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✦ News & notes Andrew Hendrix's Bullpen Help Last year, Notre Dame quarterback Tommy Rees was college football's premier relief pitcher while complementing less experienced Fighting Irish starter Everett Golson. In four different games (Purdue, Michigan, Stanford and BYU), Rees helped bail out Notre Dame when Golson was ineffective or injured, and he delivered each time. The starting role for four quarters is not the same, though, and head coach Brian Kelly is now planning to use senior Andrew Hendrix as the complement to Rees, if necessary. After a strong start when he joined Jimmy Clausen as the only two quarterbacks in Notre Dame history to pass for at least 300 yards in the first three games of a season, Rees tailed off dramatically in the last two contests, versus Michigan State and Oklahoma, dropping him to 75th nationally (129.1 rating) in passing efficiency (Golson finished 62nd with a 131.0 rating last year). Rees completed only 23 of 59 pass attempts (39.0 percent) for 246 yards with three touchdowns and three interceptions in those two games. The 104 passing yards against Oklahoma were the fewest in the four-year Brian Kelly era, and the lowest at Notre Dame since Clausen's 41yard performance in a 38-3 loss at USC in 2008. To at least provide an element of the read option into Notre Dame's playbook, Hendrix played his first significant snaps of the season last Saturday in the 35‑21 loss to Oklahoma. He saw action throughout the first half and attempted one pass, an incompletion. "The way we presented it to Andrew is, 'Look, you've got to help us win,'" Kelly said. "His mindset has to be, 'I want to keep adding more to my plate' … I don't Hendrix has seen action in four games this season, running five times for 10 yards and completing 1 of 6 passes for nine yards. photo by bill panzica ✦ Page 11 know that you can go into the game and say, 'I'm just happy with a half-dozen snaps.'" The Irish head coach said he would like Hendrix to push for the starting job, but he has even more areas to clean up than Rees. The offense was penalized twice for delay of game penalties under Hendrix's watch during his brief stints, and he missed an open DaVaris Daniels on his one passing attempt. Although Hendrix did pick up 10 yards on his five rushing attempts, he misread a zone read and was thrown for an eight-yard loss on a third-and-two play at the Sooners' 38 in the second quarter. "He's going to go back in the game [against Arizona State], and he's got to be more effective in that role," Kelly said. "Then let's look to add on to that, and then maybe get to him thinking, 'Hey, I'm going to push Tommy Rees as the starter.'" Playing two quarterbacks can have its benefits, as it did last season, but in the 2011 Champs Sports Bowl loss to Florida State (18-14), neither Rees nor Hendrix developed a rhythm. Rees threw for 163 yards in that game, but he also tossed two interceptions, while the Irish scored only once on offense. Hendrix had four carries in that game for 26 yards, but he was 3-of-8 passing and threw an interception that set up FSU's go-ahead score. Although Rees has a huge amount of detractors on the outside, Kelly said his veteran QB knows how to tune out the "noise," both the positive and negative. "If you're the starting quarterback at Notre Dame and you can't handle those things that are inevitably going to come your way after a loss, then you can't be the quarterback at Notre Dame," Kelly said. Freshman Malik Zaire is the third option but nowhere near ready to compete yet, according to Kelly, especially after a recent bout with mononucleosis.