The Athletic - What will Tommy Rees bring to Nick Saban, Alabama football from ND?

What will Rees bring?

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Tommy Rees had been virtually everything at Notre Dame, a starter and backup, a solution and problem, credited for quarterback development and questioned for why he couldn’t land better material. There were game plans that hit so well they turned heads nationally, including in Tuscaloosa. There were performances that bombed so badly they made the 30-year-old assistant appear out of his depth.

As Rees departs his alma mater after 10 seasons spread among quarterback, quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator, he’ll bring a decade of battle scars to a program known to hand out battle wounds. Rees is young enough that he was a sophomore in high school when the dynasty of Nick Saban at Alabama began construction. He’s old enough to have played against the Crimson Tide in the BCS National Championship Game and coached against Alabama in the College Football Playoff.

Now Rees may be these multitudes all over again after accepting Saban’s offer to join the sport’s preeminent program, or perhaps one working to retake Georgia following Kirby Smart’s back-to-back-national championships. This is the challenge Rees wanted, though, which says more about how he’s wired than usage of 12 personnel sets or playing at tempo. Rees left a program where he’d always have a home for one that evicts offensive coordinators biennially, usually for better environs.

An industry source told The Athletic that Rees had eyed this shot at the sport’s summit a year ago when Notre Dame promoted Marcus Freeman from defensive coordinator to head coach. Rees wanted to be considered for that job more than he ultimately was, which spurred him to figure out how he could be in better position next time around. Two programs came to mind for Rees. The one that just hired him and the one he’s been hired to beat in the SEC Championship Game.

When Brian Kelly begged Rees to join him in Baton Rouge, the former Notre Dame quarterback stayed put, much to Kelly’s aggravation. Remaining at Notre Dame without Kelly gave Rees autonomy, the kind that let him stand on his own in a new way. Rees’ professional development last season was succeeding and failing without a safety net. Now it will be working for perhaps the greatest college coach ever, with Saban a finishing school that’s turned offensive coordinators into Power 5 head coaches (Texas, Ole Miss and Maryland) or NFL head coaches (New York Giants) and NFL coordinators (New England Patriots).

There is nothing but success there, which isn’t to say Rees will automatically be next. But Rees has seen enough in South Bend to believe those experiences will translate in Tuscaloosa.

When it comes to handling quarterbacks, Rees has lived multiple quarterback competitions as a player and presided over one each of the past two seasons. As a freshman, he stepped in for an injured Dayne Crist and wound up winning his first four starts. As a sophomore, he replaced an ineffective Crist at halftime of a season-opening loss, only to lose the job a year later to redshirt freshman Everett Golson. Yet, Rees saved that season in relief against Purdue, Michigan and Stanford when Golson collapsed under early-season pressures.

As a coordinator, Rees successfully integrated grad transfer Jack Coan into the room two years ago, even though he struggled to figure out how to accentuate an immobile quarterback’s strengths. The season ended with Coan throwing a single-game school record 68 passes in a Fiesta Bowl loss. Last fall Rees picked dual-threat sophomore Tyler Buchner at quarterback, then lost him for the season in a Week 2 loss to Marshall.

Notre Dame had no choice but to turn to the diminutive Drew Pyne, who struggled to throw a 5-yard pass in his first start. Pyne finished 8-2 as a starter and hit for a career-high 318 yards and three touchdowns in his final game, a loss at USC, before entering the transfer portal. Buchner returned for the Gator Bowl, Rees revamped the offense a third time and the sophomore accounted for five touchdowns (and two pick sixes) in a dramatic win.

Rees is a “players not plays” coach, which takes some subjugation of ego to make work. He’s has joked with former teammates that if he could be reincarnated he’d come back as a pulling guard. His ideal set may be 14 personnel inside the 5-yard line, but he’ll settle for making two-tight end sets the norm if the roster will support it.

In three seasons as offensive coordinator, the Rees offense has produced more NFL tight ends than receivers. With a veteran quarterback, Rees’ proclivity for motion and shifts took average offensive talent and made it sing. With a first-year starter, the extra Notre Dame’s former offensive coordinator puts into the game plan can feel arduous and plodding.

In some ways, Rees calls games the way he played them, trying to win the play before it’s snapped. That played to his strengths as a quarterback and mitigated his weaknesses, mainly average arm strength and substandard athleticism. Yet, there’s a reason Rees was sacked just eight times as a senior when he started all 13 games. It wasn’t because he escaped pressure, it was because he out-thought it.

If Rees had gone to Alabama a year earlier, watching him think through the game with a Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback would have been deadly efficient, if not pyrotechnic in its explosiveness. It’s not clear where Alabama will land at quarterback after Bryce Young, but it will be a place where Rees has to coach a quarterback through inexperience at a program that doesn’t tolerate it.

In some ways, that fact only makes Rees’ jump more impressive. At Notre Dame, he’d have coached sixth-year senior Sam Hartman, who’s thrown 110 career touchdowns and had passed for nearly 13,000 yards while making 45 career starts at Wake Forest. At Alabama, barring transfer, Rees will choose among a pair of returning former top-100 prospects in redshirt sophomore Jalen Milroe and redshirt freshman Ty Simpson, in addition to four-star freshmen Eli Holstein and Dylan Lonergan. But he’ll also get to work with a roster that sheds five-star receivers without care and lands five-star running backs as a birthright.

While access to this talent didn’t drive the decision to decamp for the SEC — think Kelly bolting in the night for LSU — the material in Tuscaloosa could let Rees shape shift again. He’s evolved from a multi-tight end offense that features one running back (Kyren Williams) to a multi-tight end offense that features multiple backs (Audric Estime, Logan Diggs and Chris Tyree), which feels more substantial than it reads. But he’s never called plays for a team that has stockpiled wide receivers like Alabama, where most Irish receivers wouldn’t get on the field most years. That potential could let Rees take the next step in his offense while also taking the next step in his career.

It may let the former Notre Dame offensive coordinator be a little more of everything in a place that expects to win all the games it plays. Alabama’s last season ended in disappointment in the Sugar Bowl — where it blew out Kansas State. The last time Notre Dame won a major bowl game, Rees hadn’t celebrated his second birthday. And so that’s the world Rees will enter in Tuscaloosa. He’ll no longer be trying to climb the college football mountain. He’ll call plays from the summit.

And for everything Rees has been in his young career, he hasn’t done that.