There aren’t many scenarios where fans don’t overreact to spring games. Writers are guilty, too.

College football has the longest, most insufferable offseason of any major American sport, and one offshoot of that misery is the tendency to overreact to the few morsels and crumbs spring football feeds us. That’s why when you read a column about a breakout receiver or lockdown cornerback in spring practice, it’s typically wise to take it only slightly more seriously than the message board genius who assures you this is the year the ACC gets 2 teams into the College Football Playoff.

That framing seems important for this column, because I am here to assure you it is OK to overreact to what you saw Saturday in South Bend. In fact, if you are a Notre Dame fan and don’t overreact, you are either still grappling with a decade of Alabama 42, Notre Dame 14 trauma or you just want to see the world burn, and either outcome is unfortunate.

Instead of angst and trauma, I’m here to tell you that while caution to spring game reactions is typically admirable, Notre Dame’s spring game offered genuine, none-of-it-was-a-fluke hope. We aren’t talking “quality season” hope, either. We’re talking New Year’s 6 and College Football Playoff hope, in the form of golden-dome helmeted, golden-armed Sam Hartman.

Hartman’s first performance at Notre Dame Stadium was a masterpiece, a 13-of-16 for 189 yards and 2 touchdowns and a rushing touchdown exclamation point that should end all debate over who QB 1 is in South Bend.

Best of all? This wasn’t expected. Tyler Buchner, who started the Fighting Irish’s Gator Bowl win over South Carolina, battled Hartman toe-t0-toe all spring, a development that was equally concerning and encouraging, depending on what way you view a half-full, half-empty glass.

The battle was so even all spring that Notre Dame’s head coach, Marcus Freeman, told the media repeatedly last week he didn’t expect to name a starting quarterback until the end of fall camp.  Freeman may keep that promise, but he doesn’t need to anymore.  And when it was over, Freeman tried to tap the brakes, doing the usually wise work of avoiding an overreaction to one spring game performance.

“You can’t determine a winner or a loser based off one practice, practice 15,” Freeman said. “You can’t base a decision off what we view as a certain outcome. There’s a lot that goes into it. There’s a lot that goes into a quarterback battle and a quarterback play.

“I don’t want to downplay the performance Sam Hartman put on, either. I just want to make sure that you look at this in a real lens. He played well today. He played really well, and it was really good to see.”

Freeman can say that, but anyone who watched Saturday knows what they saw with their own eyes.

This is Sam Hartman’s football team, and the ceiling is the Basilica of the Sacred Heart roof.

Hartman’s Gold team defeated Tyler Buchner’s Blue 24-0, and for the first time since Hartman announced his transfer from Wake Forest to South Bend in January, the ACC’s all-time leading passer looked like a guy with 110 career touchdown passes and a plethora of successful seasons.

Buchner looked confused and miserable, averaging just 2.5 yards per completion on 18 attempts, getting sacked twice, and tossing 2 interceptions. Hartman piled up the yardage and first downs, looking like he had been throwing to Jaden Greathouse (11 receptions for 118 yards) for multiple seasons, not just a few weeks, and guiding Notre Dame to multiple scoring opportunities and perfectly complementing the 1-2 punch of Gi’Bran Payne and Sam Assaf at running back, who combined for 95 yards on 25 carries.

This performance had been coming. When the Fighting Irish opened up practice April 1, Hartman struggled to pick up Notre Dame’s hyper-aggressive blitz packages and Buchner, accustomed to Al Golden’s scheme, surged ahead. But Hartman rallied and was heads and shoulders better not just Saturday, but in a closed doors scrimmage the weekend prior, when he scored the game-winning touchdown and tossed an inch-perfect bomb touchdown to Jayden Thomas.

Buchner says he plans to stick around South Bend, starter or no, a true luxury in the transfer portal era. But the reality for this Notre Dame team, the one taking the field against Navy in September, is that they’ll travel as far as Hartman and a salty defense take them. Freeman knows that, and he looked like a relieved man discussing his transfer prize Saturday evening.

“When we went out to look for a transfer portal quarterback, you don’t look for the second, third, fourth, you look for the best player in the country who would fit in your locker room,” Freeman said. “Sam Hartman showed today why he was extremely successful at Wake Forest and I think he’ll be extremely successful here.”

Hartman hasn’t failed in any season, even last year, when his start was slowed by a health condition that caused him to miss practice not only in the fall, but throughout the regular season as well. Often, Hartman would start games for the Demon Deacons having only a handful of full speed practice reps under his belt, all out of caution. Even with those limitations, Hartman threw for 3,701 yards and 38 touchdowns and posted a career-high 159 quarterback rating. When he finally did practice full time, he lit up Missouri in the Gasparilla Bowl, schooling one of the SEC’s better defenses for 280 yards and 3 touchdowns in a 27-17 Wake Forest win.

Hartman gives Notre Dame what is has lacked since at least the Ian Book era, but perhaps longer: a difference-making quarterback who can go win a game, not just manage it for a terrific Notre Dame defense. That’s a ceiling raising proposition for Notre Dame, a program that more than anyone in the sport has felt, with 63 wins in the past 6 seasons, like they are just one ceiling raiser from rejoining the national elite.

That reality is why Saturday felt less like a spring game and more like a roof-raising signal of intent.

Sam Hartman is QB 1 at Notre Dame, and the Fighting Irish are College Football Playoff contenders because of it.