Alabama football’s offense has put the joyless in “Joyless Murderball” over the past two weeks. The Crimson Tide struggled in a Week 2 loss to Texas, then followed it up Saturday with a sloppy performance against South Florida.

Quarterback play has been nowhere near the standard set by Bryce Young last season. But to be fair to the signal-callers, it’s hard to throw from the ground and Alabama has given up 10 sacks the past two weeks.

“It’s everybody’s responsibility to try and get it right and find a better way,” head coach Nick Saban said Wednesday on the SEC coaches teleconference. “We’re all working together offensively and defensively and special teams and every part of our team to try and do that.”

When Bill O’Brien left to take the same job with the NFL’s New England Patriots this offseason, the Crimson Tide had an offensive coordinator spot to fill. Enter Tommy Rees.

The 31-year-old joined up from Notre Dame, his alma mater where he had been working as offensive coordinator since 2020. With Alabama’s struggles early on, Rees has seen plenty of criticism.

But that’s nothing new for Rees. He’s been dealing with adversity since his playing days.

‘A ridiculously hard situation’

Notre Dame took away Rees’ job as the starting quarterback in 2012. The Irish were coming off an 8-4 season, but Rees had earned the derogatory nickname “Turnover Tommy” and Brian Kelly wanted to go with redshirt freshman Everett Golson.

According to former Notre Dame offensive coordinator Chuck Martin, now the head coach at Miami of Ohio, it wasn’t welcome news for the junior.

“It was a ridiculously hard situation for Tommy,” Martin said. “He’s the returning starter and we displaced him without and open competition, which is hard to swallow when you’re the starter, us saying ‘We’re going with this guy.’”

Kelly, Martin and company did it because Rees wasn’t going to lose the competition. They believed Gholston had more upside, but they needed to get him on the field.

When spring practice rolled around, Rees was still stewing. Martin said the quarterback “wasn’t terrible” during the spring, but the frustration was showing.

During that summer, the two had a chat. Martin understood the issue but told Rees that if he couldn’t be happy at Notre Dame given the situation, it was time to move on.

Rees mulled it over and came back to his offensive coordinator.

“I’m all in,” Martin remembered him saying. “You’re gonna get the best.”

‘Always calm, always confident’

Rees was flat-out terrible the first time he took the field in a Notre Dame uniform. It was his freshman year, 2010, and the Fighting Irish were playing Michigan.

On the Irish’s opening drive, regular quarterback Dayne Crist was injured. Rees came off the bench for his college debut.

He went 0-for-2 passing with an interception. Michigan won the game 28-24.

Still, Rees wasn’t rattled, even at his young age.

“Always calm, always confident,” said Martin, who was Notre Dame’s defensive backs coach during Rees’ freshman and sophomore seasons. “Super, super smart.”

Crist took the job back, with Rees making a few more appearances in relief. Then came The Fighting Irish’s last game of October, against Tulsa, when Crist ruptured his left patella tendon, ending his season.

In came Rees. While the Golden Hurricanes won that game, with the freshman throwing a pick late in the fourth quarter deep in Tulsa territory on what would have been a game-winning drive.

Rees became the starter after that. And despite what could have been two major confidence crushers earlier in the season, he led Notre Dame to four wins down the stretch, including a Sun Bowl victory over Miami.

“Tommy rose to the top of it through that year,” Martin said. “Which is pretty impressive for a true freshman.”

Entering the 2011 season, Crist won the starting job over Rees in camp. That lasted all of one half, and the now-sophomore Rees took over from there.

He led Notre Dame to an 8-5 season, but that wasn’t enough to excite fans. Especially with the 14 interceptions he threw.

And so, entering his junior year, Rees lost his job. But he wasn’t quite done yet.

“He could have said ‘You’re not even giving me a chance to compete, I’m out of here,’” Martin said. “Nowadays everybody does that. But he stuck with it. And he loved his teammates.”

‘The folk hero’

The move to Golson turned out to be a good one for the Fighting Irish. He led the team to a 12-0 regular-regular season record, including wins over No. 10 Michigan State, No. 18 Michigan and No. 8 Oklahoma.

In the meantime, Rees got back in the good graces of Irish fans. He was helping Golson grow as a quarterback from the sideline, but a few solid appearances made him into what Martin called “a folk hero.”

Here’s a kid that went through a lot his first two years,” Martin said. “In and out of the offense, starts off bad at Michigan, works his way up, gets demoted, gets frustrated, decides he’s not gonna leave, takes the high road. And next thing I know, he’s coming into Michigan and he’s bailing us out and coming into Stanford and he’s bailing us out in overtime. And it happens over and over.”

Somewhere along the way, “Turnover Tommy” became “Touchdown Tommy” (or “Reesus, depending on which corner of the Irish fandom you find yourself in). Notre Dame’s run ended in the national title game, with a 42-14 loss to Alabama.

Then, Golson got suspended for the entire 2013 season due to an academic violation. It was Rees’ show again.

He’d end up making good that year, leading Notre Dame to a 9-4 record and throwing for 3,257 yards and 27 touchdowns. Before the year began, Martin called Rees, saddened by Golson’s suspension, but excited for the senior.

“We laughed, I was like ‘Hey, we had this discussion about 12 months ago, like if you do it the right way, I bet it works out,” Martin said. “I said ‘I don’t know what that looks like, but I bet it works out for you.’ So kind of the folk hero in ‘12 and back starting his last year. Where most kids would have ran and transferred. Who knows (if he had transferred), he probably wouldn’t be the OC at ‘Bama right now.”

‘He’s always prepared’

Once his Notre Dame career was over, Rees jumped right into coaching, starting as a graduate assistant at Northwestern before returning to his alma mater in 2017 as the quarterbacks coach. IN 2020, he got the promotion to offensive coordinator at just 28 years old.

It didn’t surprise anyone who had known him as a player.

“He knew football way more than everyone else in the building,” Martin said. “He knew, he was a sponge, like not only did he know a ton, but it was just like you could talk to him in meetings and you could have a way different conversation with him about what was going on.”

After the 2022 season, Rees left Notre Dame to take the Alabama OC job. Saban praised him as one of the top young minds in football.

But now the rubber has met the road. Alabama’s offense is struggling badly, and SEC play starts Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium against Ole Miss.

Despite an ESPN camera showing him looking stressed while on the phone from the booth during the Texas game, running back Roydell Williams said Rees is calm in times of trouble.

“He keeps a low head,” Williams said. “Whenever things are not going the way that’s planned he keeps a low head. He encourages us. He fixes things whenever they need to be fixed and he makes adjustments the way they need to be made.”

The time is now for Rees to figure out how to maximize Alabama’s offensive potential. Saban named Jalen Milroe the starter on Monday, going with the quarterback who has performed the best through three games.

It’s certainly been a bumpy road so far. But it’s nothing Rees’ experiences as a player didn’t prepare him for.

“His life experiences have no doubt trained him to be way ahead of a lot of people his age,” Martin said. “But he’s taken advantage. A lot of people have opportunities but they’re not prepared. He’s always prepared to be great at whatever he’s done.”

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