"Out of his league" (SI's Mandel on Charlie Weis)

Good point. But I still think he's getting a free pass at Washington, that's all. When they win or compete in a game, the nation goes gaga. When they blow fourth quarter leads or lose to teams they shouldn't, you don't hear about it.

He shouldn't have been fired so quick at Notre Dame. But Notre Dame was in love with Urban Meyer, and arrogant enough to think it could get him. But Weis sucking doesn't "redeem" Willingham. Willingham doing anything at Washington would redeem him. So far it's not happening.

 

Now that I can agree with. Rudy poster comment rescinded.

 

This isn't just a problem in sports journalism, it's a problem in journalism overall. The masses determine a master narrative to stick to with regards to an ongoing story, and anyone who deviates is considered "in the tank" with the decided-upon villain.

 

What's I've found amusing is that Notre Dame, which few can argue always was a first-rate operation for decades, somehow became Pitt, Iowa State, Washington State and a host of other slap schools over the past 10 years. They suffer through five years of Davie and then bring in Ric Flair, err, George O'Leary. We have the O'Leary embarassment and bring in Willingham based on the fact that the guy's as clean as a bottle of Clorox. Problem is that's he's mediocre as hell so we can him, whiff on Meyer, and bring in Fat Charlie.

Charlie pounds Pitt, pounds Purdue and nearly upsets USC to open 2005 and these loons proclaim "we're back!" Charlie's opportunistic agent says "better sign him long-term now or he might flea." And Notre Dame, acting like a host of other schools that thought they had caught lightning in a bottle, jumped all over it. Seriously, where have we even seen someone get a 10 year contract extention seven games into a coaching career? That's crap that Minnesota does not Notre Dame.

 

You've got me confused with somebody who gives a shit about Willingham.

I'm just tired of people trying to deflect blame from Weis. If this had happened in year one, maybe it's fair to blame Willingham for the sorry state of the program. But it's not. Time to blame the fat man.

More importantly, you are assuming I approach journalism the same way I post on this site. Which is also wrong.

 

Really I was thinking more about Cadet's initial post, not your reflexive response to me.

There's a lot of gray area between "blame" and "redemption." But it seems that it the "Around the Horn"/"Crossfire" age, gray area is a lost concept.

 

The line about the linemen and linebackers who are Willingham's recruits sounds like it is deflecting blame from Weis, but that's just how I read it.

And BYM, beautifully done, my friend.

 

Well, it's pretty widely known that Willingham had a couple of great, great recruiting classes at Notre Dame, and then a really, really bad one. I don't think you can credit him with supplying Weis the players the last two years for the BCS runs and then absolve him 100 percent of this year's mess.

Now should Notre Dame be 1-9? No fucking way. But would 6-6 or 7-5 been understandable this season, given the inexperience, upper-class talent, etc.? I think so. But I'm the one with the leprechaun outfit on, apparently, so take that with a grain of salt.

 

Did you not see the "Rudy poster comment rescinded" comment above?

I still think blaming the former coach this far in is a little ridiculous, but we'll have to agree to disagree there.

 

Well, I was exaggerating for hyperbole's sake in the first post. Clearly - and I can't remember if it was Whitlock or Mandel who brought this up or someone else along the line - it's Weis' fault that those juniors and seniors weren't developed the last two seasons when they were blowing teams out. I saw somewhere that the QBs on the roster had just like two attempts between them all entering this year. They needed Quinn in the fourth quarter against Army and Air Force and Stanford last year? That's definitely on Weis. And to still be sucking this bad this late in the year is on him, too.

So I'll say that I don't blame him (Willingham). But I don't think this redeems him, either.

So what do you think would have been an acceptable record for Notre Dame this season?

 

To a reasonable person or to ND fans? Knowing they didn't have much talent back, I would still think at least a .500 record. Not sure ND fans would go for even that.

 

Well played, sir.