The college football season hasn’t even started, and Notre Dame is already facing difficult decisions for the upcoming year. After their 2012 starting QB, Everett Golston, was suspended for undisclosed violations, coach Brian Kelly was left trying to figure out how to salvage the upcoming season. After all, Golston was the QB who led the unassuming Irish to the national title game against Alabama last season.
USA Today is reporting that Coach Kelly has announced that senior QB Tommy Rees will be the starter for the Aug 31st season opener against Temple. Kelly justified his decision by saying:
“I didn’t name him the starter for all 13 games. I named him the starter for Temple. My expectation is he will take the job and continue to lead our football team. He was the most experienced. He’s won. He obviously knows our offense very well. He’s a senior. Well-respected. He has all the things. It was really a quite easy decision from that standpoint.”
This is Rees’ chance to prove himself to the NFL scouts, as he did lose his starting job to true freshman, Golston, last season and this is his last year at Notre Dame. However, Rees can’t be feeling good about his coach’s obvious lack of faith in skills. By naming him the starter for only the Temple game, Kelly has made it very clear that Rees can lose his job at any time to backup Andrew Hendrix, or freshman Malik Zaire. After all, with Rees at the helm, the team went 8-5 in 2011. It will be interesting to see if Rees steps up this time around.
