Weis <t>Gipper,<br/> <br/> As far a recruiting goes, one of the few positives for Weis has been that he has shown that if you are willing to get off your butt and work, you can bring in top 10 classes to ND, that is one of the reasons I stayed positive on CW to this point. Can someone else coach better? Probably so. Can someone else recruit better? If they get out and sell ND the way Weis did, yes.<br/> <br/> God I hate going through a coaching change again.</t>
If ND loses to Pitt it would seem to me that Swarbrick should announce that Charlie will not be retained and that he will coach out the season. That would eliminate the doubts either way and hopefully he would be able to announce the new coach immediately after the Stanford game. Of course if it's Kelly and he's headed to the Orange Bowl he might not want to give up the Cincy job till after the Bowl game. That is what Urban Meyer did when he was at Utah. If it's Gruden then that gives him the whole month of December to assemble his staff and work on retaining the current commits and make contact with the guys we are still recruiting.
On .... <t>Possible replacements I would prefer Kelly but what about Harbaugh at Stanford and especially after they torch this defense to end the year? The guy is doing a great job out there and will always be limited so I wonder if he would be a possibility?</t>
Not that Swarbrick should consider the fans in selecting the new guy, but Harbaugh would be a very controversial pick, 1) he's a Michigan Man 2) his incident last year with Clausen 3) He really is only in his 3rd year as a HC at a major program, not enough experience. 4) He's a Michigan Man. 5) He's a Michigan Man.
It's not pretty. But the old "what if we win out" is huge in this whole equation. If he wins out, not likely but possible, everything changes again. They would have to go Earle Bruce on him, which would be ok with a whole lot of fans.
BTW, Tim Priester says that if Charlie wins out he should definitely be back and that he needs to hire Romeo Crennel as his DCoord.
Jim Harbaugh is not the guy for ND. I can't help but thinking... I'm hearing the same people over on NDN saying the same exact things about the coaches that they said about the UF staff.
ND <t>Harbaugh=NO!!!<br/> Stoops=NO!<br/> Gruden=NO!<br/> Meyer=NO!<br/> <br/> Kelly=YES!!! YES!!!!<br/> <br/> Just my 2 cents</t>
I think a good Irishman like Kelly would be the man at ND, They had better open up the vault for him.
ND <r>Bill,<br/> <br/> I want a <B><s></s>college<e></e></B> football coach. I think with the few exceptions, NFL coaches don't make good college coaches. Just my opinion.</r>
In general I agree Tim, however Pete Carroll and Dave W. (of Pitt) seem to be doing well. I always thought Gruden might be a pretty good coach. But I wish you guys well, like others have said the college football world is not quite the same without Notre Dame being in the mix.
If I were ND I would recruit Charlie's successor from the top down. My first call would be to Urban Meyer. CW makes $4-5 mil per year so we know what that gets us. It's my understanding that while Meyer has a huge contract his buyout is manageable. He will probably win his 3rd NC shortly and Superman is leaving so the timing is at least worth a phone call. I would not chase a pro coach. Those guys generally disdain recruiting.
The rumors are rampant that Notre Dame will explore Meyer as a possibility. I personally don't know why he would leave Florida but I sure hope he does.
Re: He will probably win his 3rd NC I love that word probably. I'm assuming that the Longhorns and Tide probably do also.
I don't want Meyer...He had his chance. A lot of people want him but don't realize he won't get a lot of players Florida gets. What about Paul Johnson? I would love to see option at ND. I just don't think he would leave a nice place like he's at now.... But I'm stickin with Charlie
I would imagine that Swarbrick does not want to fire Charlie if for no other reason than the cost of his buyout, which is being reported to be 10 million dollars. Now I guess the question is would Charlie give his alma mater a discount? Past history suggests that Charlie is not afraid of suing people or doctors, so I don't see much hope there. Plus you have to figure if Gruden is the guy he will be competing with the NFL where 5 million is not unusual and in Kelly's case he's likely to demand a pretty hefty salary to leave UC. But it likely will all be moot if Charlie beats Pitt on Sat night and then UConn and Stanford. All very do able if the team plays up to it's capability. But also he could lose all 3 just as easily.