College football annually has plenty of turnover on coaching staffs, we saw it this past season with Clark Lea leaving to lead Vanderbilt and subsequently Brian Kelly finding his new defensive coordinator in Marcus Freeman. Finding a replacement can be great, but what teams also have to do is not only win on the field and develop their players, but develop their own coaches.
Most major programs see other teams poach their up-and-coming coaches so finding younger assistants who are on the rise in the profession is paramount. That’s exactly what Kelly has been able to do, as today, both offensive coordinator Tommy Rees and safeties coach Chris O’Leary have been named to 247Sports 30Under30, college football’s rising star coaches.
The inclusion of Rees should not surprise anyone, he has made their list for 3 consecutive years. In his first full season calling the offensive plays, Rees led the Irish offense that “ranked 30th nationally in point per game and 34th in yards per play as it reached the College Football Playoff.” Pretty impressive if you ask me.
As for O’Leary, after starting his career as a graduate assistant at Georgia State in 2015, he’s climbed the ranks from when Kelly hired him as a defensive analyst to graduate assistant and now the defensive back/safeties coach. Chris Hummer cited last year’s Butkus Award winner, Jeremiah Owusu-Koramaoh, as a feather in O’Leary’s cap even though he “can’t claim credit for JOK’s ascendance, but those around the program have been high on O’Leary and his ability to develop.”
As stated above, coaches like these two typically get poached by other programs giving them more responsibilities and higher pay. Hopefully that won’t be the case so soon for Rees and O’Leary.