Quick-hitters: Tommy Rees on Oklahoma State, Marcus Freeman, Fiesta Bowl
Notre Dame offensive coordinator Tommy Rees safety spoke for everyone in the Notre Dame football program on a Zoom press conference Sunday night.
“It has only been a week. It has felt like a month the last seven days,” Rees said.
Indeed, the Irish’s 45-14 win at Stanford Nov. 27 to wrap up the regular season feels like a distant memory.
In the eight days since then, head coach Brian Kelly pulled a surprise exit for LSU and Notre Dame elevated Marcus Freeman from defensive coordinator to replace him. In between those two, there was surprise, confusion, uncertainty, hurt feelings, attempts to poach staff followed by assistants deciding to stay, and finally, elation.
Now — finally — there’s football news to discuss. No. 5 Notre Dame (11-1) plays No. 9 Oklahoma State (11-2) in the Jan. 1 Fiesta Bowl. Freeman will be formally introduced Monday, and then it’s on to signing a recruiting class and preparing for the bowl game.
“As an entire program, we’re eager for this opportunity and eager to get back into football mode here,” Rees said.
Rees spoke with reporters via Zoom a couple hours after the Fiesta Bowl matchup was announced. He filled in for Freeman, who left for a recruiting trip Sunday afternoon. Here are some topics he addressed.
On Oklahoma State
“We’ve heard about Oklahoma State all year, and I know a lot of the conversation has been about how strong their defense has been playing. Over the last 10 years or so, when you think about that program, you think offense first. But [defensive coordinator Jim] Knowles has done a great job preparing them.
“Yesterday was really my first opportunity to sit down and watch them play. I’ve gotten a little ahead today on some film and looking at them early on. They present a lot of challenges. They do a lot of different things defensively and are very multiple in their fronts and coverages."
On what the game means for Notre Dame’s offense
“It gives us a great opportunity offensively to figure out where we’re at. This is a barometer game for us. We’ve felt the steady improvement throughout the year, and now we have to go against a great defense to see how much we’ve improved.
“Wisconsin, Cincinnati, those were a couple games early on where, to be quite frank, we weren’t playing our best football. Now we have an opportunity for that group of guys to go against a great defense — not a good one, a great one — to see how we stack up.”
On the offense-first perception of the Big 12
“I think that’s flipped a bit. When you watch Big 12 football now, there’s a lot of good defense being played. A lot of the new way with defensive football has been a 3-3-5 structure you saw from Iowa State in 2019 when we played them in the bowl game.
"The conference has been very innovative that way because they’ve had to stop high-powered offenses. You see a lot of what they’ve implemented in that conference trickle over across college football.
“The defense in that conference has been played at a very high level over the last two years. We’re excited for the challenge. It’s not a conference we play a whole lot.”
“These are what bowl games are for, to play matchups you don’t typically get to play. For us to play in this big a game against an opponent like Oklahoma State who’s nationally in the conversation every year, we’re really excited for that opportunity.”
On how game planning changes without Kelly around
“Our process will stay pretty consistent with how it’s been all year in terms of how we approach a game-plan week. We have a great staff in place offensively that has worked in a cohesive way all year.
"Coach Freeman now being head coach — the conversations with him during the week about playing complementary football and understanding situationally his preference may be different than Coach Kelly’s. That’s something over the next couple of weeks, he and I will have conversations on and make sure we’re on the same page and playing as an entire team, not just three sides of the ball.
“It has only been a week. It has felt like a month the last seven days. As an entire program, we’re eager for this opportunity and eager to get back into football mode here.”
On Oklahoma State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles and his unit’s strengths
“He was at Duke for a little bit. There were some times there when I was a player and then when I first got hired, so I remember him at Duke. We don’t see a ton of Oklahoma State. We just don’t often play a similar schedule.
"But I have followed them a little bit this year, we got a chance to watch them yesterday and some prep in the last couple hours here. I know they’re multiple in what they do defensively and they present a lot of different challenges.
“The thing that’s intriguing when you look at their numbers, they’ve only given up 26 percent on third down. That’s an area where if you’re not good on third down, it’s hard to win games. That’s an area I feel will be critical in our matchup.”
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