Well he's out, no suprise there. But the apple of ND fans eye has been Bob Stoops who said today: Brian Kelly will be the next ND coach (my guess). He is a big upgrade from Charlie Weis of that I have no doubt.
Hire one quick. Recruiting is the number one reason to move and move quick. I'm not poking you guys in the eye, but there's a real mess in South Bend. Hopefully a search has been in progress.
I pray that Swarbrick has someone lined up NOW! If we go through those weeks of pleading and begging like we did the last 3 times I'm going to break something.
Since Stoops is out, Meyer is out, and I can't imagine him plucking Saban out of Alabama that leaves Brian Kelly who said today that he's already getting calls from South Bend real estate agents. The dark horse candidate that nobody is talking about right now is Kirk Ferentz of Iowa. I don't think he'd be especially well recieved though to tell you the truth. It has to be Kelly.
Well you got what people wanted. You got rid of a ND man as coach. He brought in good recruits and it showed in offense. He needed help on defense, got a DC with high praise (ha ha) to run the def. It was never accomplished. I think if Charlie focused now just on Def he would have made it better. I just don't get alumni who would want one of their own gone so quickly. Listen I am only 32, yes I saw a NC, one robbed and close another. Since mid 90's ND has been irrelevant. Kids in high school right now think ND never have won because they haven't seen it. Older ND fans are blind to this fact and probably will never get over this fact. Davie was way over his head, Ty got lazy and didn't want to work at recruiting but otherwise not terrible, and now Charlie, overhead at times but getting better grasp each year, his offensive players in there and look at what they do. Not Charlie's fault when Def can't make a tackle, can't get a turn over, defense killed them. He wasn't perfect but in last five years when was there this much hype for ND football after Lou left from top to bottom (games to recruiting to spring practices). Bad losses to Navy hurt bad, shouldn't happen but didn't lose any game by more than a TD, you would think blow outs by listening to some people. His players loved him as a mentor and a coach and to me thats more important, mostly at a place like ND. So hope everyone gets all happy, mostly after a bunch of coaches say No, that Kelly winds up at ND. I just wish I could find that clip of him bad mouthing ND to a sideline reporter after one of his games a few years, just to show a "nice fit" for ND. Yes I am BITTER! :evil:
I'm with you Gip. I really hope he's already gotten an, "I'm interested," from Brian Kelley. If not, we're screwed ...... again.
nd <t>Terry,<br/> Yes it's finally official. Weis is gone. I have mixed feelings about this cause I wanted CW to be successful. He really understands ND and had a great passion for the school and the football program. No matter what the won/loss record was though, he did show that you CAN recruit elite athletes to ND still. he doesn't leave the cupboard bear as his predecessor did and that's for sure. I wish him the best.<br/> <br/> Now.....let's stop all this speculating and get Brian Kelly to SB and get this ship headed in the right direction again. He is THE only logical choice and a perfect fit(sorry ndfan77. You make some good points but Kelly is the guy)</t>
There have been lots of criticism leveled against the coaching the past few years. One thing that I think hasn't been mentioned but is important,is that I don't think that our conditioning was very good. Note that in both the past 2 seasons we wore down by November. I read a post on another site from someone who was at the Stanford game. His observations were that the D was just gassed the whole second half. Time to start over. I wonder if the team voted to go to a bowl. Who could turn down a trip the day after Christmas to the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl in exciting Detroit? I'll have family in town and it would be nice to have something to do together besides bowling.
Well all I really want to say on the subject is this... Thank you Charlie. You took a job that few wanted, at least few of any real merit. You took a job that had become saddled by myths and media attacks, yet within 2 years you blew them all up. While your onfield results were short in the next 3 years, you continued to blow up more myths and show people at ND there is hope. I'm sad to see him go, I really am. It isn't his fault that the school hired another guy without HC experience and the mistakes Charlie made were those of a man without HC experience... but he worked his ass off, and he gave it his best shot. He gave us 'pass right', 5star players on signing day and graduated those who didn't transfer. Thanks Charlie. Regardless of what some may say and the personal attacks they take at him, the man left the place in a better situation than he found it. ps 77, I agree with you except that Ty was not a good person. IMHO. He was an arrogant, lazy, egomaniac and is a man of little, if any, character. I hold him, significantly, in lower placement than Bob Davie and that's pretty damned low.
HEY!! The guy that owns LC's is a former Marine!! For that matter, his buddy (Tom Monahan) who own's Dominoes is one also!! That would be a Great Bowl!!
A Notre Dame man. Just what does that mean? The guy was a terrible head coach. Some of you act like he is being executed. He's walking away with more money than we collectively earn in a lifetime. He came here with ZERO qualifications as a head coach and proved that on the job training at this level just doesn't cut it. He set records for futility at South Bend that hopefully will never be eclipsed. He had a QB who many think is the best who ever played under the Dome and coached him to a 16-21 record. His claim to fame was a win in the Hawaii Bowl. Did he ever beat a Top Ten team in five years? If that's a Notre Dame man then I say let's try a Cincinnati man or an Oklahoma man.
I got an email from my boss about Charlie's firing almost the minute it was made public. My first thought was "Happy New Year, George" :lol:
I'm sorry George, remind me who wanted the job besides Charlie. Who wanted to take over a team that had zero top recruits for 2 straight seasons? And what's a larger figure, what ND got from two BCS games or Charlie's buyout?
How in the hell do you get them to go to that frozen wasteland for a visit? :lol: 8) ( shades are needed here..... :wink: )
This is from an article by SI. This is an inaccurate assessment of Weis in my opinion because who did he beat to get to the BCS and how did his team perform once the Irish muscled their way into the BCS mix? The bottom line is even in those first two years Chollie was a flop. Maybe they will convince Kelly he can succeed in a place where so many have failed in the last 15 years. My bet is that he can.
ND's first BCS game was against OSU who played in the championship game the next year with most of the same players. Their second was against LSU who won the NC the following year. His teams had some talent but no where near the depth of those two teams. In fact, they hung close at the half but wore down in the second halfs. The guy was a coach not a miracle worker.
I do not see how his first two years were a flop. Also Weis has recruited good classes. I'm not sure if his classes were unbalanced toward the offense, but he did get top ranked recruiting classes.
Maybe they were not all out flops but by ND fan standards they were less than satisfactory and turned out not to be the progress once thought....especially I think in retrospect.
Anyone who says those 2 years were a flop is a moron.. and I mean that. They have little, if any at all, understanding of the situation at Notre Dame or the game of football... which does pretty much cover most all writers for SI. Charlie had talent in exactly ONE class when he arrived. Behind that class, there was a black hole of a handful of players. Gippers comments about the lack of depth are spot on. George, Did he misrepresent his lack of HC experience coming into ND? Did he falsify a resume? A Notre Dame man does this: <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/cUFwsG59Ejc&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/cUFwsG59Ejc&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> A Notre Dame man does this: Hannah and Friends Non-Notre Dame men stab their HC/employer in the back ala Bob Davie and then later testify in court that you openly questioned his mental stability. Non-Notre Dame men refuse to leave the golf course to meet a recruit who showed up on your campus on their own dime. Non-ND men, rather than admit their own failure, suggest that the very institution that afforded you the opportunity to succeed at the highest level of college football is somehow racists for letting you go... despite the fact you won't get out of the golf cart to shake a kid's hand. When blatantly asked if they feel that ND is racist or that race played a part in it, they act coy and dodge the question.. as if they are taking some moral high road while race baiting for financial game. Notre Dame men accept their own accountability for their failures while the others blame the institution and seek the sympathy and comfort of the media who is all too eager to accept their explanations (ala ND sucks). Part of what makes ND unique, at least to me, is that you don't have to sink to 'say anything' and 'win at all costs'... You can win, you can bring in talent and you can do it with class. You can mold men of character that are community and family leaders, not just team leaders. If you expect more, you can achieve more. You don't have to take the low road because others are doing it. It's not always the easiest road, but IMHO, it is the only road I'd like to see ND take. Charlie didn't make it as the HC at ND. That is not to say he was a total failure and that certainly doesn't warrant these attacks on his character that we've seen for 5 years. He didn't misrepresent himself. He made his choices that he thought would work and they didn't pan out. Some of those choices were quite popular. We heard all the hype about Tenuta, which turned out to be just that. Charlie's 3 major mistakes were the hiring of Minter and Tenuta as well as the hiring of the OLine coach who came with a personal recommendation from Steve Spurrier btw. Those were his undoing. IMHO, had he nabbed his original DC target (Al Golden who actually has flipping Temple winning) . Had he found Verducci earlier on, the running game would have been MUCH better... but he didn't, and he's out.