Notre Dame Football: Irish to Name Starting QB, Dayne Crist Would Be a Mistake

Notre Dame fans won’t have to wait much longer to find out who their starting quarterback will be for 2011. According to this report, coach Brian Kelly will make his decision between Dayne Crist and Tommy Rees tomorrow, Tuesday, August 23.

Crist appears to be the frontrunner in the race, but it would be wise of Irish fans everywhere to hope Rees wins the job.

Injuries can ruin a career. and it would appear that Dayne Crist has suffered that fate. After suffering another knee injury last season, it’s hard to see him not getting injured again or, at least, not being at his peak again. There are few people who can come back from injuries in both knees and play elite football.

With two talented youngsters waiting in the wings in Everett Golson and Andrew Hendrix, it would be best if the Irish cut their losses now and tell Crist the brutally harsh truth: that he’s an injury liability. He may even want to consider transferring if that happens, because he likely won’t win the job back.

A quarterback needs time to gel with his receivers, and keeping an equally-talented quarterback on the sidelines practicing with different receivers seemingly waiting for another injury to happen is a waste of talent. Someone will transfer out of the group; it’s just a matter of who and when. They’re simply too talented not to start somewhere.

Rees is certainly deserving of the spot despite his large turnover ratio. Rookie quarterbacks will make mistakes, especially when they’re under the immense pressure that Notre Dame places on the success of its football team given the tradition and television contract. The immersion of Cierre Wood at running back in the second half of the season will take off some of that pressure and lets Rees relax more in the pocket and not try and force the ball downfield to keep a drive alive.

By no means will Notre Dame become a rushing team under Brian Kelly, but they will need Woods’ 71 yards per game that he averaged in the second half of the season to keep defenses honest.

There won’t be many cornerbacks who can cover Michael Floyd on Notre Dame’s schedule. He and Rees struggled against better defenses, but really started to click against USC and Miami. With Floyd returning to school after his third alcohol-related incident, Rees will get enough time to get back that connection.

Dayne Crist is a great quarterback, and no one seems to talk ill about him. But if Notre Dame is serious about returning to glory, it needs to do the right thing and let Tommy Rees take over as quarterback and not Dayne Crist.

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