Hello All, diehard Irish fan here. Steve Angeli will forever hold a place in our hearts after his heroics in the Orange Bowl, so came over to learn more about the situation he is going to. After reading some comments, thought I'd share some perspective.
Angeli has looked solid every time he's come on the field. Good command of the offense, quite accurate, and by all accounts he's a strong leader. I'd say the thing he needs to work on the most is pocket presence, which isn't unusual for quarterbacks without a ton of live game action.
As far as the situation he's leaving, CJ Carr is the most talented qb recruit ND has had since Jimmy Clausen, and by all accounts he looked terrific this spring. He made some throws in the spring game that were "wow" type throws that we haven't seen in awhile. There is a segment of the ND fanbase that is upset Steve isn't starting at Miami in our opener because it's a big ask of a qb with literally no game experience to start there week 1, but Freeman has always leaned towards talent over experience.
There is zero doubt in my mind that Steve would've been the backup this season if the current version of the transfer portal didn't exist. Our third qb, Minchey, is an athletic, high ceiling redshirt freshman that we didn't want to lose from the program, and if Steve was named the backup (if he was even willing to stick around for that), Minchey would've for sure left. And then you would've still had teams in Angeli's ear and risked losing both backup qbs, so it was too risky to do that.
I'm happy for Steve that he'll be in ND Stadium on Senior Day still. The dude truly loved ND and stuck around to battle for the qb spot when most players nowadays would've transferred out in the Fall portal. I wish him well.