Quick-hitters: Notre Dame OC Tommy Rees on USC defense, WR recruiting, 31 personnel

Notre Dame offensive coordinator Tommy Rees is coming off another well-executed game plan in which his Fighting Irish offense scored 44 points and racked up 437 yards of offense vs. Boston College. Rees went over some aspects from that game as well as a brief look ahead to Notre Dame’s matchup vs. an opportunistic USC defense in his Tuesday night media session.

Here’s what the Notre Dame OC had to say.

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On how long he had been waiting to unveil 31 personnel

“Not that long, actually. That kind of just popped up last week. Those guys do a really nice job. Some weeks, all three were fully able to go. Some weeks, maybe one guy wasn’t full go. Just trying to find wrinkles and things to help keep opponents off balance. Just as many personnel challenges we can throw at people to make them think and get them into base defensive calls that may give us an advantage. We have really smart guys. You can throw a lot on them, and they handle it. We hit a couple of those, and we’ll see how that pack continues to develop for us.”

On Notre Dame WR Matt Salerno’s TD vs. Boston College

“Had that play up a few times. Look, we’re not going to put our team at a disadvantage. But the look showed for it. Matt has good quick-area agility to get in and out of some of those cuts. We scored a two-pointer on it earlier in the year. [Tyler Buchner] ran it in. It was intentional to put that guy in that spot. We got the look we wanted, and Matt did a nice job of executing it.

“He’s a guy we have a ton of trust in. He’s in there in critical moments. He’s in there in roles that are critically important. He’s tagged on stuff to make sure he’s in. There is stuff throughout the year where he’s done a lot of the dirty work for us and been in critical spots. He’s worked extremely hard to earn the opportunity to be out there playing. What other moment could you have on senior night to score your first touchdown and share that?

“I’m going to start the campaign now to get him back for his sixth year and see if we can keep him here for one more opportunity to play football.”

On facing a USC defense that ranks No. 5 nationally in turnovers forced

“It’s decision-making, first and foremost. Recognizing what they’re in and where the ball needs to go in the pass game. Obviously, protecting the quarterback is critical. And that’s not just the line. It’s the receivers being in the right spots on time and all those things. Can’t give them any cheap ones. Can’t give many cheap ones at all, whether it’s the back or the quarterback not seeing something. They’ve been really good at taking it away, but a lot of it has been decision-making lapses on the other team’s part. There aren’t as many fumbles (6) as there are interceptions (18), and a lot of that comes down to decision-making and doing the little things well on time.”

On Notre Dame’s running game vs. Boston College

“You couldn’t throw the ball in the second half, period. To be honest with you, we probably threw it more than we intended to. I remember looking down at half going, ‘Ah, we probably threw it more than expected.’ I thought our staff and players did a nice job of adding extra hats where they weren’t lined up, using motions and shifts to keep people off-balance, finding ways when they do have an extra hat to get somebody on the backside to be there and then keeping them off-balance with inside and outside perimeter plays.”

On Notre Dame’s offensive identity affecting recruiting pitches to prospective wide receivers

“That’s not something that has come up a whole lot, to be honest with you. I think we have shown the ability to get our best players heavily, heavily involved and featured in the offense. Who that is week to week is important. I think that’s an easy pitch.

“I think we have had success throwing the football in the past. You look at the Clemson game and this game, and you’re not going to throw the ball in 40 miles per hour winds or snow. So you take those two out of it. You look at the first half vs. Navy and you threw it pretty good. BYU, you threw it pretty good. Carolina, we threw it pretty good. Some of those games are friendlier for throwing, I guess.

“You can highlight some of that. You can show, ‘Hey, these are the ways we are getting guys open.’ And, ‘Hey, there is going to be a lot of opportunity here if there is where you want to be.’ This place attracts the right people. We have enough in our system to show them, ‘Hey, these are the things we are capable of doing.’ We just have to be more consistent doing it. We played in a blizzard and we played in a tornado. That’s part of living in South Bend in November, I guess.”