Notre Dame Elevates Lake Forest's Rees To No. 1 QB

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Tommy Rees' elevation to starting quarterback at Notre Dame began at 5:55 p.m. Monday.

That's the time Irish coach Brian Kelly put last weekend's 23-20 loss to South Florida in the rear-view mirror and moved onto Saturday night's upcoming clash at Michigan.

, he has switched gears and named the product his starter at his Tuesday press conference in South Bend, Ind.

"Your roster has to be evaluated about how you win right now," Kelly said, "especially at Notre Dame. I don’t think we mortgage our future. We don’t just live in the future. We try to live in the now, and the now for me is winning football games, and Tommy Rees gives us the best chance."

with the Irish trailing 16-0 at halftime in a game interrupted twice by weather delays. Rees was 24 of 34 for 296 yards and two touchdowns, and threw two interceptions. Crist finished 7 of 15 passing for 95 yards.

Kelly indicated the decision was not predicated on just the Michigan game.

"We don’t come to this decision thinking, well you know, he’ll give us one game and we’ll go back to Dayne," Kelly said. "That’s obviously not why we made this decision. We believe Tommy is capable of leading this football team just as I believe that Dayne is capable."

"Dayne did not have a lot of help on Saturday. It wasn’t all Dayne Crist," Kelly added.

Kelly hinted Crist still could be the starter, but the separation factor appeared to be Rees' ability to react unnerved by the game.

"I’m not here to cover Dayne’s butt," Kelly said. "That’s not my job. He did some really good things. The difference between being good and great is being decisive — not whether you can process and understand, but being decisive."

So what's to stop Kelly from changing quarterbacks again? He said he told Rees the bottom line.

"You got to be productive," Kelly said. "If you’re not productive, you should be looking over your shoulder. If you’re a productive quarterback and doing the things we ask you to do, you should just go out there and play the game you know how to play."