Former Alabama OC linked to NC State opening by CFB insider
Published:
Former Alabama offensive coordinator Tommy Rees was linked to the vacant NC State head coaching job on Sunday morning by On3 insider Pete Nakos.
Rees, who played quarterback at Notre Dame from 2010-13 and was an assistant in South Bend from 2017-22, ran the offense at Alabama in 2023 during Nick Saban‘s final season as head coach in Tuscaloosa. That Crimson Tide team was 2 wins away from winning a national championship with Rees as the OC, and now Rees is being tied to a return to the college game.
Right now, the 34-year-old Rees is the offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons, as he moved on to the NFL after that 1 season at Alabama. Rees is in his first year as the OC for the Falcons, and in the 2 years prior he was an assistant for the Cleveland Browns, including being the Browns’ OC in 2025.
In his breakdown of candidates who could replace the fired Dave Doeren, who was shown the door by NC State on Saturday after starting the season 3-4 and 1-3 in the ACC, Nakos wrote this about Rees:
The former Notre Dame quarterback has been an offensive coordinator in the NFL in recent years but has shown interest in returning to college, sources have said. He was the offensive coordinator at Notre Dame and Alabama before making the move to the NFL, and has interviewed for a handful of college jobs in recent years.
RELATED: Tracking line movement before kickoff? Here are this week’s college football odds.
The 54-year-old Doeren was NC State’s head coach since 2013, so Saturday’s firing ended a long run in Raleigh. He went 98-73 at NC State, including a 52-57 mark in the ACC. But the Wolfpack have stumbled so far this season, leading to Doeren’s firing and, just maybe, a possible return to college football for Rees to become the head coach in Raleigh.
While a former piece of Alabama’s coaching staff has been linked to the NC State job, the current Crimson Tide are trying to stack up enough wins to get back to the College Football Playoff. Here is what the Kalshi market is currently saying about Alabama’s potential victory total for the 2026 season:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
