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Notre Dame Football: 3 biggest surprises from 2019 season

By Dante Pryor

SOUTH BEND, IN - OCTOBER 13: Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Brian Kelly stands in the tunnel in front of his team before the game against the Pittsburgh Panthers at Notre Dame Stadium on October 13, 2018 in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images)
SOUTH BEND, IN - OCTOBER 13: Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Brian Kelly stands in the tunnel in front of his team before the game against the Pittsburgh Panthers at Notre Dame Stadium on October 13, 2018 in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images) /
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NEW YORK, NY – DECEMBER 28: Head coach Brian Kelly talks to Tommy Rees #11 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish during the New Era Pinstripe Bowl against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights at Yankee Stadium on December 28, 2013, in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY – DECEMBER 28: Head coach Brian Kelly talks to Tommy Rees #11 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish during the New Era Pinstripe Bowl against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights at Yankee Stadium on December 28, 2013, in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images) /

2. The firing of Chip Long

What’s most shocking about Brian Kelly and long-time offensive coordinator Chip Long parting ways was the timeframe in which it happened. Kelly let Long go on December 11 at the end of the regular season. Why so late? It seemed as if Kelly wanted to use both the bowl game practices and the Camping World Bowl to set expectations for next year and to test new offensive coordinating duo Tommy Rees and Lance Taylor — who will serve as run game coordinator — to see if the fit would work.

Here’s an interesting fact about “Touchdown” Tommy Rees: he’s been with the Notre Dame program in one way or another almost every year since 2010.

Kelly, a defensive coach by pedigree, said before the Camping World Bowl that he wanted to get back to what he called the “DNA” of Irish football which is a strong running game. Both Rees and Taylor will no doubt follow that edict along with adding some of their own philosophies to the mix.

This might seem like a move that allows Kelly to puppet Rees and be the man behind the offense, but he’s come out and said that he’s not calling plays anymore. We’ll have to see how it goes.

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