Notre Dame Football: Top Storylines vs Iowa State

Play Calling Duties

After offensive coordinator Chip Long and Notre Dame mutually parted ways about two weeks ago, two very important questions arose: who will be the next offensive coordinator and more immediately pressing, who will be calling plays for this week’s bowl game matchup?

It is generally assumed that Chip Long was the best offensive coordinator that Brian Kelly has had during his tenure in South Bend. Although at times it seemed like the offense didn’t live up to its expectations or seem to be fitted for the strengths of the quarterback, it’s hard to deny the overall positive results that Long-led offenses have had the last three seasons.

Many assume that current quarterbacks coach and former Irish quarterback Tommy Rees will be given the promotion to offensive coordinator, though nothing has been officially announced or set in stone as of now.

Leading up to the bowl game, Brian Kelly has stated he’s going to keep the play-calling duties a “national secret.” Over the course of preparation process leading up to Saturday, it’s been a collaborative effort between Tommy Rees, running backs coach Lance Taylor, and offensive line coach Jeff Quinn in terms of putting together a balanced run and pass game plan for this weekend.

When Saturday rolls around, Rees will most likely be the man calling the shots. Don’t expect to see anything too different from what we saw during the regular season, which was an offense that looked unstoppable when clicking on all cylinders — an offense that averaged 37 points a game.

Of course, I’m not blind to what the offense looked like at many other points of the season when things weren’t clicking. Unimaginative play-calling, bad quarterback play, no run game, no rhythm — just plain bad.

How the offense plays come Saturday will really be an interesting storyline. After the late season surge we saw from the unit, especially quarterback Ian Book, does that continue seamlessly after almost a month of not playing? How do they respond with a new play-caller and no Chip Long?

All the factors that suggest a down game for the offense seem to be there. How they respond will be one of the main differences between finishing 11-2 or suffering an embarrassing end to the season to a 5-loss team on a neutral field.