Who: Tommy Rees
Title: Offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach
Previous stop: Notre Dame quarterbacks coach (2017-22), offensive coordinator (2020-22)
Why he's important: Nick Saban has changed coordinators a time or three. Tommy Rees is the 14th man to lead one side of the ball in Saban's 17 seasons. Such turnover is not exactly ideal, but it's not feared, either. Healthy, even.
As perhaps the world's leading expert on maintaining a culture with constantly interchanging parts, Saban was asked at SEC media days what needs to happen for a coordinator change to be successful.
"I think the most important thing is probably relationships," he said. "When you're a coordinator, you're in a leadership position for the players on that side of the ball. So to have good relationships in terms of how you present, how you motivate, and the players trusting and respecting in the things that you're trying to implement in the things that we do; that they trust and believe that that's going to help them be successful, so that's No. 1."
Schematically speaking, Saban puts the burden on the new coordinators to speak Alabama's language rather than the remaining players and assistants having to learn a new dialect every two years. "It's Alabama's offense," former coordinator Bill O'Brien said. "I think it's the right way to do it," Rees said earlier this month.
The OC job at Alabama isn't about dazzling the world with new plays -- though they'd certainly be welcomed, in due time -- it's more about motivating the best players in America to run the offense in the most efficient, effective and explosive way possible. Nothing to it.
And on that front, the 31-year-old coordinator has earned glowing reviews from his 71-year-old head coach.
At SEC media days, Saban described Rees as "a bright young guy who has done a really, really good job, players relate well to him. He relates well to them. He's a good presenter. He's very bright and understands the game conceptually very, very well and has done a really good job of implementing our offense and adding to it things that I think will benefit us in the future."
Asked about him later, Saban said the following: "Tommy Rees is one of the brightest young guys that I've seen in a long time in this business and he's been a great addition and brought a lot of positives to the offensive side of the ball in terms of his ideas and how he relates to players, how he presents to players, his energy and enthusiasm on the field has been contagious. I think I see a great trust in our players with Tommy and what he tries to do from a leadership standpoint on offense."
"You've got to be honest, you've got to build trust from early on. You've got to find something off the field you can connect with so they don't feel it's always just transactional. You've got to have moments away from the game where you can have a relationship based on other interests," he said. "I believe the relationship between the play-caller and the quarterback is as important as anything. The only way you can get there is if there's full trust."
The relationship between Rees and his quarterbacks is important, and so is the relationship between the quarterbacks and each other. Alabama repped five quarterbacks through camp, but only two appeared to be serious contenders for the job: sophomore Jalen Milroe and redshirt freshman Ty Simpson.
PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS: No. 15: Bryan Nardo, Oklahoma State; No. 14: Chad Bumphis, Mississippi State; No. 13: Buster Faulkner, Georgia Tech; No. 12 Chris Jackson, Texas; No. 11: Philip Montgomery, Auburn; No. 10: Josh Gattis: Maryland; No. 9: Lance Guidry, Miami; No. 8: Austin Armstrong, Florida; No. 7: Sean Lewis, Colorado; No. 6: Phil Longo, Wisconsin; No. 5: Tony White, Nebraska; No. 4: Pete Golding, Ole Miss; No. 3: Garrett Riley, Clemson; No. 2: Bobby Petrino, Texas A&M
Rees also brought in Tyler Buchner from Notre Dame to enhance the competition, but he stressed to the quarterbacks that the competition must remain healthy.
"When one guy has success, we want to look at it as shared success," he said. "We want to leave practice saying the quarterback position, the quarterback group had a good day."
Alabama has not released a depth chart with the opener against Middle Tennessee now just hours away, but reports indicate Milroe will be the starter. The Katy, Texas, native stands 6-foot-2, 220 pounds and runs a 4.6 40. If the competition of arms was close, Milroe's legs would always be a differentiator.
"Philosophically, we always want to start with how can we win with the people that we have? Any wrinkle is really personnel driven. We're probably going to look different than we did when I was elsewhere. There's different strengths, different areas we can take advantage of."
The personnel is, indeed, quite different than it was at Notre Dame. According to the 247Sports Team Talent Composite rankings, released this week, Alabama is the most talented of any team since the system's 2015 creation. Five-stars JC Latham and Kadyn Proctor at tackle, 5-star running back Justice Haynes, two 5-star wide receivers, not to mention the litany of 4-stars. It's doubtful a 3-star recruit will touch the ball for the Crimson Tide at any point this season while the game is in doubt.
If Rees can harness and enhance the Alabama quarterback room, the Tide should overwhelm most teams with the ground game (especially if Milroe is involved) while throwing enough to keep opponents on their heels.
"I don't have a system that says you have to fit it in these squares. It's about how can I fit what you do really well into enhancing our offense?
Our mantra is Win With People. We're going to find ways to allow our players to be in position to have great success."