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I don't think anyone gave him an offer to be their OC or even a QB coach after Saban retired, and now he's the tight ends coach for the Cleveland Browns. While he also has the title of "passing game coordinator," that's all but meaningless, since Ken Dorsey is calling the plays, and even Bill Musgrave has more input on the passing game.

Maybe he's getting better, since Musgrave and Dorsey have some pretty good insights into the passing game, but that remains to be seen.


Brian Kelly basically propped him up from 2019 through 2021. As much as I criticized Brian Kelly for trying to defy common sense throughout his time here, he did, more often than not, make the right call. That, plus Ian Book exceeded all expectations and then some, to become a Notre Dame football great. Having a mature, polished Jack Coan in 2021 also helped cover things up.

Once Kelly was gone in 2022, and Tommy Rees was his own man, he tried his best to call games like Brian Kelly would, but without Kelly's decades of experience.

He'd outsmart his own self on all too many occasions. That disaster of a Stanford game (lost 14-16) was where he made all too many bone-headed calls, thinking he could throw the defense off-balance.

That USC game was even worse. We were driving the ball straight down the field with the running game, using straight-ahead north and south running, and blowing the front seven defenders off the ball several yards backwards. That USC defense was getting gassed and beaten up. All we had to do on 4th and short was to simply run the ball straight ahead. Hell, even a simple quarterback sneak (something he truly opposed) would have done the job, even with Drew Pyne's small stature.

Rees then calls what may have been a misdirection play, where he made Logan Diggs run to the unblocked side of the field, and we got stuffed for a loss. It was almost as if USC's defense was beaten up, that they didn't move off the snap count very quickly, and found themselves in a very fortunate position to receive a gift-wrapped present from Rees.

I try my best not to curse while watching Notre Dame games, but that game had me hollering at the TV...