I was at that game.

Pretty sure I've been trying to bleach it from my memories.

It was picked off as well. Then Rees got benched for Montana, then Crist came back in.

What a shitshow that game was, I still haven't blocked it out.

He played all of 2013. I think he started after USF in 2011? And he came in relief a few times in 2012.

started the remainder of 2011 games.

all the relief appearances in 2012. Total was probably the equivalent of a bit under 3 full seasons of game action. It’s a bit surprising someone like him has so many records over Quinn or Clausen, but not a surprise he has them over anyone else really, given the amount he played and the nature of college football offenses today compared even to 20 years ago, let alone further back.

At least it was written here quite often that he didn't have a strong arm.

he tended to be immobile and couldn't throw that ball a mile. What he did bring to the table was an understanding of how the offense was designed, how to read a defense, and a willingness to take a hit. Since the offense was designed to use short passes in lieu of runs, that resulted in a lot of passes, completions, and yards.

I've always felt that a lot of this had to do with his competitive drive. It would have been easy for him to end up on the bench, but he seemed to always find a way to end up playing instead. He was never a "great" quarterback, but he always managed to be "good enough" to be the guy on the field. He stayed healthy and ended up with a lot of production as a result.

As a short white guy that played quarterback, I always find myself rooting, to some degree, for any physically deficient quarterback not named Flutie. Unfortunately, Tommy's toughness and competitiveness as a player aren't going to make his on-the-job Offensive Coordinator training/internship any less pain free.

as a number of other posters are. He's a football lifer, child of a coach, who has been preparing for this since childhood. No small part of his ability to hold on to a starting role was due to the six inches between his ears.

I'm quietly hopeful that that hidden preparation will make game planning against good defenses and calling the right plays within his capability.

it was like having another coach on the field.

They had a goofy 3-3-5 defense that was supposedly hard to prepare for and we pretty much sliced it to pieces. Its not Clemson (or Michigan for that matter), but our offense was well designed to beat them.

He still called passes in goal to go situations, resulting in 4 FGs, but overall called a good balanced game.

Things happen fast and you need to be able to adapt and adjust faster than the opponent’s coaching staff. The most important attribute for offensive coordinators at the highest levels is experience (obviously, IMO). There’s no level of playing quarterback that can prepare you for the gameday experience of commanding the offense in total, because playing quarterback is absolutely nothing like coordinating the offense. Likewise, there is not a gene passed from parent to child that bypasses the value of experience in the position. Further, if you’re essentially learning on the job, how much does that impact other facets of the position, such as recruiting?

I hope TR does well, in spite of his glaring deficiencies in the experience department. I am not confident, but I hope I am wrong. My fear is he becomes a puppet/proxy for BK to meddle in the offense, and a scapegoat if things go poorly.

like conferences do. Conferences have very well defined offenses and defenses across all teams in the conference. You play close to the exact same schedule every year. That translates into you install a specific kind of offense (or defense) that largely works across the entire conference.

ND plays every major conference plus triple option teams like Navy every year. We also rotate teams from the conferences and rotate across conferences across seasons. The net result is the OC and the DC have to be able to handle a much wider variety of defenses (or offenses for DC) each season. Remember Diaco having absolutely no clue what to do with triple option? He'd never seen it before.

Layer on top of this that we presently have a totally failed offensive system -- and that failed system is the only one Rees have ever known. What basis does he have to draw upon to change the offense into one that can actually win a playoff game -- and ideally a title game too? None. That's the reason why hiring Rees is a major problem for most people.

5 to 10 years from now he may have the experience needed to adjust real-time like a Lou Holtz during a game to something unexpected a DC throws at him. Short of camps, video and a small miracle -- he has no method to learn a different offense and how to implement it at ND.

of the few people who has experienced playing that kind of a schedule and working to attack all those kinds of defenses.

To be clear, I'm not asserting that he will be a success, I'm asserting that I'm not as unhappy as many posters here; I think there's a good chance he'll be a success despite the weaknesses, such as his resume, that have been discussed simply because I see some strengths as well.

Time will, presumably, tell ...

Which means the triple option shouldn’t catch anybody off guard. That was simply an example of Diaco doing a bad job.

Systems because we play across conferences. Conferences are almost all uniform top to bottom on their systems. That was the point. Even though we know navy we still devote specialized time in preseason and in every week leading up to the game to prepare players for that system.

Diaco is an example of an inexperienced coordinator. Unable to adjust. Doesn’t know how to prepare. Navy made a minor tweak and he was blown away during the game.

talent and coaching success. The guys who make the best coaches normally aren't the guys with natural ability, but the guys who have to work, fight, and be smart to make it. Lets look...Swinney, Saban, Holtz...etc. I think Tommy will do well. Now, I didnt want him to be named OC, but I do think he will do just fine.