Nick Saban addresses Tommy Rees' approach before facing former coach Brian Kelly

Tommy Rees arrived in South Bend in 2010 — which was the same time that Brian Kelly was named head coach. Rees was a quarterback at the time and after leaving school in 2013, it wasn’t long before Kelly brought Rees back to Notre Dame as his quarterbacks coach in 2017.

He was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2020 and has since been tabbed as one of the top up-and-coming coaches in college football today. It’s no surprise that Nick Saban had his eye on the former college QB for Alabama‘s offensive coordinator position, and a year after Kelly packed his bags for LSU — Rees began his journey to Tuscaloosa.

Now, Rees has the opportunity to face off against his former college coach and boss this Saturday. Saban said Rees’ approach has remained unchanged.

“Tommy works hard and tries to do the best he can to help our players play well in the game,” Saban said during his media availability on Wednesday. “I don’t think in these kinds of games you want to sort of try to — I don’t know what you would call it — do a lot of new stuff because the players need to have confidence in what you’re doing. They gain confidence in doing that through cumulative reps throughout the season.

“If you just make a bunch of changes, they start looking at you like, ‘Don’t you think we can execute what we’ve been doing?’ So I think you’ve got to be a little careful, but I don’t see that happening. I think he’s focused on trying to get our players in the right spots to do the right things that help them have a chance to be successful.”

To Saban’s point, Rees isn’t preparing for Kelly — he’s preparing for LSU. While he’s familiar with how Kelly runs his operation, and despite Kelly being a defensive-minded coach by trade, preparing for a scheme and preparing for someone like 6-foot-6, 315-pound Maason Smith is a completely different task.

Still, it’s a first-time matchup for both parties — and both Kelly and Rees can be expected to exchange a few words and well wishes. But nothing changes in the approach, or at least that’s according to Saban.

Saturday’s opening kickoff between the two ranked SEC squads is scheduled for 7:45 p.m. ET live on CBS. The Crimson Tide are three-point favorites, per Vegas Insider. The over/under total is set at 60.5 points.