Tommy Rees/ Dayne Crist
I never thought too much about it when TR was recruited–seem to remember he had good passing stats was about 6’2″ but I was under the impression he was more of a running QB.
The big catch was Hendrix with the cannon for an arm and if Weis knew anything-he knew QB’s and anyhow Crist had at least 2 yrs eligibility left. Plus a Montana with the team.
Kelly arrives and adds QB Luke Massa. So depth chart looks like Crist, Hendrix, Massa, Rees & Montana.
But somewhere along the process it becomes apparent that Tommy is the only QB that can quickly read defenses and check out of plays.
We all know the rest of the story which led to an unacknowledged schism within the team. Dayne had it all and I believe if a vote taken he would have been a captain.
Tommy becomes a lightning rod among the blogs–weak arm etc gets nickname (earned) Turnover Tommy but equally earned he led the team to 12 wins and had some great comebacks.
While Dayne was treated unfairly, in my opinion–Tommy was also put in a very difficult situation within this ND team.
Whole situation handled very badly. You simply cannot change an entire pro style offense to a spread overnight.
Yet Kelly tried, but like Rick Rod at Michigan he did the whole square pegs to round holes thing.
So we end up, at this point, with two disillusioned young guys –simply not fair to either.