Michael Rosenberg on Charlie Weis

Mike's a Michigan grad, so don't think for a second he didn't enjoy writing this.

 

Oh, I think it's factual that their offense is the worst in D1-A.

 

There's a lot more than that to throw at Weis. Take five minutes and Google, and you can do it.

 

Thing is though, Notre Dame has pretty big pockets. There's a chance they could buy out Bill Gates if they wanted to.
What will get him more time than Willingham, well, there are two things.
First off, Weis drinks the Kool-Aid and talks the talk of it. At ND, they want someone who comes in and says that this is the end-all, be-all job. Better than anything else in college, better than the NFL.
Willingham never did that.
Secondly, Willingham's last two recruiting classes, by ND standards were bad. 2-star and Notre Dame don't often go together. At least the ND fanboys can talk themselves into the fact that Weis' teams will get better becuase his last two recruiting classes have been good. (It's hard to recruit in your first year.)
When Willingham's team was getting run out of the stadium, that wasn't the case.

I think those two factors, more than the $$$ will give him some job security.

 

Maybe so, amraeder. But even Bill Gates, much less poor ol' Notre Dame, could find better ways to spend eight digits than to make a coach go away.

I will agree with your first point, though. Weis will convince the school and its fans that he is exactly where he wants to be, that this was the job he always wanted. Thing is, the way the school treated Tyrone Willingham, I can't blame him if he never said that.

As for your second point, I didn't see anyone like Brady Quinn or Jeff Samardzija in those last couple of classes. But admittedly, I'm not that into recruiting. I've seen entirely too many overhyped athletes while others who weren't ballyhooed and labeled The Second Coming emerged. And I've worked with a couple of sorts who put too much stock in recruiting.

 

Weis isn't going to get fired, period. And he shouldn't, just like Ty Willingham shouldn't have been. But what's done is done. If you're going to be a great program, you can't change coaches every three years. If we're still having this same conversation in 2009, can his ass. But at this point, it won't do Notre Dame any good to get rid of the guy now.

Plus -- and no one seems to talk about this -- by firing Weis, ND would have to then hire a new coach. That whole search thing didn't go so well last time. Was it 15 or 20 people that actually turned down the job? Why would the job be any more attractive now to the kind of coach ND fans would want?

 

I don't think one had to be a Michigan grad to enjoy writing something like this...

 

Fans can be delusional sorts, thinking that everyone on Earth wants to be affiliated with the school. As arrogant as some of them can be, Notre Dame doesn't have the market cornered with delusional fanbases.

 

In short, he's a Fat Wlat Harris

 

Well, Walt Harris actually played college football, and has that same kind of trim gym-teacher look as Saban, Tony Dungy, Willingham and Urban Meyer. Subconciously, players are just going to take guys who look like that a little more seriously than somebody who looks like your fat Uncle Waldo. When Saban or Dungy or Meyer come at a player and say, "here's how to make that pivot while you're sprinting at full throttle," they can listen without breaking into horselaughs.

Not to say that Harris didn't have plenty of other problems, too. : :

 

True recruiting's such a crap shoot. I actually like Claussen. He looks like a deer (emu?) in the headlights right now, but there's few freshman that don't. I remember watching them and being impressed with another freshman, though i can't remember who right now.
But recruting projections are such a crap shoot, that you could be absolutely right and they have little there.
All those 5*'s at least give the fanboys (and more importantly, boosters) hope.