Quick-hitters: Notre Dame OC Tommy Rees on QB Drew Pyne, Irish wide receivers, offensive line

Notre Dame offensive coordinator Tommy Rees just coached Drew Pyne through his first career start. Rees vividly recalls bits and pieces of being of his own first career start.

Flashback to Nov. 13, 2010.

“It was senior night. It was raining. Utah after a bye week. They were third in the country the week before but lost to TCU,” Rees said. “I don’t remember the emotions of it. I probably couldn’t feel my legs.”

Saturday, Rees didn’t give Pyne a pass for likely feeling (or not feeling) the same way about his legs against California. Rees was caught on camera yelling a few choice words into his junior signal caller’s ear from a press box telephone after Pyne’s shaky start to the game, which included a grounded ball on the first series and an air-mail overthrow on the second.

Pyne bounced back, though, and was a key cog for the Fighting Irish in a 24-17 victory over Cal, just as Rees was a premier player for Notre Dame in a 28-3 win over the visiting Utes a dozen years ago.

“That’s the mark of a quarterback,” Rees said. “We obviously want to start faster and be ready to go right off the bat. You hit a couple of those plays early, you’re probably calling a different game. We got to continue to get him to feel good going into the game and get him in rhythm with the guys. That starts to open things up a bit. Drew responded like we knew he would. He cares a lot and wants to be there for his teammates. He certainly responded and did that.”

Here’s more from Rees from his Tuesday night media availability.

Further discussion on Pyne’s slow start

“You try to take as much emotion out of it as you can. You try to fundamentally assess it. You watch those throws, we have to do a better job of rotating our upper-body and getting some shoulder rotation and not short-arm and jab a throw. That’s when you miss low on the run. It happened on the first play and it happened on the one to (Michael Mayer). You try to strip out the emotion of, ‘Oh, it’s your first start. You can’t feel your legs.’ Whatever it may be. No. What technically can we focus on instead of focusing on the result? Focus on mechanically or some of the physical things that got us to that point. And then, obviously, as you continue to play and have experience under your belt some of those nerves start to smoothen out. You kind of get back to the routine that you’re normally in.”

On the lack of verticality in the Notre Dame passing game

“We had a vertical shot to Chris (Tyree) for a touchdown. A little bit of all of it is always by team. Cal is a post-high, NFL-style defensive team where they keep the top on things. Seam ball, you can attack them. But posts, those types of deals, are probably a little less of areas of the field you try to attack.

“You have things in the game plan where you have to feel out the game flow a little bit, where the quarterback is at when you call those. I think a lot of that stuff depends on the week of practice, certainly, but getting the quarterback’s rhythm early and building the ability to say, ‘OK, we’re going to let these couple rip. We’ll continue to attack that.’

“Look, we’re always looking for weaknesses in the defense and trying to expose those. I feel like we had a couple shots at it on Saturday and batted 50% there. We’re going to continue to try to add some of those.”

On stretching the field with running backs

“There are specific components you try to take advantage of. We had a nice dealing with pressure. And a nice dealing with coverage on Chris there. Those are just part of game plan looks of what you prepare for in the week. When they work out the way you hope the do, you’re happy. You continue to find those nuanced things that help give you an advantage.”

On the lack of involvement of Notre Dame wide receivers

“That’s certainly more about the flow of the game Saturday than anything about the wideouts. That was about what we were able to do and what we were doing well and what Drew was comfortable with in those moments than anything else. We wanted to, in his first start, run things he was extremely confident in. As we continue to rep and continue to get practices under his belt and make sure he’s ready to go, we’ll continue to build the camaraderie and the timing with those guys.

“That’s more about game flow than anything else. We felt we were running the ball at a high tick and had some easy completions to the wideouts in the flat and things like that. We have to continue to evolve and make sure we’re doing things offensively to get the ball down the field.”

On the Notre Dame offensive line’s strong second half against Cal

“It certainly helps build an identity. It certainly helps give you a call where you say, ‘We’re going to execute this and stay ahead of the sticks.’ It’s a little bit of a safety net when you feel you can do some of those things. But we’re going to strive to get better there and at the other spots. Hopefully in these next couple weeks we can put the pieces all together so we can be multi-faceted and teams have to defend us a couple different ways.”