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Notre Dame’s Tommy Rees named to Herbstreit’s top performing coaches of Week 4

All too often in life we go around searching for someone to blame for something.  Instead of it being a collective failure, it has to fall on one person.  One scapegoat, if you will.

That one person seemed to be offensive coordinator Tommy Rees after the first three weeks of struggles for the Fighting Irish offense but before their 45-32 dismantling of North Carolina.  It turns out Notre Dame fans weren’t the only ones giving praise to Rees for the offensive breakout but that Kirk Herbstreit took note as well, listing the former Notre Dame signal caller as one of his top performing coaches in all of college football for Week 4.

Notre Dame’s offense scored six touchdowns, nearly a seventh before a goal line fumble, and totaled 576 yards on the afternoon.

Rees was one of seven coaches mentioned by Herbstreit as he actually ranked second for the weekend.  See the seven Herbstreit ranked in order below:

7. Curt Cignetti - James Madison

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James Madison is 3-0 after upsetting Appalachian State on Saturday despite trailing 28-3 at one point.

6. Dan Lanning - Oregon

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Dan Lanning helped guide Oregon to an impressive comeback win at Washington State as the Ducks trailed by 12 with six minutes left in the contest.

5. Josh Heupel - Tennessee

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Josh Heupel helped end Nebraska‘s dominance of Oklahoma back when he was playing and now he’s helped Tennessee end Florida‘s dominance of the Vols as a coach.  Tennessee finds themselves ranked in the top-10 this week following a 38-33 victory over Florida.

4. Lance Leipold - Kansas

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Don’t look now but Kansas isn’t just a basketball school anymore!

At least now for now, anyway.

The Jayhawks are 4-0 after beating previously undefeated Duke at home in a game that would usually sell out Allen Fieldhouse, not the Kansas football stadium.  Lance Leipold is the runaway national coach of the year at this point, right?

3. P.J. Fleck - Minnesota

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Could Minnesota be a 10-plus win team this season?  After P.J. Fleck led the Golden Gophers to a blowout victory at Michigan State this past weekend it sure would appear that Minnesota is the clear favorite to win the Big Ten West.

2. Tommy Rees (OC) - Notre Dame

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The previously non-existent Notre Dame offense came to life against North Carolina last week as the Irish erupted for 45 points and 576 yards of total offense.

1. Chris Klieman - Kansas State

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How do you bounce back from an upset loss?  It doesn’t get much better than going to the number-six team in the country’s place and giving them the business for 60 minutes.  That’s exactly what Chris Klieman and Kansas State did Saturday as they took down No. 6 Oklahoma for the third time in their last four meetings.

Story originally appeared on Fighting Irish Wire