NOTRE DAME -- Notre Dame fans can only hope Evan Sharpley's calls at the line of scrimmage come across as clearly as his sarcasm does.

"Oh, so now you want to talk to me," Sharpley said to reporters upon walking into the football auditorium this week.

It's true that Sharpley's number hasn't been called by the media much this season, but there usually isn't a need to speak to the third-string quarterback -- even one with as compelling a story as Sharpley. But now that Dayne Crist is out for the season, Sharpley is Notre Dame's backup and is one Jimmy Clausen turf-toe tweak away from being the only healthy scholarship quarterback on the roster.

So Sharpley's value has increased dramatically in the past few days -- not just to the media, but to the Irish.

"Instead of being the second-most important person on the team, which is the third-string quarterback, I'm now the most important person on the team because I'm the backup quarterback," Sharpley said. "That's always how I've looked at it. You're one play away, and you have to always be prepared. You're not going to get the same amount of reps as the starting quarterback, so you have to be that much more prepared mentally so that it takes over physically."

Up until this week, Sharpley had been running the scout team in practice. He hadn't even played in a game this season until Crist tore his anterior cruciate ligament during last week's game against Washington State, but he finished up the victory over the Cougars without throwing a pass. Now, Sharpley is taking snaps with the first team in practice and is in every offensive meeting.

To make those meetings, he has to cut out a little early from his job at South Bend Adams High School, where he's been teaching government and geography as the last step toward earning his teaching certificate. Sharpley said his students have been trying to figure out how to get him some playing time -- and he's not even dangling extra credit as an incentive for the support.

"Each week, it's like, 'Can we sign a petition to send to Coach Weis so you can play? What can we do to get you on the field?'" Sharpley said. "They're all great kids."

Sharpley, who turned 23 on Wednesday, calls student teaching "a good base for what I want to do in the future," but he's also pursuing another profession. He was a 50th-round pick of the Seattle Mariners in the June Major League Baseball draft and enjoyed a strong 37-game run on Seattle's Arizona League rookie team, hitting .333 with seven home runs and 29 RBIs.

With all that going for him, it was a bit of a surprise when Irish coach Charlie Weis talked Sharpley into coming back to Notre Dame this fall for his fifth season on the football team. It was a good thing he accepted Weis' offer, because the injuries to Clausen and Crist have, in baseball terms, put Sharpley on deck.