Reinstated Tommy Rees battling for backup job with Andrew Hendrix

Everett Golson is Notre Dame’s starting quarterback. There’s no controversy there.

But should something happen to Golson against Purdue on Saturday, who’d step in under center? That’s still up for debate.Tommy Rees — with 16 starts under his belt — is back on the depth chart after serving his one-game suspension following his arrest in May. Rees hardly saw any reps during training camp, as Golson, Andrew Hendrix and freshman Gunner Kiel battled for the starting job. But Rees is listed as the co-backup with Hendrix. And Brian Kelly today said Rees likely will get more snaps this week than Hendrix, out of necessity.“I think both of them have to get some work,” Kelly said. “But Tommy probably needs the most work at this time. Both those guys will share reps, but it’ll be, for me, probably more about making sure we get Tommy up to a level where he can be sharp if he’s in a position where he had to go into the game. I don’t know if he’s had enough work yet. He’ll get work at (No.) 2 as well as Andrew, and we’ll see how that progresses during the week.”Kelly said he does not yet know which quarterback he’d turn to if Golson got hurt. But even though Rees didn’t see much action during camp, Kelly said he has a sense of where Rees is at in terms of his ability to play if needed.“I do, I do, I have a sense,” he said. “We are pleased with it, or we wouldn’t move him into a position where he could get some reps as a backup. We saw some of the things that we wanted in terms of ball security and good decision-making, and we’ll continue to work on that. But Tommy is very valuable player to our program. He’s got a lot of experience, and we are happy to have him.”Golson and Hendrix both credited Rees for acting as a coach and making them better players during camp — essentially, helping them take his job.“He’s a young man who really handled himself well in a very tough set of circumstances,” Kelly said. “I think we all know that. He was a great teammate, that’s all I would tell you. He handled himself the right way.”