Tommy Rees - Offensive Coordinator

HouseofPain

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Giddyup said:
When I first came to this site I thought I was in bizzaro world with how many people hate Tommy here. Nice to see people start to come around on him.

Too bad Saban knew what I knew. Tommy is elite
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Hard disagree. When you run an offense where maybe ONE of NDs starters would start on (ALT), it isnt really hard to be successful. Rees showed how good he was when the talent was better but not hugely better while at ND. Comparing two kids in the sandbox when one kid has all the toys vs a kid with a plastic shovel and bucket isnt really fair or accurate.
 
Old Man Mike

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As far as the Buchner in high school thing which keeps coming up: In my opinion, if you give Buchner a situation where he really doesn't have any real time opposition to worry about, and can throw but mainly just blitz past you with lightning speed, then he looks better than ANYONE. So you take him vs McCarthy (and get screwed but understandably so.) Then he shows up at Notre Dame and in practice wows almost everybody. On the field: Catastrophe. Down to Alabama he goes. In practice: Wow. On the field: Catastrophe. I don't see blaming ANY coaching staff when it comes to an enigma like Buchner. (and it's nothing to blame HIM about either --- he just cannot function consistently in real time high pressure situations, and you don't find that out until it's too late.) And, as a coach who is then "stuck" with him, and sees that WOW in practice, you hope, and you hope, and you hope that this phenomenon will one day wake up and blitz the world. I feel genuinely bad for this young fellow ... but wouldn't touch him with a 100 yard stick to be my QB.
 
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Bama starts the season looking like like a clueless offense and ND starts the season firing on all cylinders.

Now watch a game and assess.

Coaching matters, and I'm not overly high on Rees yet although I see improvements year over year. I just didn't like him taking the job far far before he was ready at ND.
 
BeauBenken

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IrishLax said:
Biggest mistake Rees ever made was taking Buchner over McCarthy after evaluating both in person. I think he was a bad recruiter/talent evaluator but a very good OC in many different respects.
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A bit slow to figure out his offense's strengths. Seems to have been the case this year at Bama as well but now that it's late season he has them rolling.
 
NDPhilly

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Rees did an awesome job with Pyne late last year. Guy were often wide open. He had no fuckin idea what to do with Buchner in the early part of the season.
 
Luckylucci

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Rees and, likely, BK were also able to figure out, eventually, what to do with Coan. He struggled quite a bit at times during the early part of the season. Multiple benchings. His lack of mobility in and out of the pocket became apparent. So, they started to get the ball out quicker. Second half of the season he took off. Culminating an an absolute undressing of Okie State's highly rated defense in the first half of a NY6 bowl game.

Good coaches should be improving the product on the field as the season progresses. Bad coaches don't. We have bad coach/es leading the offense. Whoever that might be.
 
NDWarrior

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QB is about so much more than the measurables, ability to tuck and sprint, and their HS glory days and Tommy had a challenge in analyzing that in most of his early time with ND. Top QBs all look largely the same in HS but it's the mental part of the game and composure in the pocket and under pressure that are so important IMO. We could see right away that Trevor Lawrence had that and we saw it very clearly in Joe Burrow and Bryce Young. Many QBs just don't have that and live off their potential as evidenced by their measures and HS glory but once they're up against top CFB teams where the field is full of top players (and many in their face), that's where the difference comes out. For the ones that don't have it - Jurkovec, Buchner, Allar, etc. - It pretty quickly becomes evident and they peter out. Jurkovec rode it out longer but man did he have his down days and challenges, and now is even trying out as a TE. I really believed all along that Buchner wasn't going to do anything special at 'bama -- You can see he just doesn't have the composure and isn't suddenly about to develop it. Enough said... BTW, I think our current roster of QBs look like they have it - Angeli, Minchey and Carr. And now it will just be a matter of who puts it all together best.
 
stlnd01

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NDWarrior said:
QB is about so much more than the measurables, ability to tuck and sprint, and their HS glory days and Tommy had a challenge in analyzing that in most of his early time with ND. Top QBs all look largely the same in HS but it's the mental part of the game and composure in the pocket and under pressure that are so important IMO. We could see right away that Trevor Lawrence had that and we saw it very clearly in Joe Burrow and Bryce Young. Many QBs just don't have that and live off their potential as evidenced by their measures and HS glory but once they're up against top CFB teams where the field is full of top players (and many in their face), that's where the difference comes out. For the ones that don't have it - Jurkovec, Buchner, Allar, etc. - It pretty quickly becomes evident and they peter out. Jurkovec rode it out longer but man did he have his down days and challenges, and now is even trying out as a TE. I really believed all along that Buchner wasn't going to do anything special at 'bama -- You can see he just doesn't have the composure and isn't suddenly about to develop it. Enough said... BTW, I think our current roster of QBs look like they have it - Angeli, Minchey and Carr. And now it will just be a matter of who puts it all together best.
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To be fair Rees was the definition of all this as a player. And he analyzed his way into turning Book - similar - into a very very good college quarterback. But yes he missed some evals as a recruiter.
 
Irish#1

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Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it.
 
HouseofPain

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I think recruiting as a whole just hit the fan. With the ability to hit the portal unlimited times for any reason a player can dream of just ruined CFB. Classes mean nothing if a kid can jump because they arent getting immediate PT and see PT available at other schools, dont like their position coach, % of runs vs play calls or just a juicer NIL paycheck.
 
Veritate Duce Progredi

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Irishman77 said:
LOL. What’s your next excuse for Tommy boy?
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Irishman77 said:
This didn’t age well. Accept reality.
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Every thought you have doesn't age well because it isn't linked to reality. Occasionally you are lucky because even bad calls can turn true. Broken clock and all that. Tommy might've just schemed Bama's way to the CFP.
 
Old Man Mike

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On Tommy and Milroe, yeh, funny comment ... but Tommy is trying to beat the bad habits out of a VERY young inexperienced kid who has been so ubertalented that he wants to make the BIG play every time. Tommy's getting there with him. Milroe settled down on this in the second half.
 
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phork said:
Can we bring Tommy back? Why can't we have nice things.
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It doesn't matter unless Saban is coming too. Lots of assistant coaches have been successful at Bama in the sense that they were coaches when Bama won a title.
 
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greyhammer90

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MacIrish75 said:
Golic family taking passive-aggressive shots on Twitter lol.
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I hate this so much. Two things can be true:

1) Tommy is a a great (occasionally brilliant) play caller and a budding excellent OC, and

2) Tommy was consistently in charge of the weakest part of our team (the Offense) when he was in charge here, a lot of that weakness was because of the mediocrity of his QB room (which he largely handpicked and/or recruited).

He faced some message board criticism from the fans when his offense stalled out against Marshall and Stanford last year. Oh the horror. Meanwhile the University gave him every opportunity it could have, and was still working to put him in a position foe success. Remember, he left us to make a lateral move for another blue blood that his offense couldn't beat in the playoffs. Despite what would typically be seen as a betrayal, the fanbase opinion on him is largely positive with a good portion of us toasting his success. I really hope Tommy has a better opinion of ND fans than his friends, because I really don't know what more he could have realistically wanted in his time here.
 
Bishop2b5

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Old Man Mike said:
Tommy called a great game. Even Danielson was impressed several times.
(and if Milroe really was a good passer, who took the checkdown regularly, this would have been easy.)
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Tommy has gotten better as the season went on. He's improved about as much as he's helped Milroe improve. I thought he called a great game tonight too. He's definitely stepped it up and become more confident as an OC since September.
 
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