Marcus Freeman is not ready to name a starting quarterback just yet.

Wake Forest transfer Sam Hartman had a strong outing during Saturday’s annual Blue-Gold Game. A starter and a standout for the Demon Deacons, Hartman led the Gold team to touchdowns on their first 2 possessions, hit 9 of his first 10 passes, and spread the ball around early and often. When he subbed off the field after a quarter and a half of play, Hartman was sitting on 189 yards passing and 2 touchdowns while completing 13 of his 16 pass attempts.

Asked if Hartman’s play settled things, Freeman told reporters after the game he wants to let things play out.

”No, I think we still have a quarterback battle. You can’t determine a winner or a loser based off one practice, practice 15,” Freeman said. “There’s a lot that goes into a quarterback battle. I know just being out there, we’ve got to go back and watch the film. We’re not blocking the end, there’s some protection issues, we’re dropping balls. We’ve got to go and look, were the routes exactly precise?

“I’m always going to defend the quarterbacks because, as I’ve always said, that position is most like the head coach. They get praise and criticism. Everybody’s going to praise Sam for how we played today, they’re going to criticize Tyler. They both probably played pretty well. I know the stats might not say it. But listen, both of them are tremendously talented. We’ll go back and evaluate all 15 practices and continue to look at it as we move forward.”

The Blue team, led by Tyler Buchner, didn’t score in the 24-0 result. Buchner finished 8-for-18 for 44 yards and an interception. He took 2 sacks as well.

Freeman took the blame for the interception, saying he told Buchner to expect Cover 2 when the defense gave them a different look.

“He’s like, ‘Yeah, you owe me one.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll take responsibility. I’ll tell the media. Don’t worry about it. I got this one.’ So yeah, that was on me,” Freeman said. “Listen, both of those guys have done extremely well.”

Most expect Hartman to emerge from the competition with the starting job. The grad transfer was masterful over his final 2 seasons with Wake, throwing for 7,929 yards and 77 touchdowns while completing 61% of his throws.

“I don’t want to downplay the performance Sam Hartman put on, I just want to make sure that we look at this in a real lens,” said Freeman. “Man, he played well today. He played really well and it’s really good to see. … That’s what I expected. When we went out to look for a transfer portal quarterback, you don’t look for the second, third, fourth (guy). You look for the best player in the country that would fit in your locker room.

“Sam Hartman showed today why he was extremely successful at Wake Forest and I think will be extremely, extremely successful here.”