Tommy Rees - Offensive Coordinator

[Free Manera]

I agree that it’s not the end all be all, but you did just name a second round draft pick and the all time winningest QB in ND history

4th round, 133rd overall. But yeah, Book was a good college quarterback no doubt. Just good though. He was similar to Coan in that he could destroy lesser teams but legit defenses shut him down.

I am optimistic about Buchner though. I think if he played his final year of high school rather than have someone ruin his throwing motion, he could have taken the reins this year. Hopefully with a full year of all the coaching attention on him, he can get it figured out.

 

[IrishRazor82]

The Badgers were laughing at us while Mertz was one of the 40 worst QBs in the nation? Dude, just stop...

Yeah. And Coan couldn't beat out Mertz. That should tell you something...

 

[Dale]

Yeah. And Coan couldn't beat out Mertz. That should tell you something...

That’s not accurate and this has been gone over a million times.

 

[Irish4life]

Yeah. And Coan couldn't beat out Mertz. That should tell you something...

Tells you that Paul Chryst is an idiot lol

 

[lcaps20]

4th round, 133rd overall. But yeah, Book was a good college quarterback no doubt. Just good though. He was similar to Coan in that he could destroy lesser teams but legit defenses shut him down.

I am optimistic about Buchner though. I think if he played his final year of high school rather than have someone ruin his throwing motion, he could have taken the reins this year. Hopefully with a full year of all the coaching attention on him, he can get it figured out.

Did a poor job breaking up my thoughts but second round pick was referring to Kizer. Either way agree on being optimistic about Buchner

 

[Free Manera]

Did a poor job breaking up my thoughts but second round pick was referring to Kizer. Either way agree on being optimistic about Buchner

Ahh my bad. If Kizer and Book could have been combined in a lab, then we would be talkin about a championship QB.

 

[IrishRazor82]

That’s not accurate and this has been gone over a million times.

Per?

 

[Some Irish Bloke]

Jack Coan threw for 500 yards and 5 TDs against the best defense ND faced the entire season. He was the best option at QB. Still hilarious to me how many people are down on Buchner.

I think what it really comes down to is that people need to manage their expectations better when it comes to high profile recruits. Doesn't matter how many starts are next to a players name or their rating, they're still an 18-19 year old kid entering the college ranks. That's a steep hill to climb. They have to learn how to balance their time on and off the field, learn the playbook, build rapport with teammates all while competing against guys who have been around a lot longer.

BK and co. didn't accept Coan as a transfer because they were "down" on Buchner or Pyne. They accepted a transfer because it gave them an experienced option at the position. One thing ratings and starts don't account for is collegiate experience, period, and Coan showed us why he was valuable in the second half of the season.

 

[Irish4life]

I think what it really comes down to is that people need to manage their expectations better when it comes to high profile recruits. Doesn't matter how many starts are next to a players name or their rating, they're still an 18-19 year old kid entering the college ranks. That's a steep hill to climb. They have to learn how to balance their time on and off the field, learn the playbook, build rapport with teammates all while competing against guys who have been around a lot longer.

BK and co. didn't accept Coan as a transfer because they were "down" on Buchner or Pyne. They accepted a transfer because it gave them an experienced option at the position. One thing ratings and starts don't account for is collegiate experience, period, and Coan showed us why he was valuable in the second half of the season.

Yes I know why they took Coan. Talking about the attitude towards him from a decent portion of the ND fanbase.

 

[GowerND11]

Yeah. And Coan couldn't beat out Mertz. That should tell you something...

He got injured... But tell me how you're holding this line when Coan easily had a much better year than Mertz. I'll wait.

 

[IrishRazor82]

He got injured... But tell me how you're holding this line when Coan easily had a much better year than Mertz. I'll wait.

Coan had a way better team around him. And Mertz's year wasn't better, Coan's was. They're both well below what's needed to compete though.

You cannot think Coan wasn't really good, and you cannot have serious questions about Buchner's future on this site. Both were/are/will be great.

Got it.

 

[GowerND11]

Coan had a way better team around him. And Mertz's year wasn't better, Coan's was. They're both well below what's needed to compete though.

You cannot think Coan wasn't really good, and you cannot have serious questions about Buchner's future on this site. Both were/are/will be great.

Got it.

Fuck dude you just troll... Do you get off on it?

Coan had a Top-30 year. Is that good enough? No, but that isn't at all what you argued by saying Wisconsin was laughing at us. I'm sure many of them would have rather seen Coan starting for them than Mertz.

Buchner was a freshman who just wasn't ready to be the starting QB. That's ok. Can we question if he is the future we all want? Absolutely. That, again, doesn't dismiss the fact that Coan had a good (not great) year during what was always supposed to be a rebuilding year. A year in which we still managed to go 11-2, and really should have won the Fiesta Bowl, through no fault of Jack Coan.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

You cannot think Coan wasn't really good, and you cannot have serious questions about Buchner's future on this site. Both were/are/will be great.

Got it.

Spare me the Sea Turtle impression. You're a pessimistic guy who likes to drop hot takes without any sort of analysis behind it.

"Coan wasn't really good" is a stupid f*cking opinion, and you will rightly get push back on that.

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/PFF_College/status/1485009380776939521[/TWEET]

Was he good enough to win a championship for ND? Not with our rebuilt OL and weak WR room this year. But I'm confident: (1) that he's at least as good as Stetson Bennett; and (2) that we aren't 11-1 this year without him.

Your "serious questions about Buchner's future" are also without basis. No one knows what we'll get from him next year. Most QBs bust in CFB, even highly rated ones. It's a shame we haven't recruited the position better and that so much is riding on him, but most programs would happily trade QB rooms with us. There's no reason to think Buchner is more likely to bust than any other highly rated 4-star QB recruit.

 

[IrishLax]

Per?

It's not really "per" anyone, it's just a fact. They competed, Coan won the job. Then Coan got hurt and missed a year, and then he transferred to ND. There was never a competition between Mertz and Coan that Coan lost, but there was one between Coan and Mertz that Mertz lost.

Could Mertz have beat out Coan this past year had he stayed at Wisconsin? Sure, but we'll never know because that competition didn't happen. He transferred to ND as soon as he was healthy and spent the spring competing for the ND starting job.

 

[ACamp1900]

You're a pessimistic guy who likes to drop hot takes without any sort of analysis behind it.

Seriously, we have enough of this shit on this site as is it already,………….

 

[ndfi78]

Razor is entering trolling territory.

Entering? Has been there the whole time. Cannot wait for ignore to be back.

 

[Free Manera]

The most recent Irish Illustrated podcast talks about the QB situation in some depth around the 21:00 mark. The initial question was about Phil but then the followup is about QB recruiting. The cliffs are basically:

- ND would have been in a much better situation if Jurkovec stayed. They all believe Jurkovec would have started and been better than Coan last year, if he stayed. Blamed his 2021 performance on injury. It would have drastically changed the QB room because of the potential upside (his mobility).

- It is fair to start being critical of QB recruiting. Taking Pyne and Clark back to back should never happen at ND. "That's tough." Needed to do better with one of them. Then having Angeli be the 4th guy, is just not good enough. There should be another Buchner level recruit on the roster right now which would change the perspective immensely.

 

[IrishLion]

The Badgers were laughing at us all year wondering how ND's QB situation is so bad that Coan got to play.

Not to make this a "pile on IrishRazor82" session, but this from early in this debate stood out...

Absolutely nobody in Wiscy's fanbase was laughing at ND. Most of their fans that had anything to say at all about 'Mertz vs Coan' were saying things along the lines of, "welp, our coaching staff would have ruined either QB." And plenty of Wiscy fans that I saw WERE saying that Wiscy kept the wrong guy.

PFF might have Coan rated too highly, or at least might be giving him too much credit for beating up on bad defenses... but don't try to be disingenuous with certain parts of your argument to try and reinforce your point, because Mertz wasn't even very good against the bad defenses he played.

 

[Irish4life]

The most recent Irish Illustrated podcast talks about the QB situation in some depth around the 21:00 mark. The initial question was about Phil but then the followup is about QB recruiting. The cliffs are basically:

- ND would have been in a much better situation if Jurkovec stayed. They all believe Jurkovec would have started and been better than Coan last year, if he stayed. Blamed his 2021 performance on injury. It would have drastically changed the QB room because of the potential upside (his mobility).

- It is fair to start being critical of QB recruiting. Taking Pyne and Clark back to back should never happen at ND. "That's tough." Needed to do better with one of them. Then having Angeli be the 4th guy, is just not good enough. There should be another Buchner level recruit on the roster right now which would change the perspective immensely.

Tommy needs to get a top target this year. No ifs, ands, or buts.

 

[IrishLax]

The most recent Irish Illustrated podcast talks about the QB situation in some depth around the 21:00 mark. The initial question was about Phil but then the followup is about QB recruiting. The cliffs are basically:

- ND would have been in a much better situation if Jurkovec stayed. They all believe Jurkovec would have started and been better than Coan last year, if he stayed. Blamed his 2021 performance on injury. It would have drastically changed the QB room because of the potential upside (his mobility).

- It is fair to start being critical of QB recruiting. Taking Pyne and Clark back to back should never happen at ND. "That's tough." Needed to do better with one of them. Then having Angeli be the 4th guy, is just not good enough. There should be another Buchner level recruit on the roster right now which would change the perspective immensely.

It's tough because QB is the one churn and burn position for every team. Something like 70% of four and five star QBs transfer. If you look at just the 95+ rating dudes over the cycles where ND took Pyne and Clark, there are only three players that truly panned out for the school that recruited them:
-Bryce Young
-CJ Stroud
-Sam Howell

Every other player was either a transfer, bust, or hasn't played. 13 total elite recruits with less than a 25% hit rate. That's why you need to be grabbing a top guy every cycle OR working hard to land a proven transfer. ND isn't really doing either, and hasn't for a decade+ at this point.

 

[anarin]

Entering? Has been there the whole time. Cannot wait for ignore to be back.

Razor is Turtle... I'm convinced.

 

[Free Manera]

It's tough because QB is the one churn and burn position for every team. Something like 70% of four and five star QBs transfer. If you look at just the 95+ rating dudes over the cycles where ND took Pyne and Clark, there are only three players that truly panned out for the school that recruited them:
-Bryce Young
-CJ Stroud
-Sam Howell

Every other player was either a transfer, bust, or hasn't played. 13 total elite recruits with less than a 25% hit rate. That's why you need to be grabbing a top guy every cycle OR working hard to land a proven transfer. ND isn't really doing either, and hasn't for a decade+ at this point.

Yeah for sure. But I think the takeaway is you need to land a top 10ish QB twice every 4 years, because you need to have a chance at hitting on someone special. The loser of the battle moves on, but really you got to take your pick already at that point. Then you need to land another one next year or the year after, rinse and repeat.

If you take Clark-Pyne-Angeli, you aren't giving yourself that chance. They are medium floor - low ceiling guys that you can be fairly certain will not suddenly turn into a playoff-caliber QB. So all the eggs are in the Buchner basket and if he isn't a hit, you are in major trouble.

 

[irishff1014]

Spare me the Sea Turtle impression. You're a pessimistic guy who likes to drop hot takes without any sort of analysis behind it.

"Coan wasn't really good" is a stupid f*cking opinion, and you will rightly get push back on that.

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/PFF_College/status/1485009380776939521[/TWEET]

Was he good enough to win a championship for ND? Not with our rebuilt OL and weak WR room this year. But I'm confident: (1) that he's at least as good as Stetson Bennett; and (2) that we aren't 11-1 this year without him.

Your "serious questions about Buchner's future" are also without basis. No one knows what we'll get from him next year. Most QBs bust in CFB, even highly rated ones. It's a shame we haven't recruited the position better and that so much is riding on him, but most programs would happily trade QB rooms with us. There's no reason to think Buchner is more likely to bust than any other highly rated 4-star QB recruit.

Come on Whiskey you had until you said he was as good as Bennett. Coan didn’t have the arm Bennett has, nor the athletic ability and let alone the pocket presence.

 

[stlnd01]

It's tough because QB is the one churn and burn position for every team. Something like 70% of four and five star QBs transfer. If you look at just the 95+ rating dudes over the cycles where ND took Pyne and Clark, there are only three players that truly panned out for the school that recruited them:
-Bryce Young
-CJ Stroud
-Sam Howell

Every other player was either a transfer, bust, or hasn't played. 13 total elite recruits with less than a 25% hit rate. That's why you need to be grabbing a top guy every cycle OR working hard to land a proven transfer. ND isn't really doing either, and hasn't for a decade+ at this point.

The fact that we have such a hard time taking undergrad transfers is a major challenge at QB in particular. Like you said a lot of these guys go shopping for a different school at some point in their first three years and we are basically not in the market for any of those, AND we have to hold on to our own when they don't see the field early and get restless, Phil.

 

[Free Manera]

The fact that we have such a hard time taking undergrad transfers is a major challenge at QB in particular. Like you said a lot of these guys go shopping for a different school at some point in their first three years and we are basically not in the market for any of those, AND we have to hold on to our own when they don't see the field early and get restless, Phil.

I'm sure playing time was an element to it, but Phil actually didn't leave for that reason necessarily. The insider consensus is ND botched handling Phil, but I don't really know the specifics. Apparently him and Chip Long were at each other's throats. Don't think he had a great relationship with Tommy either but he wasn't the culprit.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Come on Whiskey you had until you said he was as good as Bennett. Coan didn’t have the arm Bennett has, nor the athletic ability and let alone the pocket presence.

Bennett was surrounded by 5-star talent at every position, and until the 2nd half of the title game, he was universally acknowledged as the weakest link on that entire team (both offense and defense). It's not easy to account for a QBs supporting cast, so average QBs on great teams frequently get too much credit, just as good QBs on average teams frequently get too much criticism.

 

[Luckylucci]

It's tough because QB is the one churn and burn position for every team. Something like 70% of four and five star QBs transfer. If you look at just the 95+ rating dudes over the cycles where ND took Pyne and Clark, there are only three players that truly panned out for the school that recruited them:
-Bryce Young
-CJ Stroud
-Sam Howell

Every other player was either a transfer, bust, or hasn't played. 13 total elite recruits with less than a 25% hit rate. That's why you need to be grabbing a top guy every cycle OR working hard to land a proven transfer. ND isn't really doing either, and hasn't for a decade+ at this point.

It's also why we need to increase the numbers in the QB room. Or, at least the numbers we get on campus. We need to bring in more 2 QB classes. And, we need to be throwing more transfers at it.

 

[irishog77]

Yeah for sure. But I think the takeaway is you need to land a top 10ish QB twice every 4 years, because you need to have a chance at hitting on someone special. The loser of the battle moves on, but really you got to take your pick already at that point. Then you need to land another one next year or the year after, rinse and repeat.

If you take Clark-Pyne-Angeli, you aren't giving yourself that chance. They are medium floor - low ceiling guys that you can be fairly certain will not suddenly turn into a playoff-caliber QB. So all the eggs are in the Buchner basket and if he isn't a hit, you are in major trouble.

At least with Angeli, he has some size and arm. I'm not naive enough to think that he will simply turn into Joe Burrow or Mac Jones in year 4 or 5 at ND. But he, Kizer, and Jurkovec are the only QB's with any size Burnt Ends brian ever recruited or landed. If he doesn't ever make a big leap in improvement, maybe Angeli turns into a better version of Coan? That's not too bad. There's no reason ND shouldn't be able to land, at a minimum, Coan-type of QB's, and be able to develop them.

ND has been straddled with 5'10" dudes with noodle or shot put arms for over a decade due to Burnt Ends because he liked 'em "gritty." Grit seemed to be the determining factor in offering and landing QB's. Conversely, I, the NFL, and 99% of the rest of the world like QB's with good size and arms.

In the years where ND doesn't land one of the top few guys, I hope they can start at least landing guys without a physique that resembles a half-assed jockey.

 

[Grahambo]

There’s a reason it leaked out ND was looking at Kedon Slovis. That’s an acknowledgment they need better depth at QB. We don’t know what BK’s mandate was on QB’s either so we can’t assign blame to Rees. For example, was BK’s preference in having depth so he preferred 2-3 QB’s who were 4* or high 3* and miss out on the one 5* QB they went all in on?

Here’s to hoping Rees can secure Dante Moore.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

In the years where ND doesn't land one of the top few guys, I hope they can start at least landing guys without a physique that resembles a half-assed jockey.

With the rate QBs transfer out, we really ought to be bringing in a Vizzina and an Angeli in every class.