Notre Dame Football: Losing Gunner Kiel to LSU Aids Irish in Champs Sports Bowl

While winning over top-recruits often serves as motivation for head coaches, the players that share a position with that 5-star prospect aren’t always too thrilled.  Notre Dame starting quarterback Tommy Rees fits under that category.  The Fighting Irish may suffer in the future from losing Gunner Kiel to LSU, but in the Champs Sports Bowl, they will benefit because of the loss.

When starting athletes are forced to look over their shoulder because their job is danger, their play suffers, focus is lost and their composure plummets.  Seattle Seahawks QB Tarvaris Jackson blamed his struggles with the Minnesota Vikings on Brad Childress always keeping him on a short leash.  If a second-stringer potentially taking your job at any moment can get in the head of an NFL quarterback, just imagine what it would have done to the psyche of the sophomore Rees.

Coming out of high school, Rivals didn’t proclaim Rees as the next Peyton Manning like they’re doing to Kiel.  As just a 3-star recruit, Rees received scholarship offers from Tennessee and Stanford, while the rest of his full-rides came from Miami (OH), Central Michigan and Bowling Green.  On top of the fact that the Fighting Irish didn’t fight for their lives to win his recruitment, Brian Kelly just benched Rees against the Cardinal for poor play.

If Kiel would’ve chosen to go to Notre Dame, the starting job already had his name on it.  With nothing but unproven quarterbacks to compete with, the No. 1 QB prospect in the nation would’ve easily been taking snaps with the first-string by the start of training camp.  Rees knows that and would’ve played erratic against Florida State as he over-anxiously attempted to do whatever it took to save his job.

That distraction no longer exists.  Rees can play football now; no future threats on his job will be bouncing around in his head as he walks up to the line of scrimmage to read the Seminoles’ defense.  While his job is still technically at risk to Andrew Hendrix, Rees knows all he has to do is play his game and he won’t be holding a clipboard.

David Daniels is a featured columnist at Bleacher Report and a syndicated writer. Follow him on Twitter.