After initial reports indicated that Notre Dame QB Tommy Rees had about a 25% chance of playing on Saturday against Air Force, the latest out of South Bend makes it sound as though he's likely to be ready to roll in time for Saturday's game.
Rees left last weekend's 14-10 win over USC in the third quarter with a neck injury, and while he looked likely to be held out of practice for several days (which wouldn't give him the reps Brian Kelly would have needed to start him Saturday), Rees has been cleared to return as of Tuesday morning, paving the way for him to play next weekend.
Kelly announced the news in his Tuesday morning press conference:
"He was cleared to practice today. When you're cleared on Tuesday, I don't think there's any hesitancy to go out and play when you're cleared so early."
Rees' availability still isn't 100% guaranteed—Kelly acknowledged that he isn't an expert on neck injuries, and there hasn't been time to evaluate Rees in practice—but he was made available for Wednesday interviews, which is a strong indicator that he'll be playing in Saturday's game.
In the event that Rees sits out, the Irish are prepared to start Andrew Hendrix, who went 0/4 against USC following Rees' injury. Notre Dame is still planning to get Hendrix plenty of practice reps in the next few days to prepare for the possibility of Rees being ruled out.
Kelly didn't pull any punches when discussing Hendrix's underwhelming performances to date:
"This has not been the easiest run in the past four years here at Notre Dame from a QB standpoint. Andrew and I both expected him to play better. We're going to go out there today with that expectation. I'm confident he can do that."
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