There had been rumblings over the latter half of the season that Chip Long’s three-year tenure as Notre Dame offensive coordinator might be coming to an end. On Wednesday, in a series of escalating reports, it was announced that Long and the Irish were parting ways. Over the last week there was some thinking that Long would find a soft landing at one of the various jobs he had ties to (Florida State offensive coordinator, Auburn offensive coordinator, Memphis head coach) but when nothing materialized it seems like the situation became untenable. This is not ideal just before early signing day, but from all reports it wasn’t a decision Brian Kelly could put off much longer for the sake of the locker room.
I think Long did mostly good work as an offensive coordinator, particularly when you consider what he was working with at quarterback (a fast guy who wasn’t accurate and a former three-star recruit), skill talent (good but not overwhelming) and offensive line (an NFL exodus of its best players and coach followed by a number of injuries, including two straight years watching a captain go down). I also think that for much of the tenure Long lacked creativity in the run game, although we started to see it down the stretch in November, and he struggled against the best defenses (this is usually what happens but it was particularly stark for the Irish). I imagine having Clark Lea as the defensive counterpart — a great deal of success with a calmer demeanor — did not help morale in the offensive locker room.
While there are many interesting candidates (check out
this list from our friend Jamie Uyeyama), the guy I obviously want to be the next offensive coordinator at Notre Dame is Tommy Rees. (
This is also a good list.) My case is as follows:
1) You can’t swing a stick at the NFL or college coaching ranks without running into some young gun offensive mind doing good work. Joe Brady is 30 and just won the Broyles. Kellen Moore is 31 and the Cowboys offensive coordinator. Former Notre Dame QB coach Matt LaFleur is 40 and head coach of the 10-3 Packers. Age is but a number, Rees has been around the game his entire life and this could absolutely work out. It would also help with consistency, particular if Ian Book comes back for a fifth year.
2) Narratively, it would be awesome. I don’t think there would be much middle ground in results, so the people already complaining about this possibility will either get to crow that they were right in their doom and gloom or they’ll get to enjoy the ride as Rees drives the offense to unparalleled heights.
One thing I need to be better about overall in my life is not coming to positions just because they’re opposite the people I loathe and find to almost always be wrong but boy howdy the people who are already negative about a potential Rees promotion are really making me feel like this is going to work out just because their Take Success Rate is staggeringly low. We shall see.
You would think at this point we college football fans would learn to have some humility in their proclamations about who will or will not work as an assistant coach, but we have not yet reached that point. (The last time Notre Dame promoted a position coach with no play calling experience to be coordinator
it worked out pretty well, if I recall.) “Go get somebody like Clemson did!” Oh, you mean promoting the running back and wide receiver coaches, neither with any playcalling experience, to be co-offensive coordinators when Chad Morris departed? Ohio State hired a guy whose previous stops had been an NFL QB coach and offensive coordinator at Boston College. Oklahoma hired a guy from East Carolina. (Those two are both head coaches for playoff teams, by the way, joining a defensive line and wide receivers coach who had the interim labels taken off them to complete the field of four. Even the head coaching hires are crapshoots.)
Rees might work or he might not work. A more established name could come in and fail. (What’s Matt Canada up to these days?) The game moves quickly and I believe Kelly either surging to a strong finish to his Notre Dame tenure or falling apart at the end because of Tommy Goddamn Rees is how this story has to conclude. This is a much better way to go out over getting some retread who just got fired from a head coaching gig, promoting a Group of 5 guy or poaching a Big 12 assistant because there are no guarantees regardless of the choice made. I am crossing my fingers and praying we start to get word that Rees has been more involved with playcalling and gameplanning since the Virginia Tech game, but at the very least Kelly publicly gave Rees and Book credit for changing up the practices.
My hope: Rees is named interim offensive coordinator and then after the bowl — where the Irish put up 50 because they’re so happy to be playing for their beloved Tommy — Kelly gathers everyone in the locker room and rips up a piece of paper that has “INTERIM” written on it before embracing the quarterback that salvaged not one or two or three but four separate seasons over the course of his playing career. Maybe
some Phantom Planet plays. Who knows.
I am really not interested in hearing any anti-Rees arguments, but if you have other interesting candidates, I’d be happy to take a look so please shoot those over.
Despite the above fantasy, scoring 50 on Iowa State might be a little bit difficult. The Cyclones come in with a 7-5 record but they’re better than that mark and this is going to be a really fun and tough match up. On offense, Iowa State quarterback Brock Purdy loves to chuck it to the tune of 313 yards per game, 27 touchdowns, nine picks and a 66 percent completion rate. This will be the best passing offense the Irish have faced since the Trojans came to town and I’m really excited to see how the back end of the defense holds up while a rested and hopefully healthy defensive line tries to get to the quarterback while not overlooking a sturdy running game.
The challenge on offense will be to run against a three-man front that loves to drop a lot of linebackers and take away the pass. This will be interesting for whomever is calling plays and Book, who should have a lot of time to work but might not have free rein to just take off for 15 yards when the opportunity and/or fancy strikes him. One thing to note is while this team is exceptionally well coached and was a few plays from 10-2 — there’s a mirror universe where Iowa State had Baylor’s season and vice-versa, with the sliding doors moment the fourth quarter of their 23-21 game in Waco — it doesn’t have the talent of Notre Dame*, so it’s an opportunity for Chase Claypool** to shine one last time in blue and gold while Cole Kmet, Braden Lenzy and perhaps a couple of the running backs show us what we have to look forward to next year.***
* In the 247 Talent Composite, Notre Dame is 14th and Iowa State is at 56th.
** From all reports, everyone is still playing. With over two weeks until kickoff, that could obviously change.
*** We won’t know Kmet’s official decision until next month. Please come back?
Judging from their social media and reports on ticket sales, Iowa State fans are thrilled about this game, and I imagine that will filter its way to the team. Notre Dame has played exceptional football for a month but now they need to absorb a coordinator change (this might not be a bad thing if reports are accurate), a long break and the fact they’re not playing in a New Years Six game after going 10-2 to match that enthusiasm in a game where Vegas set the opening spread at just a field goal and change. This is a tough situation for the Irish: If they win, they’ll have defeated a 7-6 Iowa State team and won’t get any credit. If they lose, fans are going to moan about it all offseason. (With the playoffs starting literally after the Camping World Bowl ends, I don’t think the greater college football world is going to care too much either way.) Sometimes you just have to go 11-2 and celebrate that achievement even if nobody else notices.
Iowa State is a good team and Matt Campbell is a good coach but Notre Dame is better and they should win this. Will it be annoying and a bummer if they drop this game? Yes. Will I be delighted if they win for the sixth straight time and move to 5-4 in bowls under Kelly? Also yes. Honestly, as long as Book plays well and announces he’s coming back for a fifth year, I don’t really think a loss will have much effect on 2020 prospects, but I much prefer victory to defeat so let’s go with the former.
For those who are worried about either the bowl placement or bowl opponent, both are results of a funky year. On bowl placement, it’s true that when Notre Dame doesn’t have ten-plus wins, the ACC options are pretty middling. The Irish were fortunate to get into the Citrus two years ago and lucked into getting a Leonard Fournette-powered LSU team in the Music City. The rest of the ACC options, beyond getting to play in the final Belk Bowl against a fun Kentucky team, are not great.
But Notre Dame falling out of the New Years Six despite ten wins was due to a weird, top-heavy year in college football. If you think the committee had some sort of bias against the Irish for how the Clemson game went, then you’d also have to accept they have a bias against Alabama, a team that played in five straight playoffs and won two of them, as their reward for going 10-2 is getting Michigan in the Citrus. Utah went 11-2 and they fell out to face a 7-5 Texas team. 10-2 Minnesota is down in the Outback Bowl against 9-3 Auburn. (For comparison’s sake, LSU and Florida both made NY6 games last year even though they were 9-3.) How did we run into this situation?
1) It’s tough in years where the Fiesta and Peach host the semifinals because all four bids for those games are at-large, versus the Rose, Sugar and Orange which all have specific conference tie-ins. There is just more flexibility in dealmaking and scheduling in the other two years of the semifinal cycle. (The Sugar Bowl losing its at-large spot is the single worst thing to come from the move from the BCS to the NY6. Please make the playoff next year so we can go to New Orleans or Pasadena.)
2) The middle class of college football did not rise up this year. Consider that in the Big Ten, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan, Penn State, Minnesota and Iowa did not lose any games against teams outside of that sextet save for Wisconsin’s loss at Illinois. Sparty and the Hoosiers and the Huskers and Pat Fitzgerald’s awful Northwestern team let us down. Similar deal in the SEC: LSU, Alabama, Florida, Auburn and Georgia went undefeated against teams outside that group save for Georgia’s loss to South Carolina. Too many closed circles.
So, I don’t think there’s any grand conspiracy against the Irish from the committee and any problems they had could have been solved by the one easy trick of Not Losing To Michigan By 31. Independence is still great, the ACC deal is still a giant net benefit even though Virginia gets to go to the Orange Bowl and I have little doubt Notre Dame will still make the playoff any time they go 12-0. Bowl placement won’t be a problem next year if they can put a dent in the Wisconsin/Clemson/USC portion of the schedule. If they don’t, we get what we deserve.
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