Notre Dame Football: 3 overreactions from Week 2 win over Duke

2. Tommy Rees isn’t the long-term answer as offensive coordinator

If you didn’t hear this on Saturday, you were probably hiding under a rock. Notre Dame was shut out in the first quarter against Duke and only scored 10 points in the first half. It was an ugly first 30 minutes of the game. They scored just one touchdown in each of the final three quarters, adding a field goal in the second and fourth.

The Irish did finished with 441 total yards but just 27 points. It wasn’t the prettiest performance and it looked like a lot of the offense was generated from dump-downs from Ian Book to running backs. Four of Book’s 19 completions were to running backs for 113 yards.

There wasn’t a ton of creativity nor was there a lot of taking chances. It was a safe game from Rees which is understandable in the first week, but he won’t get far running an offense like that.

Notre Dame is trying to contend for a national title and it has a senior quarterback and a rising running back so it needs to run a more effective and explosive offense.