Weis out as Notre Dame coach... Who's your pick to replace him?

[FirstTimer]

When is the last time ND had an athlete/playmaker the caliber of Dez Bryant or Tim Tebow or Percy Harvin?

Golden Tate was one of the premier players in the nation this year...so the answer to this question is 2009.

When was the last time ND could boast the type of depth in the trenches that you see from an LSU or Alabama? Where is the overall depth that teams like Florida & USC boast?

These teams also have stability and even when there have been coaching changes the guys before and after the transition could still recruit. Two of the last three coaches for Notre Dame had a very difficult time recruiting and weren't very good at it. Willingham's last class was perhaps one of the worst in Notre Dame history and Davie wasn't all that great either. Weis was building a very nice base of talent in the past 3-4 seasons and had this program moving in the right direction depth wise. That's what had a lot of Irish fans excited. Weis showed Notre Dame can recruit head to head with the big boys and more than hold their own. There are going to be ebbs and flows in recruiting, even Florida under Meyer has had them. But for Notre Dame before Weis there was peaks and valleys. You can't build a consistent winning program like that.

Hell most experts saw the talent of this Notre Dame team and figured a 9 win season would be a failure. They thought if Clausen stayed this team could run the table setting up a match up with USC in the final game of next season. Their failures lay with coach Weis not ever being able to put a respectable defense on the field. Everyone sees the talent Notre Dame has. That's why expectations for them were higher this year. It's not as though Notre Dame or the rivals.com geeks are the only one ranking these kids highly. They are being chased by all the best schools and those other coaches that recruit so well. If Notre Dame was landing kids that Florida, USC, LSU, Alabama, Ohio State etc weren't even looking at or paying attention to I could maybe see your point..but that's not the case.

[Sportsbuck]

When is the last time ND had an athlete/playmaker the caliber of Dez Bryant or Tim Tebow or Percy Harvin? When was the last time ND could boast the type of depth in the trenches that you see from an LSU or Alabama? Where is the overall depth that teams like Florida & USC boast?

Golden Tate is a Heisman candidate and of the best big play guys in the nation. Michael Floyd is an excellent receiver and a spectacular catch waiting to happen.

Notre Dame definately pulls in big-time talent, they just haven't had the coaches on the defensive side of the ball to develop that talent. And for the most part their defense is pretty young (especially in the front 7), and has a future All-American in the middle in Manti Teo anchoring it.

If you disagree, explain to me why big coaches like Urban Meyer & Stoops & Dungy laugh off overtures, and explain how this team consistantly get mauled by the USC's and loses to scrapy teams like Navy & UConn? They don't have top talent, no matter what the geeks at rivals.com have to say.

Urban Meyer and Bob Stoops were pipe dreams, Meyer has won two national championships in the toughest conference in America and he is a God to the Gator faithful, why would he leave? And Oklahoma is a destination job. And Dungy, really? Thats like saying its bad if Bill Belicheck turns down the ND job.

[Woy]

Is he in the running?

[Warner2BruceTD]

Urban Meyer and Bob Stoops were pipe dreams, Meyer has won two national championships in the toughest conference in America and he is a God to the Gator faithful, why would he leave? And Oklahoma is a destination job. And Dungy, really? Thats like saying its bad if Bill Belicheck turns down the ND job.

20 years ago, they all take the job.

[Sportsbuck]

[Warner2BruceTD]

Golden Tate is a Heisman candidate and of the best big play guys in the nation. Michael Floyd is an excellent receiver and a spectacular catch waiting to happen.

Notre Dame definately pulls in big-time talent, they just haven't had the coaches on the defensive side of the ball to develop that talent. And for the most part their defense is pretty young (especially in the front 7), and has a future All-American in the middle in Manti Teo anchoring it.

Do you really believe this? Am I the only one who sees inferior talent when ND plays big programs? Am I watching the same games?

[chazmaniandevil]

Kirk Farentz

[padman59]

Do you really believe this? Am I the only one who sees inferior talent when ND plays big programs? Am I watching the same games?

ND still attracts a lot of talent. However, most of that talent still has to be developed to perform well at the college level. In addition to coaching, you have to consider factors like the strength and conditioning program in player development . That's another area that has been scrutinized since Weis took the job.

[Esjay]

Do you really believe this? Am I the only one who sees inferior talent when ND plays big programs? Am I watching the same games?

No. I'm right with you.

[Sven Draconian]

Willingham and Weis didn't get fucked over. If Willingham would have recruited at all and won football games he would still be the coach. If Weis could have won football games he'd still be the coach. When it comes down to it neither were very good college coaches and were fired for that reason. Weis did more for the program than Willingham did but at the end of the day they fucked them selves over by not being able to win football games.

Are you kidding me?

Lets look at Ty Willingham first.

Besides winning the Pac-10 with Stanford (odd for a "not very good college coach" here are some facts about his time at ND.

1) Notre Dame had just fired Bob Davie following his second 5 win season in three years.
--Ty proceeded to win 10 games.
2) He signed a top 5 recruiting class (including Brady Quinn), those recruiting classes formed the basis for Weis early success.
3) He beat 3 top 10 teams, including Michigan twice and FSU twice.

He was canned after just 3 years.

Lets look at Charlie Weis.

Right off the bat he makes 2 BCS trips using those players Ty Willingham never brought in. Terrible 2007 season that everyone saw coming and a mediocre 2008 year.

In case we forgot, he was already on the hot seat heading into 2009. To that point he had made the BCS 50% of his seasons and he was on the hot seat.

You want to say the team underachieved, fine. Do you think that had anything to do with the constant rumors of the head coaches imminent firing? That completely undercuts his authority. It gets players like Tate, Floyd and Clausen thinking about the NFL, since they wont be sticking around now. Huge distraction and a part of the reasontt team underperformed. To deny that fact is idiotic.


Clearly, the issue with ND is the coaches. The fact that Willingham made the BCS 33% of his coaching seasons and pulled in a top 5 recruiting class doesn't keep his job safe. The fact Weis pulled huge recuriting classes and made the BCS 40% of his seasons doesn't keep his job safe.

Right there is why anybody with a brain should avoid this job like the plague. Winning seasons aren't enough, if you don't win every season out comes the hatchet. Go ahead and keep cycling the coaches, that's the key to success.

[Sven Draconian]

Hell most experts saw the talent of this Notre Dame team and figured a 9 win season would be a failure. They thought if Clausen stayed this team could run the table setting up a match up with USC in the final game of next season. Their failures lay with coach Weis not ever being able to put a respectable defense on the field. Everyone sees the talent Notre Dame has. That's why expectations for them were higher this year. It's not as though Notre Dame or the rivals.com geeks are the only one ranking these kids highly. They are being chased by all the best schools and those other coaches that recruit so well. If Notre Dame was landing kids that Florida, USC, LSU, Alabama, Ohio State etc weren't even looking at or paying attention to I could maybe see your point..but that's not the case.

And that, right there, is why Notre Dame is failing. I love when people cite experts and they expected this,a dn they predicted that like any of these baffons even watch half the teams plays.

It's such an insular system. You have these writers who rate recruits and recuiting classes. Lets say they put Notre Dame at #10, #15, #5 and #24 the last 4 seasons (for example). What are these ratings based off? Grainy high school film in which the talent level faced, learning ability of the player and his dedication to football are never factored. But these guys at rivals can definitively rank 5000 high school football players right?

So they rank these players (which, by the way, the rankings change based on the schools who are interested, what a great tool to gauge talent.). They determine, by their own rankings, which teams are talented and not.

So when they proclaim Notre Dame has NC caliber talent, it's really based on their own assessment of the partial information they get on these kids.

When Notre Dame doesn't meet expectations, what happened? Should they admit that they were wrong in their evaluations of these players and risk credibility.....or just say they were poorly coached?

Who is more likely to screw up....guy who works for rivals.com (probably because he'll work for cheap) or the guy who has Super Bowl rings in the NFL and has spent an entire lifetime coaching. Tough call.

But, you don't get to see the coaches side, because they aren't the media. The media gets to set expectations (based on no real basis) and then place the bame (with no inside information on the situation) and of course, they control the masses.

Good system.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Great post.

The only thing worse than draft dorks are recruiting dorks. When it comes to ranking these kids/draft classes, none of these "experts" really know shit, beyond the very few elite cant miss guys. It's crazy how people get wrapped up in that stuff.

ND is the perfect example. Year after year, you hear how impressive these ND draft classes are, and yet ND never has the speed or size of the other elite programs. Its almost as if these "experts" say, "well, ND is recruiting Player A, and Ohio St looked at him too, so he must be the goods".

I will never be convinced ND is gettting the same caliber of player that Florida, LSU, Oklahoma, Texas, Oklahoma St, Ohio St, Alabama, etc are getting, until those players play like the guys on those teams. I dont see the same level of athletisism.

[Sven Draconian]

Great post.

The only thing worse than draft dorks are recruiting dorks. When it comes to ranking these kids/draft classes, none of these "experts" really know shit, beyond the very few elite cant miss guys. It's crazy how people get wrapped up in that stuff.

ND is the perfect example. Year after year, you hear how impressive these ND draft classes are, and yet ND never has the speed or size of the other elite programs. Its almost as if these "experts" say, "well, ND is recruiting Player A, and Ohio St looked at him too, so he must be the goods".

I will never be convinced ND is gettting the same caliber of player that Florida, LSU, Oklahoma, Texas, Oklahoma St, Ohio St, Alabama, etc are getting, until those players play like the guys on those teams. I dont see the same level of athletisism.

That's actually exactly how it works. Where I coach we have a TE who's gotten some passing interest from a couple of Big 10 schools and was at one point a *2 star* recruit. The kid is barely a DII player, we all know this, but because he got some tickets to a Big 10 game he got a quick bump to his rating before falling back to earth.

[Vinsane]

Right there is why anybody with a brain should avoid this job like the plague. Winning seasons aren't enough, if you don't win every season out comes the hatchet. Go ahead and keep cycling the coaches, that's the key to success.

This, this, this, this, and this.

How does the board and AD expect Notre Dame to do anything when guys never see their recruiting classes come to fruition? That's always been my biggest gripe with ND. They have zero tolerance for failure.

Until whoever is in charge of the hiring/firing process gets a grip on the idea, that a coach needs more then three years to truly get settled in? Your woes are not going to change, I thought that Charlie was going to be the guy to be given that chance.

I don't like the fact that he's being ushered him out so quickly. Hopefully another school gives Weis a chance.

And that, right there, is why Notre Dame is failing. I love when people cite experts and they expected this,a dn they predicted that like any of these baffons even watch half the teams plays.

It's such an insular system. You have these writers who rate recruits and recuiting classes. Lets say they put Notre Dame at #10, #15, #5 and #24 the last 4 seasons (for example). What are these ratings based off? Grainy high school film in which the talent level faced, learning ability of the player and his dedication to football are never factored. But these guys at rivals can definitively rank 5000 high school football players right?

So they rank these players (which, by the way, the rankings change based on the schools who are interested, what a great tool to gauge talent.). They determine, by their own rankings, which teams are talented and not.

So when they proclaim Notre Dame has NC caliber talent, it's really based on their own assessment of the partial information they get on these kids.

When Notre Dame doesn't meet expectations, what happened? Should they admit that they were wrong in their evaluations of these players and risk credibility.....or just say they were poorly coached?

Who is more likely to screw up....guy who works for rivals.com (probably because he'll work for cheap) or the guy who has Super Bowl rings in the NFL and has spent an entire lifetime coaching. Tough call.

But, you don't get to see the coaches side, because they aren't the media. The media gets to set expectations (based on no real basis) and then place the bame (with no inside information on the situation) and of course, they control the masses.

Good system.

[Senser81]

I find the whole recruiting rating to be a circle jerk. Nondescript 2-star white safety Johnny Mnemonic from Cherry Valley, Illinois is suddenly transformed into a 4-star "can't miss" prospect because Notre Dame is interested in him!

LOL at Sven Draconian ripping on the recruiting ranking system, then using it to defend Ty Willingham..."he had a top 5 recruiting class!".

As for Notre Dame, IMO it comes down to getting the right head coach. The school/program cannot sustain excellence on its own. Notre Dame had turned into a nothing program in the late 50's and early 60's, but then they hired Ara Parseghian and he turned things around. Same with Lou Holtz cleaning up the Faust mess in the late-80's.

Tyrone Willingham was a joker. Even at the time, you could see he was winning with smoke and mirrors. Bob Davie was a very good defensive coach, and Willingham used Davie's players to have a solid defense. Willingham was one of the worst offensive coaches in Notre Dame history. Do you remember him benching his opening day starting QB, Carilyle Holiday, after THE FIRST GAME?? I don't see how anyone could defend the guy after he somehow made the University of Washington and even worse team than they already were. Anyone with a brain could see that his winning of the PAC10 with Stanford was simply good timing on his part...Washington and USC were down at the time, and even during his PAC10 winning season he lost to San Jose State, and lost to Texas 69-17. Uh....

I don't blame ND for getting rid of Willingham and Weis...their mistake was giving these guys huge contract extensions when they had done nothing to deserve them.