Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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Good Housekeeping Quarterback position provides options By Lou Somogyi Notre Dame may have a new sheriff in town at quarterback with sophomore Everett Golson, but it never hurts to have a fireman such as junior Tommy Rees on call as well. In the white-knuckle 20-17 victory versus Purdue Sept. 8, Golson excelled by completing 21 of 31 passes for 289 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions. In addition, the young signal-caller extended numerous plays with his elusiveness and tallied a three-yard scoring run. Nevertheless, when his late fumble at the Irish 15 set up the Boilermakers’ tying score, the Irish were out of timeouts and lost momentum, and it appeared Golson was having trouble gripping the football with an injured thumb and only 2:12 left … it was time to put out the brush fires with 16-game starter Rees, who served a one-game suspension in the opener. Head coach Brian Kelly noted that Golson made only one poor throw against the Boilermakers, a slant to senior Robby Toma. “We are pleased with where he’s at at this point, and it’s living up to what we thought he could do,” Kelly said. “But we have a lot to do with the mental part of the game.” The Irish burned four timeouts against Purdue because of communication issues. Consequently, Kelly had no problems turning to Rees to operate the offense to set up the game-winning score, although his preference is to not have to go to his bullpen. “Some of it is housekeeping — getting the play, getting it communicated, all of those things, which he’s learning,” Kelly said of Golson. “And he’s seeing it for the first time: He’s looking at it and he’s going, ‘Wow, it took me seven seconds to actually get up there, maybe I need to speed up my housekeeping.’ Getting the play, verbalizing it, getting everybody set …” For now, Kelly can live with the rookie issues. “I’d rather be doing that than worrying about whether my quarterback has the physical ability to play the position,” he said. Rees delivered clutch fourth-quarter touchdown drives in 2010 at USC and 2011 at Michigan and Pitt, so he was hardly frazzled against Purdue. “My job was to stay ready if I was needed to play,” Rees said the Wednesday of the Michigan State game. “I did that. Coach came over to me after Purdue scored and said, ‘Get loose.’ That’s all I needed to hear.” Instead of shriveling to a chorus of boos when he entered the lineup, Rees calmly directed a 55-yard march to set up Kyle Brindza’s 27-yard game-winning field goal with seven seconds left. “I’m aware of some of the perception, I’m aware of some of the things … I’ve never used that to fuel me,” Rees stated in a soft tone. “Playing for the guys in the locker room, playing for Notre Dame, that’s all the motivation you really need.” Afterwards, Rees immediately sought out Golson. “I just told ‘Ev,’ you played a great game and be proud of the way you played,” Rees said. “It was a good team win. He was good towards me, he was happy for me, he was happy for the team that we won. Our relationship has really grown to mutual respect and we both support one another. “He’s a competitor, he wanted to be out there. He came back and prepared well this week.” Rees is helping to see to it. “My goal is to be the starter, and my job right now is to help the team any way I’m asked,” Rees summarized. “And if I’m given opportunities to play, to make the most of them. “I’m going to let the coaches decide when those opportunities are given. I just have to stay prepared.” He’s the football program’s version of having fire insurance.