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

[padman59]

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.

There are other factors to be considered beside his first season such as his work ethic and coaching ability. Ty was notorious for opting to hit the links instead of calling recruits and gameplanning, and it showed on gamedays. It also showed up when he signed only 16 players in '04 and was on pace for less in the '05 class. He also neglected to bring in linemen in those two classes.

What has Willingham done since he was fired from ND? He proceeded to make a even more of a mockery of the Washington football program. His results there seem on par for a "not very good college coach". Now, the Huskies seem to be suffering from the same lack of depth across the team that ND had.

Willingham only beat one team that finished in the top ten in the AP by my count (Michigan, '02). More than Weis, to be sure, but not three.

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.

Wrong to a certain extent. Everybody saw it as a down year given the players leaving and depth issues, but no one expected the team to look as incompetent on the field as they did that season. That season raised a lot of red flags about Weis' ability and emphasis on teaching fundamentals and motivating his players.

SMH at the BCS trips comment. Willingham's success in '02 was also off the back of the defense Davie left behind. It's disingenuous to praise the results under one coach while chastising those of another under similar circumstances.

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.

What are you talking about? Weis hasn't had a winning regular season since '06. That's three consecutive years with a .500 or below winning percentage. At any school that wants their program to be successful, if the coach continues to bring in quality players but continues to field bad defenses and can't win against more than half of his schedule in his last three seasons, he's going to be fired.

This season's team underachieved because they lacked the proper coaching. Not because of Weis' job status, not because of players' aspirations for the NFL, but because the head coach failed to make sure his players were put in position to win.

Also, Willingham made the BCS in 0% of his seasons at ND. That's a fact.

[ralaw]

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.

Couldn't the same be said for the NFL system as well?

[FirstTimer]

Are you kidding me?

No.

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.

He won the Pac 10 when it was in a down season and had some ugly losses that year. He didn't win the Pac 10 when USC, Oregon, Ore St, etc were forces. Plus if you look at his entire body of work at Stanford it was very mediocre.

2) He signed a top 5 recruiting class (including Brady Quinn), those recruiting classes formed the basis for Weis early success.

LOL at this coming from the guy who discounts recruiting rankings. STFU with this hypocritical BS. Either you can look at class ranks or you can't. But if we want to look at his other classes they were pathetic as padman already pointed out. His last class is widely seen as one of the worst in Notre Dame history.

3) He beat 3 top 10 teams, including Michigan twice and FSU twice.

False. He beat FSU once down there. His first season. That game was the crest of the Willingham era. The next week they lost to Boston College at home and then it was downhill from there for him. The next season he played FSU but got blown out 37-0 at home.

He was canned after just 3 years.

Deservedly so.

Lets look at Charlie Weis.

Right off the bat he makes 2 BCS trips using those players Ty Willingham never brought in.

Outside of Samardzija most everyone that contributed under Weis saw big playing time under Willingham. They just sucked.

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?

No firing was "imminent" until the losses to Navy and then to UCONN. Before the Navy game the team was 6-2 and headed to a New Years Day Bowl(Gator) or perhaps a BCS birth. It must not have bugged the team a ton seeing as they were sitting at 6-2 after shellacking Wazzou. After the Navy loss the wheels came off. People can put up close losses to USC if they see progress in the program and he beats every other team he was supposed to(as he did in 2005 and 2006) but when you start losing close games with the talent he had AND losing to teams like Navy and UCONN at home people won't tolerate that.

It's not as if the expectations levied on the program were done by outsiders. Weis did it to himself. 6-5 isn't good enough. 9-3 isn't good enough. Weis did those things to himself. He set the expectations. He told people in the program this was a year for a big bowl or a BCS birth. That's what he sold to Swarbrick after last season. When the team fell short of the expectations Weis set and sold to the administration as part of him staying on for this season he had to stand responsible for that as he said he would have teh team prepared for that type of run.

Clearly, the issue with ND is the coaches. The fact that Willingham made the BCS 33% of his coaching seasons

Try 0%.

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.

LOL. Ok whatever. Throw out rankings for all I care. Take Notre Dame out of the equation too. All these players are being looked at by the top programs. Are they wasting their time, resources, money, etc to look at kids just for the hell of it. Like I said earlier if Notre Dame was landing "4 star" guys that none of the other top schools were looking at and going after hard I could maybe the point. But that's not the case and the classes are obviously highly talented or have the ability to be based on what other schools think of them. Could the kid flop and people be wrong? Sure, but more often than not teams like USC, FLorida etc get these kids on campus and coach them up on both sides of the ball. Weis wasn't able to do that on defense.

This is pointless and I'm done with the recruiting rankings stuff. You want to discount it when talking about Weis etc but bring it up twice when making a case for Willingham getting fucked over. I put stock in recruiting rankings and the system as well as what other schools think of the kids and if they are also being recruited heavily by other top schools. It's a pretty good sign that the kid has some big time talent/potential. It's not a perfect system but at the same time I respect the national Scouts, most other schools scouts and their ability to assess talent. It's an imperfect science but there has to be someway to gauge the type of talent coming into the program each season to see if that coach is doing part of his job in keeping the school flush with talent on the field.

[FirstTimer]

In other news:

It was reported the Irish contacted Randy Edsall about the job...also it is being said(still) that Brian Kelly will accept the job after the Cincinnati game this weekend.

[Sven Draconian]

There are other factors to be considered beside his first season such as his work ethic and coaching ability. Ty was notorious for opting to hit the links instead of calling recruits and gameplanning, and it showed on gamedays. It also showed up when he signed only 16 players in '04 and was on pace for less in the '05 class. He also neglected to bring in linemen in those two classes.

What has Willingham done since he was fired from ND? He proceeded to make a even more of a mockery of the Washington football program. His results there seem on par for a "not very good college coach". Now, the Huskies seem to be suffering from the same lack of depth across the team that ND had.

These facts are absolutely true, but irrevelant to the fact that ND has no job security.

Willingham did win the Pac 10 (So he isn't a mouth breather as was proclaimed by Firsttimer), you can argue the accomplishment all you want, that's fine.

Either way, he has a 10 win season (Not a BCS year, that what happpens when you are looking up stats at 2 a.m., by mistake) and two medicore years and was canned.

Willingham only beat one team that finished in the top ten in the AP by my count (Michigan, '02). More than Weis, to be sure, but not three.

They were top 10 at the time.

Wrong to a certain extent. Everybody saw it as a down year given the players leaving and depth issues, but no one expected the team to look as incompetent on the field as they did that season. That season raised a lot of red flags about Weis' ability and emphasis on teaching fundamentals and motivating his players.

Ok. They didn't meet expectations.

SMH at the BCS trips comment. Willingham's success in '02 was also off the back of the defense Davie left behind. It's disingenuous to praise the results under one coach while chastising those of another under similar circumstances.



What are you talking about? Weis hasn't had a winning regular season since '06. That's three consecutive years with a .500 or below winning percentage. At any school that wants their program to be successful, if the coach continues to bring in quality players but continues to field bad defenses and can't win against more than half of his schedule in his last three seasons, he's going to be fired.

I thought 7-6 (2008 record) would count as a winning season.

This season's team underachieved because they lacked the proper coaching. Not because of Weis' job status, not because of players' aspirations for the NFL, but because the head coach failed to make sure his players were put in position to win.

Also, Willingham made the BCS in 0% of his seasons at ND. That's a fact.

Were you at practice to observe this improper coaching? At what skills were they improperly coached?

Couldn't the same be said for the NFL system as well?

Absolutely it could, in fact, the NFL is the worst at this.

[Irish]

I heard on ESPN that Kelly said he wouldnt leave Cincinnati.

ND obviously hasnt told him how much money he can make.

As for some other names floating around

Kirk Ferentz:
Has 3 children enrolled at Iowa. Likes where he is and has gone on record saying he wont leave.

Butch Davis:
Maybe but i dont see him leaving UNC. And i dont think he would do well.

[Sven Draconian]

No.


He won the Pac 10 when it was in a down season and had some ugly losses that year. He didn't win the Pac 10 when USC, Oregon, Ore St, etc were forces. Plus if you look at his entire body of work at Stanford it was very mediocre.

Ok. So he won a weak league and he was medicore at Stanford. That doesn't mean you only give him 3 seasons and can him.

LOL at this coming from the guy who discounts recruiting rankings. STFU with this hypocritical BS. Either you can look at class ranks or you can't. But if we want to look at his other classes they were pathetic as padman already pointed out. His last class is widely seen as one of the worst in Notre Dame history.

It's not hypocritical. He did have a good recruiting class (and, judging by the Weis early success, the team had some talent). Do I think the recruiting ranking is a good system, absolutely not, but he still put in a top class.

Hypocracy is more like ripping Wilingham for not bringing in talent, and ripping Weis for an inability to coach despite the fact he made 2 BCS bowls. Either Weis coached poor talent, or Wilingham brought in good talent.

False. He beat FSU once down there. His first season. That game was the crest of the Willingham era. The next week they lost to Boston College at home and then it was downhill from there for him. The next season he played FSU but got blown out 37-0 at home.

Yup, misread the schedule when I looked at it.

Deservedly so.


Outside of Samardzija most everyone that contributed under Weis saw big playing time under Willingham. They just sucked.

Doesn't that mean Weis developed them?

No firing was "imminent" until the losses to Navy and then to UCONN. Before the Navy game the team was 6-2 and headed to a New Years Day Bowl(Gator) or perhaps a BCS birth. It must not have bugged the team a ton seeing as they were sitting at 6-2 after shellacking Wazzou. After the Navy loss the wheels came off. People can put up close losses to USC if they see progress in the program and he beats every other team he was supposed to(as he did in 2005 and 2006) but when you start losing close games with the talent he had AND losing to teams like Navy and UCONN at home people won't tolerate that.

A firing doesn't have to be imminent to be a distraction. Heading into the season the rumors started. They blow a game, the firing is now inevitable and the season tanks. Should they have lost to Navy? Absolutely not, but upsets happen. Fact is, once that upset happened Weis lost that team because everyone new he was gone....because everyone wanted him gone after the 2007 season.

It's not as if the expectations levied on the program were done by outsiders. Weis did it to himself. 6-5 isn't good enough. 9-3 isn't good enough. Weis did those things to himself. He set the expectations. He told people in the program this was a year for a big bowl or a BCS birth. That's what he sold to Swarbrick after last season. When the team fell short of the expectations Weis set and sold to the administration as part of him staying on for this season he had to stand responsible for that as he said he would have teh team prepared for that type of run.

That has nothing to do with job security at Notre Dame. Weis doesn't seem bitter about being fired, but that has nothing to do with the realities of a coach risking his career to coach at ND.

Try 0%.

You are correct.

LOL. Ok whatever. Throw out rankings for all I care. Take Notre Dame out of the equation too. All these players are being looked at by the top programs. Are they wasting their time, resources, money, etc to look at kids just for the hell of it. Like I said earlier if Notre Dame was landing "4 star" guys that none of the other top schools were looking at and going after hard I could maybe the point. But that's not the case and the classes are obviously highly talented or have the ability to be based on what other schools think of them. Could the kid flop and people be wrong? Sure, but more often than not teams like USC, FLorida etc get these kids on campus and coach them up on both sides of the ball. Weis wasn't able to do that on defense.

How many Notre Dame kids are going to be drafted in the 1st round? How many from USC and Florida? Notre Dame does not bring in that level of talent, to think otherwise is pure homerism.

This is pointless and I'm done with the recruiting rankings stuff. You want to discount it when talking about Weis etc but bring it up twice when making a case for Willingham getting fucked over. I put stock in recruiting rankings and the system as well as what other schools think of the kids and if they are also being recruited heavily by other top schools. It's a pretty good sign that the kid has some big time talent/potential. It's not a perfect system but at the same time I respect the national Scouts, most other schools scouts and their ability to assess talent. It's an imperfect science but there has to be someway to gauge the type of talent coming into the program each season to see if that coach is doing part of his job in keeping the school flush with talent on the field.

Would the easiest way to do that be, I don't know, watching the games? The difference between a KID at 18 and his development into a man at 22/23 years old is remarkable and unpredictable.

You can look at an entire body of work and say School X brings in More talent than School Y. That involves years. To predict individual classes and players and lambast a coach for underperforming is idiotic to say the least. It's not different than the draft niks predicting a 1st round which is going to produce 50% "busts".

Atleast people realize the risks of the drafts, but they ignore the same exact issue with college recruits...instead blaming the coach when a 17 yeard old stops growing and doen't live up to potential.

[FirstTimer]

Ok. So he won a weak league and he was medicore at Stanford. That doesn't mean you only give him 3 seasons and can him.

It does if you see nothing but diminishing returns on the horizon. What reason did Notre Dame have to keep him? They weren't playing well, were recruiting like shit, Willingham was showing serious sings of not taking the job seriously and they weren't competitive. There was no reason to keep him around.

It's not hypocritical. He did have a good recruiting class (and, judging by the Weis early success, the team had some talent). Do I think the recruiting ranking is a good system, absolutely not, but he still put in a top class.

Top class according to what? Rankings don't exist they are BS. Remember? It's entirely hypocritical and it's both laughable and sad you can't even see why.

Hypocracy is more like ripping Wilingham for not bringing in talent, and ripping Weis for an inability to coach despite the fact he made 2 BCS bowls. Either Weis coached poor talent, or Wilingham brought in good talent.

No one ever said Willingham never brought in talent. He obviously did...the problem was that he only did it once and could never repeat it. In fact it kept getting worse.

Doesn't that mean Weis developed them?

Yep. Weis can develop offenses....we know that. We saw that this year. The problem is Weis could never do anything on the other side of the ball. Especially talent development. That's why ND is placing an emphasis on an experienced coach who has a track record with defense and handling an entire team.

A firing doesn't have to be imminent to be a distraction. Heading into the season the rumors started. They blow a game, the firing is now inevitable and the season tanks.

They lost to Michigan early in the year and the season didn't tank. They came back played good football barely lost to USC, beat BC at Notre Dame for the first time in a decade then eventually lost to Navy....a team they hadn't had back to back losses against at home since before JFK was assassinated. In fact, I'm not sure it has EVER happened.

Should they have lost to Navy? Absolutely not, but upsets happen. Fact is, once that upset happened Weis lost that team because everyone knew he was gone

UCONN sealed his fate. Even with a loss to Navy had he beat UCONN and Stanford and lost to Pitt that's be an 8-4 season and a bid to the Gator Bowl on New Years Day. That would have gotten Weis another season.

....because everyone wanted him gone after the 2007 season.

Not true in the least. Weis, AD at the time Kevin White and most any fan knew 2007 would be a bad season. Sure it was worse than expected in some ways but "everyone" did not want him gone. That's not even close to being true.

That has nothing to do with job security at Notre Dame. Weis doesn't seem bitter about being fired, but that has nothing to do with the realities of a coach risking his career to coach at ND.

He doesn't seem bitter? Are you kidding me? it's clear to me now that you have no idea what you are talking about. Weis said in an interview he won't send his kid to Notre Dame, he won't forgive the toll that it has taken on his family, and that he will be happy to return to the NFL because he is more respected there. Yeah, that doesn't sound bitter. I don't blame him for being bitter but to say Weis doesn't have some bitterness is absurd.

How many Notre Dame kids are going to be drafted in the 1st round? How many from USC and Florida? Notre Dame does not bring in that level of talent, to think otherwise is pure homerism.

Clausen, Tate, Floyd, Rudolph all have 1st Rnd potential on offense alone from this years team. I'll tell you for sure in April.

Would the easiest way to do that be, I don't know, watching the games? The difference between a KID at 18 and his development into a man at 22/23 years old is remarkable and unpredictable.

No shit sherlock. But when they are 18 people are going to naturally try and predict what kids will end up being. That's why teams have these things called "scouts" try to determine not only what the kid is but what he will become. Along with the scouts for teams there are also "scouts" for regional services and the like. teams obviously send these "scouts" to find the best players in the nation that are not only great players now....but have the opportunity to be in the future. They then rate them based on their opinion pass that along and the schools would obviously go and try and get the players that are not only good now but that they and the "scouts" will be great players down the road. The idea you are putting forth could be achieved by a team like Floirda recruiting every damn kid from one high school team then basically just letting them play and see what happens with no regard to what they project to or not. Scouts can be wrong yes. But according to you every team's recruiting class has basically the same potential..when that's not the case. Some players are just better football than other and develop into that. That's what recruiting tries to do and what "scouts" try and predict.

This is bordering on an asinine argument right now....

Atleast people realize the risks of the drafts, but they ignore the same exact issue with college recruits...instead blaming the coach when a 17 yeard old stops growing and doen't live up to potential.

Yeah because that's what people did with Willingham. I mean Willingham's lack of ability to even get 17 year olds to come to Notre Dame was bad enough(Notre Dame just got back to having a roster full of scholarship players THIS season) let alone the fact that he didn't recruit a single OFFENSIVE LINEMAN for TWO YEARS. Say what you want about talent development and if 17 year olds develop or whatever but it's impossible to develop kids that don't even go to your school and I'd venture it's safe bet that to field a competitive team with no offensive line is impossible. Is there any better example of inept recruiting than that?

But I'm seriously done discussing this with you. I'm not going to change your mind on scouting and recruiting rankings or whatever and you won't change mine. I'm done going in circles. If you want to discuss the next coach I'm all up for that. I'm done talking about the past and debating the Ty Willingham firing and am done with the Weis shit.

Onward and forward.

[FirstTimer]

Skip Holtz FTW.

That'd be interesting......

[FirstTimer]

I heard on ESPN that Kelly said he wouldnt leave Cincinnati.

ND obviously hasnt told him how much money he can make.

As for some other names floating around

Kirk Ferentz:
Has 3 children enrolled at Iowa. Likes where he is and has gone on record saying he wont leave.

Butch Davis:
Maybe but i dont see him leaving UNC. And i dont think he would do well.

I'm betting in the end it's either Ferentz or Kelly. Edsall would be really interesting though but I'm hard pressed to see him leave after the Jasper Howard stuff.

[Woy]

That'd be interesting......

I seriously think that's going to happen. Patterson and Stoops are out of the picture and it doesn't look like they are going to get Kelly. Who else does that leave?

[FirstTimer]

I seriously think that's going to happen. Patterson and Stoops are out of the picture and it doesn't look like they are going to get Kelly. Who else does that leave?

Chuck Norris, Jack Bauer, and Bill Brasky.

[Woy]

Chuck Norris, Jack Bauer, and Bill Brasky.

Chuck Norris would make that defense better, and the kicking game too.

[padman59]

These facts are absolutely true, but irrevelant to the fact that ND has no job security.

Willingham did win the Pac 10 (So he isn't a mouth breather as was proclaimed by Firsttimer), you can argue the accomplishment all you want, that's fine.

Either way, he has a 10 win season (Not a BCS year, that what happpens when you are looking up stats at 2 a.m., by mistake) and two medicore years and was canned.

How is recruiting and gameplanning irrelevant to a college coach's job security? Aren't those possibly the two highest priority tasks for the position? You could boil the responsibilities of a college head coach down to bringing in guys that can play and putting them in position to succeed on the field. Ty failed miserably at both after his first season at ND, and Weis failed at the latter in his last three.

Again, Notre Dame isn't a school where the administration doesn't care about how the football program fares. Any tradition rich school has similar standards. Ron Zook was fired after three years in Florida, Pitt fired Walt Harris after he won the Bit East title, Miami fired Larry Coker with a 60-15 record. I'm sure there are other examples out there as well.

They were top 10 at the time.

So if a coach beats a team that was ranked in the top ten in the second week of the season but said team goes on to lose six games, does that still count as a win over a top ten team? I don't think so.

Ok. They didn't meet expectations.

Quite the understatement.

I thought 7-6 (2008 record) would count as a winning season.

6-6 regular season. Going .500 for the regular season doesn't guarantee anyone a bowl game, much less a major bowl invite.

Were you at practice to observe this improper coaching? At what skills were they improperly coached?

You're joking, right? Have you watched Notre Dame football games in the past few seasons? You didn't need to be at practice to see that most of his (and his staff's) techniques weren't translating on the field on gamedays.

You would have seen an offensive line that couldn't block in any facet in '07, couldn't run block in '08, and had trouble with four man fronts in pass protection this season.

You would have seen a defense that had problems stopping anyone with poor pursuit angles, poor tackling, poor coverage, and the inability of linemen to get off blocks.

You would have seen poor special teams play.

Anyone who has seen the Irish play recently can see the team was "improperly coached."

[FirstTimer]

What a difference a week makes.

A week ago the names were: Stoops, Patterson, and Kelly.

A week later: Stoops has denied wanting to go to South Bend.

Patterson gets an extension

And now today there are all sorts of reports on Kelly ranging from: He's going to be the coach at Notre Dame to Cincinnati and him have agreed to a contract extension/raise per (FootballCoachScoop.com) to He is not on Notre Dame's short list even if available.

Also, Kelly was on Cincinnati radio saying that he is going to stay.

http://www.blueandgold.com/content/?aid=8348

• Starting right at the top of the list with the candidate many consider to be the favorite to replace Charlie Weis, Cincinnati’s Brian Kelly continues to do what he can to deflect discussions about the Notre Dame job, especially as his team prepares for Saturday’s showdown with Pittsburgh for the Big East regular season title.
Swarbrick denied that his list of potential candidates is as extensive as has been widely reported.

Tuesday evening on his Cincinnati WEBN’s Dawn Patrol, he declared his loyalty to the Bearcats program, and expressed a desire to stay with the program, presumably into the 2010 season.

“I’m staying, man. I’m staying,” Kelly said on the show. “Why would I go? It’s always about staying, first. First and foremost.

“I’m very happy at Cincinnati. Our kids love it here. Our family loves it here. We’re just going to focus in on building this program, getting it bigger and better so we can … well, I’ve got to win to stay on this radio show. So I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me.”

The names I'm hearing now(with Kelly's fading a bit) that are on Notre Dame's short list are:

Butch Davis--Head Coach at UNC
Randy Edsall--Head Coach at UCONN
Jim Harbaugh--Head Coach at Stanford
Skip Holtz--Head Coach at ECU
Charlie Strong--Ast Head Coach/ Defensive Coordinator at Florida.

Fun times.

Who the hell knows anymore!