Kevin Song In the wake of Nick Saban’s retirement, four names cracked the shortlist for what’s simultaneously the most attractive and most undesirable job in college football. Oregon’s Dan Lanning, Florida State’s Mike Norvell and Washington’s Kalen DeBoer all unsurprisingly made the list as three of the brightest head coaches in the sport.
But one more name remained on the list. A coach with zero head coaching experience, and who, at age 31, would have been the youngest head coach of any Division I FBS team if hired.
That name was Tommy Rees. The same Tommy Rees who was forced to come in and save the day several times during Notre Dame’s undefeated 2012 regular season. The guy who, believe it or not, is third all-time in passing touchdowns and fourth in passing yards in program history. The guy who helped lead Notre Dame to the College Football Playoff in his first year as offensive coordinator and groomed Ian Book into the winningest quarterback in Notre Dame history.
To have this track record at one of the most historic college football programs is undeniably impressive — not to mention he began coaching here at the age of 24. Yet Rees has been at the receiving end of more undeserved hate than anybody I can think of in the Notre Dame football discourse. The way many of us treat Rees is embarrassing to our fanbase. As a player and coach, Rees played a large role in navigating Notre Dame out of the program’s two lowest points in the 2010s.
If you dislike Rees because of his 2012 arrest, then, sure, that’s a valid reason. But, anecdotally speaking, I haven’t heard Rees’ behavior at an off-campus party come up during evaluations of Drew Pyne and Tyler Buchner’s 2022 performance.
If you dislike Rees because he left for Alabama, I have bad news for you. Generally speaking, when someone is offered a job at the most successful organization in its industry, where their mentor is the greatest of all time in their profession, it’s probably a good idea to accept said job. Plus, Rees had already stayed for the first year of Marcus Freeman’s tenure to help steady the ship.
If our fanbase was so willing to embrace Sam Hartman after what was essentially a disappointing one-year contract, it’s hard to comprehend the hatred toward Rees — whom longtime fans watched grow up in front of our eyes. He’s faced some impossibly difficult situations as a player and coach at Notre Dame. Yet he’s owned up to his mistakes and succeeded in almost every situation.
During Rees’ freshman year, he took over midseason after Dayne Crist suffered a season-ending injury against Tulsa. The freshman quarterback took over the reins of a 4-5 team and led the Irish on a four-game winning streak to end the season.
In 2012, the Irish wouldn’t have made the national championship without him. Despite the embarrassment of the suspension and awkwardness of being booed at Notre Dame Stadium during the Purdue game, Rees got the job done then and every other time he was called on.
Given the state of the program after the Charlie Weis era, Rees did an incredible job of ensuring the Irish avoided what could have been a disastrous start to the Brian Kelly era after the Crist injury. Rees finished his career as a starting quarterback with a 23-8 record (.742). For reference, Brady Quinn finished his career with a 29-17 record (.630).
Now let’s switch over to his coaching career at Notre Dame (for the record, we should definitely not consider it complete), which also started under some of the most adverse circumstances of 21st-century Notre Dame football.
Lauren Fritz Following the 4-8 season in 2016, Kelly brought on the 24-year-old Rees as quarterbacks coach. What happened next? The Irish went 10-3 in 2017. Then Book, just a 3-star recruit like Rees, led the Irish to two College Football Playoff appearances in 2018 and 2020. The latter season was Rees’ first year as offensive coordinator. To put this in perspective: In Gerad Parker’s first year as coordinator, Notre Dame lost three games.
You can complain about Rees’ recruiting all you want. But he won more with his quarterbacks than recent Notre Dame coaches did with highly touted signal-callers.
For whatever reason, many Irish fans were eager to show Rees the door when he left for Alabama. If the offense’s performances in big games under Parker didn’t convince you that we took Rees for granted, there’s more. From 2010 to 2016, Notre Dame averaged 29.5 points per game. With Rees on staff from 2017-2022, the Irish averaged 33.8 points per game.
OK, fine, maybe the 4-point increase isn’t convincing for you. Then I’ll leave it at this. The greatest college football coach of all time wanted him as his offensive coordinator. There’s a lot I don’t know. But I do know this: Nick Saban knows more about football than you and I do.
Saban called Rees “one of the best coaches in college football” in an ESPN interview ahead of this year’s playoff. So why aren’t we proud of him? Nobody ever has anything nice to say about a former Notre Dame quarterback who has risen the coaching ranks faster than 99.9% of coaches. He’s been hand-selected by two of the top-five winningest active (until this week) coaches.
But what happens when Alabama botches a snap in the Rose Bowl against Michigan (of all schools)? Notre Dame fans rush to laugh at Rees on social media because his offense came up short on the big stage. Never mind the fact he rescued an offense and led it to an SEC Championship while we Notre Dame fans were stuck watching our rental quarterback stand on the sideline as if he were a celebrity after opting out of the Sun Bowl. Never mind the fact Rees was on the shortlist for the most-coveted job in the sport at age 31.
I don’t care how you feel about Tommy Rees, believe it or not. There’s a lesson here. Our unrealistic expectations for Notre Dame football and knee-jerk reactions prevent us from appreciating what we have. Often we may give up on coaches and players too early. Heck, Troy, a very solid program, thinks Gerad Parker has the chops to be its head coach.
It’s easy to be Hartman and waltz on to campus given the current state of the program. Disappointment looks like a 9-3 season. Genuine embarrassment and humiliation are almost impossible.
Meanwhile, Rees enrolled with a new coach taking over a sputtering program. He thrived after being thrown in midseason as a freshman for a struggling team. Despite humiliation and vitriol from the fanbase, he not only stuck through it and helped lead the team to a BCS Championship appearance but even later returned to play a pivotal role in returning the Irish to national relevance. He refused a chance to follow the coach who hired him to a program with more resources and recent success and instead helped Freeman build his program.
Notre Dame fans love to throw out the term “Notre Dame man” when talking about football players. But that term bears little weight if we can’t reciprocate the effort and respect they pour into our program and University.
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The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
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