Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/160704
Tommy Rees Is The Answer, Now What's The Question? T his phrase might sting a little bit, especially for those with a memory that stretches back to the beginning of Brian Kelly's tenure. But for Notre Dame this year there is no Plan B — Tommy Rees is the guy. murphy's Law dan murphy More accurately, Plan A got tossed in the scrap heap four months ago, and the Irish took to their drawing board with a permanent marker. After a career of playing as a human safety net, senior quarterback Tommy Rees steps on to the tight rope Saturday afternoon with nothing below his feet. Notre Dame is replete with options at almost every position on the field in 2013. Three years of a systematic stockpiling of depth is starting to show. The Irish offense takes the field against Temple full of question marks. All but one of them, though, is equipped with multiple-choice answers. Who will be the team's top running back? Junior George Atkinson III is the first in line, but if he doesn't work four other capable backs are itching to take his place. How about the right tackle? If sophomore Ronnie Stanley and freshman Steve Elmer don't work out in their first years on the field, senior Christian Lombard provides an insurance policy with experience there. Who will catch passes without AllAmerica tight end Tyler Eifert around? That will be guess-and-check work against the Owls. Temple and its obviously outmanned defense provides a great opportunity for Notre Dame to test its options in a real game and answer some of those questions. Rees has won 14 games as a starter and thrown for more than 4,000 yards, but this is the first time he has opened the season as Notre Dame's unquestioned leader under center. photo by joe raymond At quarterback, the Irish are playing Jeopardy. The answer, for better or worse, is Tommy Rees. That won't change. Saturday will bring a little more clarity to the questions he's capable of responding to. The season opener is a crucial game for Rees. If there was any doubt about that, Kelly erased it earlier this week when he said he wants his senior quarterback on the field from the first snap to the last. No matter how large a cushion the Irish can build and how many players filter through the their lineup, Kelly plans on staying with Rees. "Well, I might say that any time that you can get your second and third quarterback in, that's a good thing if it's not an injury, right? So obviously we'd love to get in that mindset," he said. But he and the rest of the staff aren't there. "Our mindset is we really want to get ✦ Page 21 off to a good start with Tommy Rees. He wasn't a starter for us last year. I think everything that we're thinking about is to really have a solid game, a great start for Tommy Rees. … Tommy Rees needs to really have a good first game." It's not that Notre Dame can't beat Temple if Rees doesn't have a really good 2013 debut. Nor will his confidence be crushed if he throws an interception or fumbles a snap while the Irish work out the kinks. He stood under a shower of boos and launched a gutsy back-foot fade to an unproven receiver in the fourth quarter of a close game against Purdue a year ago. If that didn't shake him, neither will a shaky start to this season. Kelly wants Rees to start and to finish because he's never done both at the same time before. He's a guy that has won 14 games as a starter and thrown for more than 4,000 yards. He's a guy that has saved second-half meltdowns and full seasons. But he's never been The Guy before now. Rees has been a bookmark during his first three years of his career in South Bend, holding the place first for Dayne Crist to return and then for Everett Golson. There's a case to be made that's he doing the same this year, keeping the Notre Dame offense from crumbling for a full season while Golson waits in exile. If Rees is going to rid himself of that reputation, if he's going to start flipping pages forward on his own, he'll have to start doing it against Temple. During Notre Dame's media day Kelly said the story of Tommy Rees has not yet been written. He could become footnote or folklore. The coach cautioned that no one would know for sure how the story ends until Rees' final play is behind him. That may be true, but Saturday is an important chapter. ✦ E-mail Dan at dmurphy@blueandgold.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @BGI_DanMurphy.