Week 12 is here, and Jon Gruden has officially stamped Marcus Freeman’s young starter as the next star to watch. The quarterback who opened the season fighting to find his rhythm is now being talked about as a future No. 1 overall pick and even a perfect Heisman candidate.

CJ Carr has exploded into national relevance, helping Notre Dame climb to No. 9 in the College Football Playoff rankings. “It’s the film. When you watch it, you see a guy making every throw; they can really push the ball down the field. I think I see more and more command at the line of scrimmage. This guy looks like a sure-fire number one pick in the draft and a Heisman Trophy candidate for the next couple of years,” Barstool Sports’ Jon Gruden said.

Carr’s production backs every word of it. Through Week 11, he has completed 152 of 225 passes for 2,275 yards, 19 touchdowns, and just four interceptions, adding two more scores on the ground. His playmaking is the biggest reason Notre Dame sits firmly in the playoff picture.

Despite completing 13 of 16 passes for 218 yards and three touchdowns, Carr’s Heisman odds plummeted from +6000 to +20000. But the analysts aren’t buying the dip. ESPN’s Dan Wetzel and Dan Orlovsky both project Carr as a future first-rounder, and he’s already a Davey O’Brien Award semifinalist. And Gruden has receipts for why he’s so bullish.

CJ Carr has been beyond impressive this season even after Notre Dame lost their first two games of the season.

Carr ranks 25th nationally in completion percentage (67.6%) and sits at no. 17 nationally with 19 passing touchdowns, trailing national leader Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza, who’s 26th right now. For a first-year starter, that’s a top-tier company. He also ranks at No. 3 in the country with a 176.8 passer efficiency rating and ranks No. 22 in yards per game at 252.78.

But he is not immune to mistakes yet. After creating an optimistic passing attack for Notre Dame this season, he fell hard against USC. He completed 16 of 26 passes for 136 yards with one interception and a touchdown, and ran the ball five times for -7 yards with a score. Now, heading into their game against Pitt, which has the third-ranked rushing defense in the NCAA, the pressure falls right on Carr’s arms.

But despite that, Freeman is pretty sure that Carr will read through them. “I think teams at the end of the day are still saying we can’t allow Notre Dame to run the football because that’s detrimental, right? And that’s where CJ’s got to continuously be good at recognizing what the defense is telling you,” Freeman says. “And he’s doing an amazing job at that. It just goes to the preparation.” It will be interesting to see if Carr can live up to this early Heisman and draft pick buzz because NFL legend Tom Brady is already betting on him.

CJ Carr already has Tom Brady’s vote of confidence

The Las Vegas Raiders face another offseason of QB uncertainty after not getting anywhere with Geno Smith. Now, Tom Brady and his staff are continuously looking for a better guy after pushing hard to land Matthew Stafford, which didn’t turn out positive for them.

Now, while he is already in search of a QB next year, Tom Brady has one name fixed on his mind for 2027, and that’s CJ Carr. “CJ Carr looks like the best quarterback I have seen at the college level since Joe [Burrow] was at LSU…He knows the game, and he can make every throw necessary.”

What’s interesting is that both of them share a deep bond, as CJ Carr is the grandson of former Michigan HC Lloyd Carr, who coached both Tom Brady and current Raiders GM John Spytek during their time in Ann Arbor. Let’s wait and see if Carr actually picks the Raiders to be his final destination.