Notre Dame has had a difficult 18-year stretch. Since the Fighting Irish finished 2nd in the coaches poll in 1993, they have not finished a season ranked in the top 10. In the last four years they have had a record of 24-26 and have made just 2 bowl games. It's been a tough run for a program that has 11 National Championships. This year however there is reason for optimism with Notre Dame being ranked as high as number 16 in the AP poll, their highest preseason ranking since they were number 16 in 2006. The biggest question mark behind how successful the Fighting Irish will be this season will be the play of their quarterback. Brian Kelly had to make a huge decision on who would open the season at that position. It took Kelly all of spring football and nearly all of training camp to make the decision, but he chose to name senior Dayne Crist the starter over sophomore Tommy Rees. Brain Kelly said about Crist, "He is a much better football player [than a year ago], he's a much better quarterback and quite frankly and honestly he's the kind of guy I want to coach. He's tougher mentally. He handles himself in a leadership position the way I want our quarterbacks to handle it. Dayne will be the starter and I expect him to be the starter for 13 weeks. We have great confidence in his ability to lead us to a championship." Although neither Crist nor Rees were head and shoulders above the other, Crist was the better option for the Irish than Rees.
Crist's ability to sling the ball all around the field and to make difficult throws is something that Rees's can't quite do yet. Crist threw for more than 200 yards in every game he played in besides the Navy game. He also threw for over 300 yards on the road at Michigan St. and again in South Bend against Stanford. Crist threw 7 picks in 8 games, and had just one 2-interception game. With Rees, the Irish were much more limited in their passing attack. Rees only threw for more than 215 yards once, and he had the same number of interceptions as Crist in three less games. Rees threw three picks against Tulsa in a horrible loss at home 28-27, and he also had three interceptions on the road at USC. Notre Dame's star wide receiver, Michael Floyd, the only wideout with over 415 yards last season, averaged about 10 more yards per game with Crist as his quarterback.
Although last year Dayne Crist was 4-4 in games where he played the majority of the game and Tommy Rees was 4-1 in games where he played the majority of the game, Rees got a lot of help from his defense and from his running game. In the 8 games Crist played, the Notre Dame defense allowed an average of 24.5 points per game. The Notre Dame rushing attack averaged just 112 yards per game, including less than 100 yards in the big games against Michigan St., Stanford, and Pittsburgh, which left most of the responsibility on Crist to put together scoring drives for the Irish. In the 5 games Rees played, the Notre Dame defense was significantly better as they allowed an average of just 13.4 points per game. The Irish rushing attack averaged about 150 yards per game when Rees was playing, which was nearly 40 more yards than the rushing attack averaged with Crist. Obviously, it wasn't entirely on Crist for the 4-4 record, and it wasn't entirely Rees's great play that gave the Irish a 4-1 record to end the season.
If Crist can get some help from his running game and the defense can hold down the fort, then the Irish have a chance to once again become an elite college football team. They play just three ranked teams, and two of them are at home against #17 Michigan St. and #25 USC. Let's see if they can win one for the Gipper!
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