I don't really understand what ND fans are so reflexively negative on Rees. He's obviously a very good playcaller, he did a lot for this University and by all accounts is a shockingly good recruiter. So why the hate?
He just never developed properly. Missing two years of high school and then having Tommy Rees as a QB coach for three years didn't make things any better, either.
Alabama's offense didn't exactly shine when he was the OC for one year. And if he was such a quality play caller, how come his first job in the pros was as a TE coach? And the only reason he became the OC in Cleveland was because everyone knew that a) Stefanski was going to get axed at the end of '25, 2) Stefanski calls his own plays and, 3) because of 1 and 2, no legit OC was going to take a job with an offense without huge questions at QB for a lame duck head coach. He ended up the OC by accident, not because he earned it.
I've never heard he was an ace recruiter and if he was, how come he couldn't recruit an ace qb?
I don't begrudge Rees at all but the myth building has gotten out of hand.
Whether or not he becomes an ace qb worthy of being called a champion we will know by the end of the season.
Thank you, Tommy, for your contributions to providing us a chance to find out.
Of course, it is possible that CJ would have chosen Notre Dame without Rees’ efforts, but I am thankful, and most importantly I am glad that CJ is thankful, for Rees’ efforts.
Nevertheless, we will know at seasons end if a true champion was identified.
Link: Notre Dame QB CJ Carr explains why he chose the Fighting Irish!
“Eventually, I visited four or five times there and I said, 'This is the place for me. This is home. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else', and made that decision.”
Even after Rees left Notre Dame to become Alabama’s offensive coordinator in 2023, CJ Carr maintained his commitment to the Irish.
Having been promoted at the same time, and having been a previous ND QB, that looked to be problematic.
He is a good OC, but he still did us a favor by leaving. And he was able to add Saban to his resume which previously had only.....Kelly on it.
Freeman was forced to keep Rees by Swarbick who actually hired Rees as OC before he hired Freeman,
Freeman wasn't going to retain him so Rees moved on.
If you have evidence of your supposition then produce it.
Maybe he hopes to one day come back as ND HC. Maybe he never wants to come back. Maybe he wants to be an NFL coach (he only spent a year at Bama), and say coaching with Saban as a step there.
Much smarter football minds than me hold him in high regard. His success so far has been questionable, but that isn't uncommon for young coaches who eventually break through.
As our QB coach, he wasn't very good.
The only home-grown QB who truly thrived during his tenure as the QB coach was Ian Book, and that was because Book has an extremely high football IQ, and basically coached himself.
Jack Coan was a grad transfer with plenty of experience, and didn't need coaching.
I'll admit, that after that 2021 season, I had hopes for Buchner, but when he was put in as more than just a running QB, the results were less than spectacular. Rees had all of that time to coach him up, and make him into something more complete, but you could clearly see how Buchner was lacking in certain fundamentals.
Pyne had some success in 2022, but that was due to a strong running game taking pressure off him, along with an excellent offensive line and having Mike Mayer as the TE. Here again, Rees couldn't coach him to look at all areas of the field, that Pyne would only look to the right side, and lock onto Mayer, even in double coverage.
In all seriousness, if Pyne had accomplished those stats on his own by being a good QB, he would have at least shown some flashes of it at the other three schools where he played. Unfortunately for him, with no Mike Mayer-like superstar helping him out, you could see the bad stats he generated.
As a playcaller, Tommy Rees wasn't good at all. For 2019-2021, Brian Kelly was either calling the plays, or giving Rees a short list of plays he could choose from, and when Rees had a chance to be his own man in 2022, you could see he was trying to be Brian Kelly without Brian Kelly's decades of experience.
How many times in 2022 did we see Tommy Rees calling that stupid delayed draw handoff, deep in the shotgun, on 3rd or 4th and inches, and the RB getting stuffed for a 5 yard loss? With that offensive line, along with two high quality running backs (Estime and Diggs), it would have been easy to simply go under center, and let either one of them do a straight ahead run.
Or, even more easily, do a simple QB sneak. Even the diminutive Drew Pyne could have gained those inches with that line.
He basically outsmarted himself all too many times.
Remember Stanford in 2022? We were pounding the ball up the middle and with great results. The Stanford front 7 defenders were getting knocked back several yards on each of those straight ahead, north and south running plays.
Then, Rees calls a delayed run with Logan Diggs to the unblocked side of the field when all we needed was a half yard, and that promptly killed a promising drive.
When he got to Alabama in 2023, he had a roster full of excellent talent, and once again, called a poor game. He tried to turn Jalen Milroe, Ty Simpson, and Tyler Buchner into dink 'n dunk passers, and with poor results.
It wasn't until Nick Saban himself pulled him aside, and taught him how to call plays, that he finally started producing better results, namely using that strong arm of Milroe's, since he was an excellent downfield passer.
Now, is it possible that he may have learned a thing or two in those two years with the Browns? Maybe, but until he starts following conventional wisdom, instead of trying to be a carbon copy of Brian Kelly, I doubt he'll be much better than before.
If he succeeds, then I'll be happy to eat crow, but I'm simply not too optimistic about his possibilities.
