Notre Dame Football: Tommy Rees Is Giving All-Access Passes

Tommy Rees is for the Common Man

On Friday of this week, the behind the scenes video dropped of the Barstool Chicago guys visiting the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football facilities. Barstool Chief, known and celebrated, life-long Notre Dame fan, provided a teaser for us when they were on campus.

There is really not a lot of Notre Dame representation at Barstool Sports, with many of the employees having East Coast team allegiances. But, since they have an office in Chicago, there is some Midwestern sports love. Chief is really the only one that talks about his fandom for Notre Dame. The above-mentioned uNDefeated Blog has been something he has been writing every season for the past 10+ seasons. His first one was famously before the 2012 season in which the team did go undefeated in the regular season.

Anyway, back in December, Chief and the other Barstool Chicago team had Tommy Rees on their podcast, RedLine Radio, to discuss his staying at ND and the Brian Kelly leaving, Marcus Freeman entering saga that was early December. If you haven’t listened to it, it is a fascinating listen into some parts of that whole process you wouldn’t hear anywhere else.

There must have been some form of agreement between Tommy and Chief after that, because Tommy knows of Chief’s fandom and has seemingly been a Stoolie (Barstool Sports fan) for a while. So, what must have come to fruition was an all-access pass for the guys to see some of the football facilities.

This to me was 1) really cool to see that there is this connection and 2) another indication that there is a new era in Notre Dame Football leadership. Tommy Rees knows it is fine if he has this huge sports entertainment and blogging company have guys come in and film parts of the Gug, locker room, and the practice facility. In the past, it would seem that something like this was not done or seemed even taboo. Now, though, this says that there can be more relaxation and a fun attached to Notre Dame Football.

With this, all of Marcus Freeman’s awesomeness, and the buy-in from the players, the switch has been flipped for the new era. We still don’t know about how the team will do on the field, but you can’t help but get excited at bringing in opportunities like this for the program to seem more approachable and less business-like.