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.

:bow:

 

[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.

 

[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.