times while at Wisconsin (9.7 percent of pass plays).

Coan averaged 7.5 yards per attempt while at Wisconsin. I think Coan is a solid player who can make some plays.

Wisconsin threw the ball on first down 54 percent of the time and tried to avoid putting Coan in obvious passing down situations. He completed 68.5 percent of those passes, and 38 percent of his passing yards were on first down.

He wasn’t terrible on third and seven yards, completing an average of 70 percent of his passes. However, he only converted those third downs at a 31.9 percent clip.

The key for FSU football will be to stop the run and put Coan in obvious passing situations. If they can do that and limit the passes underneath, they might find some success in slowing down the Notre Dame offense.