Tom Loy of the 247Sports Notre Dame site Irish Illustrated hit me up last night and gave me a heads up that he heard Miami is pursuing Tommy Rees for the open offensive coordinator position. Loy is an excellent reporter on the Notre Dame beat, so his info is rock solid, and he asked if I could check in on my end to see what I am hearing.
Over night on Friday, I confirmed from a couple sources that Miami is pursuing Rees. It sounds like Rees has a decision to make in terms of whether he wants to stay at Notre Dame (his alma mater), take on a new challenge at Miami, or explore some potential NFL offensive coordinator options.
From the Miami side of things, Rees is believed to have serious interest in the Hurricanes, but it is also recognized that Brian Kelly tried to lure him to LSU during that coaching transition and was unsuccessful.
Rees, who is 29 years old, has been coaching at Notre Dame since 2017. He was the quarterbacks coach from 2017-19 and was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2020. Rees is respected for running a balanced, creative attack that has maximized the Notre Dame talent for the past two years.
On Wednesday, Gaby Urrutia reported that Tennessee offensive coordinator Alex Golesh is a name to know in Miami’s search. If Rees does not agree to come to Miami, I think we could see Mario Cristobal turn the heat up on that pursuit.
Are there other names Cristobal is speaking with as well? Most likely. He is being extremely thorough and exploring every option.
Miami will give Mario Cristobal an assistant coach salary pool of at least $8M to work with. Whoever Cristobal hires at offensive coordinator is expected to be one of the highest paid play-callers (that is not a head coach) in college football in 2022.