Notre Dame’s head football coach Brian Kelly reportedly told the Grand Rapids Press that he plans on using Tommy Rees as his starting quarterback for the coming 2013 football season.

MLive reports that while at the Grand Valley’s annual Enrichment Dinner, Kelly and his wife Paqui were presented the the Leadership Award. Kelly was head coach at Grand Valley State for 13 years until 2003.

Last year, Coach Kelly lead the Notre Dame Fighting Irish to a 12-1 record, which delivered them to a BCS National Championship game against Alabama. The Fighting Irish lost to the Crimson Tide 42-14.

Now, however, a key player from last season’s strong record won’t be returning for 2013. Quarterback Everett Golson has been suspended from Notre Dame for academic reasons, thus leaving an opening for the starting quarterback.

Speaking with a reporter from the Grand Rapids Press at the event, Kelly said “We always move forward. I don’t live in the past, and I don’t spend too much time in the future.”

“I live in the present, and in the present, we have Tommy Rees. We have Tommy Rees, who is an established player, and he will be our starter. We think Andrew Hendrix and Malik Zaire can contribute, but Tommy will be our starter.”

"We are under construction right now," Kelly added. "It's 2013, and we are putting our football team together. But the foundation is there, just like it was there at Grand Valley and when we left Central Michigan and Cincinnati. We think we have a good foundation."

The Bleacher Report writes that Rees originally lost the starting quarterback position to Golson in the start of the 2012 season, and acted as the team’s primary backup. Coach Kelly would occasionally have him step in when the redshirt freshman struggled.