Shane and I thought we'd have a nice, short relaxing show about the national title game to cap off our 2019 season podcasts. Then all hell broke loose before the offseason aged 24 hours. Notre Dame promoted Tommy Rees to offensive coordinator. Penn State found their way into a brand new scandal. Southern Cal fired everyone in the athletic department besides their football coaches. Joe Brady bolted to the NFL after extinguishing his victory cigar with LSU. Phil Jurkovec saved me from having to ...
Tommy Rees
Brandon Wimbush As Starter: A Hypothetical
"If you dropped a red shirt freshman Brandon Wimbush into ND's QB competitions of 2010, 2011 and 2012, would he win all three?" Irish Illustrated's Pete Sampson offered this hypothetical Tuesday on Twitter. Sampson added Wednesday that he believed Wimbush would have prevailed each year, underscoring his point that this is the best depth in the Brian Kelly era. Kelly indicated Tuesday that Wimbush would be given an opportunity to compete for the starting spot, backing off comments he made ...
Can Kelly Coach Quarterbacks?
In today's piece, I respond to a comment made by loyal reader Irishize that called into question Brian Kelly's ability to coach the quarterback position. In six seasons since Brian Kelly came to South Bend, the Irish have played in, and lost, one national championship game and one major bowl game. They've won fifty-five games and lost twenty-three. But what does this mean for Kelly's success with the quarterbacks? To answer the question of whether or not Brian Kelly can coach quarterbacks, I ...
Top Fifteen Plays of the Kelly Years
Last week, we gave you the Top Five Games of the Brian Kelly Years. Last night, you watched The Oscars. This morning, for your consideration and viewing pleasure, we present the Top Fifteen Plays of the Brian Kelly Years. @SupermanTDJesus helped with this project. I am grateful for his technical abilities and efficiency. Let's face it, though. There have been a lot of plays in five seasons of football. And, if we're being honest, a lot of booze chased away the memory of the bad ones. ...
San Diego Chargers Name Tommy Rees as Offensive Assistant Coach
On Tuesday afternoon, the San Diego Chargers hired Tommy Rees as an offensive assistant coach. That got us thinking: does Tommy have a coaching future at Notre Dame? ...
DeShone Kizer’s Year (In Five Charts)
Throughout the year, Her Loyal Sons has documented DeShone Kizer's surprising and outstanding season. We've compared the redshirt freshman's hot start to the beginnings of the Irish careers of Everett Golson, Tommy Rees, Dayne Crist, Jimmy Clausen and Brady Quinn. Enjoy the following five charts. No matter how you slice it, Kizer has had a better beginning than anyone in the past 15 years. (You may click on the first two graphs for a bigger size. If you'd like to see the numbers, game logs ...
Chop to the Heart, Golson Transfers to Florida State
It seems like only yesterday that Everett Golson held the most popular position on the Notre Dame football team: backup quarterback. 2011 marked a season in which fans clamored for the rise of Golson. A struggling and turnover-prone Tommy Rees did what he could after taking over for Dayne Crist; however, the good will created by his 4-0 run to end the 2010 season, including the first victory over Southern Cal in ages, gave way to the desire to see the freshman standing on the sideline full of ...
Notre Dame Offense: A Question of Identity
After reading Moons' excellent HLS debut, I started thinking a lot about one of the corollary questions that inevitably arises with any discussion of the Notre Dame offense under Brian Kelly. While we have loads of stats and trends for the offense, the "identity" question seemingly never gets an answer. In fact, as I listened to the most recent Power Hour this past week, that same question arose without a real answer. Just what does Notre Dame do well and why does it seem that Brian Kelly can't ...
How Will Brian Kelly Pull off a Two QB Offense?
As we mentioned yesterday, Brian Kelly announced that the Notre Dame offense would play both Everett Golson and Malik Zaire in the Music City Bowl against LSU. Yes, the dreaded two QB system is here and Kelly didn't completely rule out using it next year either. I'm not overly keen on the idea. The whole "if you have two QBs, you don't have one" has rung true more often than not. Despite that mantra, there are still examples of teams that have pulled it off with varying degrees of ...
Friday Roundup: The “Top QB 2014” Edition
On November 1, 1913 Notre Dame established the forward pass as a legitimate offense in college football. Its purpose was to make the quarterback the most feared player on the field and propel the team to greatness. They succeeded. Today, the Navy calls him the guy that embarrasses them every year*. The Fighting Irish call him.... TOP QB *2007, 2009, and 2010 didn't exist...why the hell is everybody acting like they did? --------------------------- Tommy Rees packs up his locker for the ...