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Options Opening Up A ir Force and Navy are supposed to be the ones with all the options. Instead the back-to-back games against service academies may end up making Notre Dame senior Tommy Rees the quarterback with the most choices when he gets the ball in his hands. murphy's Law dan murphy Eight different receivers caught Reesthrown balls last Saturday against an ironically overmatched Air Force air defense. Five of them caught touchdown passes. The 45-10 win kicked off a three-week stretch of games that should allow the Irish offense to stretch its legs and finally fully introduce the next wave of its passing attack. This was supposed to be the catchesby-committee year. The strength of Notre Dame's offense would be its unpredictability, its options on each passing play that threatened to stretch opposing defenses too thin. That was head coach Brian Kelly's vision in August, and it made sense. The two first-round NFL Draft picks Kelly helped develop — tight end Tyler Eifert and wideout Michael Floyd — were gone. TJ Jones, their heir apparent, doesn't have the same man amongst boys feel when he steps on the field. For most of the 2013 season, though, the senior has been head and shoulders above his fellow wide receivers. His 44 receptions represent 32 percent of the team's completions through eight games. Floyd caught 33 percent of Notre Dame's passes in 2011. Eifert's 50 receptions a year ago made up 22 percent of the Irish passing game. Jones is still clearly the top choice for Rees. He made seven catches against Air Force, and no one else on the roster had more than two. But a young, developing corps of Irish pass catchers expanded the field for Rees horizontally and vertically. They created, to borrow a military term, a target-rich environment. "You got glimpses of what you can expect from these younger guys in the future," Jones said. "I think it was good for them to get their first touchdowns, their first big plays and their first taste of what can come." If Saturday's game was indeed a preview of the future, it can't come soon enough for Rees and the Irish offense. Navy should provide another chance for fledglings like Corey Robinson, William Fuller and Chris Brown — all of whom had their first career touchdown catches last Saturday — to get comfortable and confident. Fuller's elite speed makes him a younger version of Brown. He's made catches in four of Notre Dame's last five games. He can be a useful tool to pry secondaries away from the line of scrimmage during the season's home stretch. Robinson, with his magnetic hands and lightning-rod height, caught only one pass in October. The 6-5 rookie struggled to free himself in press coverage and needs more time in the weight room to create the slivers of space he needs to regularly go up and snatch balls out of the air. "He's still growing into his body," head coach Brian Kelly said. "When he gets a strong core and his lower body is strengthened in the offseason … you're going to see a kid who is going to be able to hold his line." Robinson, Fuller and the rest of the crowded tier of receivers don't need to wait for an offseason in the weight room to start making a bigger impact. Getting Sophomore Chris Brown was one of three Irish receivers who hauled in their first career touchdown receptions this past Saturday at Air Force. photo by bill panzica involved against the military academies could give them the rhythm they need to help Notre Dame's offense be more explosive later in the month. There are only three players on the roster who have hit double digits in receptions this year: Jones, junior wide receiver DaVaris Daniels and junior tight end Troy Niklas. Compare that to seven players on the Alabama offense with 10 or more catches and six such players on the highflying offenses at Baylor and Oregon. Spreading the wealth creates more success for everyone on offense. Last year, ✦ Page 20 the 8-0 Irish had five receivers in double digits at this point in the regular season. Adding a few more names to the list — and getting some increased consistency from everyone not named TJ Jones — is a high priority for November in South Bend. The passing game has to be full of options against team like BYU and Stanford that can suffocate the run. The future is bright for some of Notre Dame's young wide receivers, but it needs to arrive in a hurry. ✦ E-mail Dan at dmurphy@blueandgold.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @BGI_DanMurphy.