Tommy Rees - Offensive Coordinator

[Jiggafini19Deux]

Buddy he declined the portal this off-season at QB and WR.

Are they even accessing it in the first place other than grad transfers?

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

4 is true of every team with a big fanbase lol. Every single one.

Could actually be true here. This is the 40 year decision program. Some of the alums probably coach their kid's flag football team at the park district.

 

[ColinKSU]

Are they even accessing it in the first place other than grad transfers?

The best player on their defense *this season* was an undergrad transfer.

 

[NDdomer2]

I think you have to hope that Pyne can run a quick passing game, circa 2018 Ian Book. Which keeps the defense on their heels enough to slightly improve the ground game. For as much as Buch "shortened" his release and blew up his mechanics in the name of having a "quicker" release, he was ass in the short passing game.

Pyne has shown some ability to operate in that sphere to some degree.

as our shortest qb and the box already stacked i see more P6's in our future.

But i think you are right. We are going to have to spread it out, use some motions and go gun slinger.

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

The best player on their defense *this season* was an undergrad transfer.

He's a fourth year senior and was the only one.

It's like everything else. Conservative and limited.

 

[NDMatt91]

Can someone explain how Alohi Gilman was able to get through admissions as an undergraduate transfer? I keep hearing how it's next to impossible to get through admissions if you aren't a grad transfer. IIRC, Amir Carlisle played 1 year at USC and then transferred to ND. Do they need to have a ND/Stanford/NW/Vandy offer out of HS?

 

[arahop]

Jesus, this injury is going to lead to excuses and save Tommy from being let go of his O coordinator duties isn't it.
Might have to ban the Tommy Rees thread for a while. There will be blood. I really enjoyed my back and forths with Balki, Ulukinatme, and Dale a few days after the OSU game.
When you take the Irish glasses off for a while and objectively watch the games and look at the data. The offense is horrendous and Tommy has a lot to do with us being where we are with the QBs on the roster. The QBs who could have been here and the horrendous play calling. I will never go easy on him unless I see an offense that can beat good teams let alone the Marshalls.
Once again, if he wasn't a
""""'Notre DameMan"""""
this isn't even a conversation.

 

[ND4418]

So we give RP lll a scholly but not JT Daniels??

Did Rees think he was upsetting TB, Dante or The Carrs???

Meanwhile Kelly has a very full QB room and is not stopping. Ugh

Yes but it made his dad happy! Kid had one offer, and it was Kentucky and UK offered everyone in that class, and told them it wasn’t committable. Yet didn’t offer Brady Allen the next year, and told people it was because they knew Allen was a lock for Purdue.

 

[stlnd01]

Can someone explain how Alohi Gilman was able to get through admissions as an undergraduate transfer? I keep hearing how it's next to impossible to get through admissions if you aren't a grad transfer. IIRC, Amir Carlisle played 1 year at USC and then transferred to ND. Do they need to have a ND/Stanford/NW/Vandy offer out of HS?

Basically you have to have enough to have enough transferable credits to have a clear path to graduating from Notre Dame in four years, with a major we offer and including all the unique ND course requirements like philosophy and theology. It’s a high bar.

Athletes at most programs aren’t taking classes that would transfer (and you can’t major in exercise science or criminal justice). And the longer you’ve been at your original school the less likely it is to work out. But, yeah, sometimes there’s a unicorn kid from a Navy or Northwestern with enough ND-equivalent classes on his transcript to make it work.

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

Can someone explain how Alohi Gilman was able to get through admissions as an undergraduate transfer? I keep hearing how it's next to impossible to get through admissions if you aren't a grad transfer. IIRC, Amir Carlisle played 1 year at USC and then transferred to ND. Do they need to have a ND/Stanford/NW/Vandy offer out of HS?

They were pre portal exceptions to say the least. Certainly not the rule by any stretch.

Marshall having eight P5 transfers is probably an exception as opposed to the rule as well, but I think we can all agree that we'd want to see ND use the portal more liberally, which really wouldn't take much more than 2-3 bodies total considering how they little they utilize undergrad transfers.

This isn't "opening the floodgates", this is using resources that are available to you as they are everyone else.

 

[Free Manera]

Basically you have to have enough to have enough transferable credits to have a clear path to graduating from Notre Dame in four years, with a major we offer and including all the unique ND course requirements like philosophy and theology. It’s a high bar.

Athletes at most programs aren’t taking classes that would transfer (and you can’t major in exercise science or criminal justice). And the longer you’ve been at your original school the less likely it is to work out. But, yeah, sometimes there’s a unicorn kid from a Navy or Northwestern with enough ND-equivalent classes on his transcript to make it work.

Yeah ND has gotta chill with that.

 

[NDMatt91]

Yeah ND has gotta chill with that.

I wonder if we still have the asinine foreign language requirement. I remember back in 2012 it prevented us from landing Byron Marshall, who had a very good career at Oregon, despite the fact that he was a very good student and had an offer from Stanford.

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

From what I can gather thus far, Rees needs to call more screen passes while game planning with Drew Pyne, an OL that is underperforming, a run game that is non existent and a pass attack centered around a tight end, Matt Salerno and healthy freshman WR Tobias Merriweather.

Can someone just admit that this situation currently goes far deeper and wider than play calling?

 

[Irishokie]

Get the ball to Mayer, Styles, and Tyree in space. Create space through RPOs, misdirection, and using exotic formations.

Sounds almost like the plan going into the year with TB12.

 

[Irish4life]

Sounds almost like the plan going into the year with TB12.

Except they didn't do any of that on offense lol

 

[Irish4life]

From what I can gather thus far, Rees needs to call more screen passes while game planning with Drew Pyne, an OL that is underperforming, a run game that is non existent and a pass attack centered around a tight end, Matt Salerno and healthy freshman WR Tobias Merriweather.

Can someone just admit that this situation currently goes far deeper and wider than play calling?

The skill position talent is certainly not helping. I agree. Neither does the starting QB being hurt. But Rees has been NDs QB coach for 6 seasons now. And our OC for 3 years. There were transfer portal WRs that ND could've gotten in that he chose to not pursue. And transfer portal QBs too. Ultimately, the state of the QB room and the offensive skill positions on this team fall on him.

 

[Irishdrunk]

You’re obsession with the Carr’s is so bizarre. You know he was 0% relevant to this, yet still found a way.

My point is why wouldn't he take JT Daniels. To me, it seems like Rees is worried about alienating one of the QBs or one of his recruits.

 

[IrishLax]

Bottom line is that ND has gone like 5+ years now of not signing a good/decent QB. They went from Kizer to Wimbush to Book and that was pretty darn solid play from '15 to '20, with the Zaire-Kizer hybrid being the only major blemish is that timeframe. Kizer and Book were both "NFL" caliber, by a loose definition of getting drafted.

Tommy Rees is at least partially responsible for this absolute cluster fuck of recruiting and development that saw no good QBs signed/retained/developed from '17 through '22. Angeli is his only prayer at the moment of getting even adequate QB play.

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

The skill position talent is certainly not helping. I agree. Neither does the starting QB being hurt. But Rees has been NDs QB coach for 6 seasons now. And our OC for 3 years. There were transfer portal WRs that ND could've gotten in that he chose to not pursue. And transfer portal QBs too. Ultimately, the state of the QB room and the offensive skill positions on this team fall on him.

What QB and WR portal players were available to him whose credits would have transferred over via admissions?

To this point, his 2023 class right now is missing a QB, a fourth WR and they're still in the mix for the Missouri RB Love. He's got Carr verballed into the fold and our fellow fans are trying to get him eligible October 1st via a petition on change.org

That would lead me to believe he got the message loud and clear as far as recruiting goes. That being said, none of that helps him now.

So regardless of who it all falls on, he's trying to game plan around no passing game, no running game and a shaky OL. So far I have "screen passes" as a potential helpful solution.

 

[ulukinatme]

How do you keep a constantly blitzing defense honest? You run a RB screen. It's not science. ND ran a bunch of them against OK State and in the spring game successfully. Have you seen one yet this year? I am not asking for them to run a dozen of them. Just one or two here and there. I have not called for Rees' head once so this isn't an anti-Rees post.

Also, just because it's the solution of 7 out of 10 people doesn't mean it's wrong. Sometimes the obvious answer is the right answer.

So obviously Rees knows what a screen is given those past games, but we haven't run one with TB really, at least not a traditional RB screen. This is despite defenses being aggressive and loading up the box, daring us to throw. My guess is there's a reason for this, either TB didn't have the touch, or some other factor was affecting the execution. OL not agile enough?

 

[notredomer23]

From what I can gather thus far, Rees needs to call more screen passes while game planning with Drew Pyne, an OL that is underperforming, a run game that is non existent and a pass attack centered around a tight end, Matt Salerno and healthy freshman WR Tobias Merriweather.

Can someone just admit that this situation currently goes far deeper and wider than play calling?

The skill position talent is certainly not helping. I agree. Neither does the starting QB being hurt. But Rees has been NDs QB coach for 6 seasons now. And our OC for 3 years. There were transfer portal WRs that ND could've gotten in that he chose to not pursue. And transfer portal QBs too. Ultimately, the state of the QB room and the offensive skill positions on this team fall on him.

Tommy Rees has been on the staff since 2017 and has never recruited a QB that has started and won a game at ND. Some of that is a fluke, some of it is genuinely bad recruiting/development. I mostly agree with Jigga that the issues are far greater than just playcalling, but he absolutely deserves heat too for the other deficiencies.

In hierarchy of blame, would probably be:

1a. Del's recruiting
1b. Harry/Quinn's coaching/development
3. Tommy's recruiting
4. His development of QBs and
5. His playcalling

If the offensive line performed as expected this year, most the deficiencies this team has on offense would be covered up IMO.

So far I have "screen passes" as a potential helpful solution.

You can keep being a dickhead or you could actually use your eyes and stop cherry picking on one post out of 100s on the issue.

 

[FDNYIrish1]

Curious to see what he puts together for Pyne this week. He wasn’t put in for clean up duty last week. I know that’s the life of a back up, but he’s been around and they know his strengths and limitations. Here’s to hoping last week was a hangover from OSU and they come out to compete against Cal. Damn this is a disappointing start.

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

Bottom line is that ND has gone like 5+ years now of not signing a good/decent QB. They went from Kizer to Wimbush to Book and that was pretty darn solid play from '15 to '20, with the Zaire-Kizer hybrid being the only major blemish is that timeframe. Kizer and Book were both "NFL" caliber, by a loose definition of getting drafted.

Tommy Rees is at least partially responsible for this absolute cluster fuck of recruiting and development that saw no good QBs signed/retained/developed from '17 through '22. Angeli is his only prayer at the moment of getting even adequate QB play.

Agreed.

So this being said, the situation goes deeper and beyond play calling. There isn't much he's going to be able to do right now apart from work to upgrade the talent down the line and deal with what he has now.

 

[ulukinatme]

Buddy he declined the portal this off-season at QB and WR.

Declined, or there wasn't anyone available that met our admissions stringent criteria? The few transfers we've gotten lately have come from Northwestern, Harvard, Navy, and Michigan. This isn't like Sark at Texas taking Alabama castoffs and FCS schools. Our coaches are far more limited than other schools because of this.

 

[Irish4life]

What QB and WR portal players were available to him whose credits would have transferred over via admissions?

To this point, his 2023 class right now is missing a QB, a fourth WR and they're still in the mix for the Missouri RB Love. He's got Carr verballed into the fold and our fellow fans are trying to get him eligible October 1st via a petition on change.org

That would lead me to believe he got the message loud and clear as far as recruiting goes. That being said, none of that helps him now.

So regardless of who it all falls on, he's trying to game plan around no passing game, no running game and a shaky OL. So far I have "screen passes" as a potential helpful solution.

Kedon Slovis and JT Daniels were grad transfers that wanted to be at ND that it is 100% confirmed ND passed on. RJ Snead of Baylor, Matt Landers of Toledo, and Charlie Jones of Iowa were all grad transfer WRs that ND could've gotten, but they passed on 2 and couldn't get the other (Jones).

 

[stlnd01]

Curious to see what he puts together for Pyne this week. He wasn’t put in for clean up duty last week. I know that’s the life of a back up, but he’s been around and they know his strengths and limitations. Here’s to hoping last week was a hangover from OSU and they come out to compete against Cal. Damn this is a disappointing start.

I have never been a big Pyne fan but feel a lot better about him right now if our OL was playing worth a shit.

 

[Irishdrunk]

So obviously Rees knows what a screen is given those past games, but we haven't run one with TB really, at least not a traditional RB screen. This is despite defenses being aggressive and loading up the box, daring us to throw. My guess is there's a reason for this, either TB didn't have the touch, or some other factor was affecting the execution. OL not agile enough?

I am sure that is the answer, Mrs. Rees.

 

[ColinKSU]

Declined, or there wasn't anyone available that met our admissions stringent criteria? The few transfers we've gotten lately have come from Northwestern, Harvard, Navy, and Michigan. This isn't like Sark at Texas taking Alabama castoffs and FCS schools. Our coaches are far more limited than other schools because of this.

They declined grad transfers, which are not an issue for the program.

 

[ulukinatme]

I am sure that is the answer, Mrs. Rees.

You bring so much to the discussion, friend. You even steal jokes from your buddy.

 

[stlnd01]

They declined grad transfers, which are not an issue for the program.

That’s certainly a questionable decision.