Rally [people] of Notre Dame | by Jay

Much more to come on the Insight.com bowl, the BCS, Charlie Weis's assistant coaching staff, plus a BGS year-in-review. In the meantime, here's a fun feature from the New York Times on college fight songs. (If we ever were to revise the Victory March, I think we should take a cue from New Mexico State).

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Sometimes, Sis-Boom-Bah Doesn't Seem Like Enough
By Warren St. John

The outcome of the Bowl Championship Series is up in the air until Tuesday, but going into the final week of college football this year, a few things are certain: seasons will be made and lost, touchdowns scored, marching bands will play in celebration and lots of people will sing songs that make next to no sense to the modern ear.

Consider the "Aggie War Hymn" of Texas A&M:

Hullabaloo, Caneck! Caneck!
Hullabaloo, Caneck! Caneck!

Consider also the Oklahoma fight song, "Boomer Sooner."

Boomer Sooner, Boomer Sooner.
Boomer Sooner, Boomer Sooner!

Fight songs, perhaps always self-consciously anachronistic, have never sounded more out of date than they do today. With their bloodthirsty lyrics - "You will hit 'em, you will wreck 'em; Hit 'em, wreck 'em Texas Tech!" - and their unabashed chauvinism, not to mention the fusillade of nonsense phrases, the sentiments they express couldn't clash more with the tolerant and inclusive atmosphere emphasized on most college campuses.

And to the typical college athlete, who likely spends as many hours a day blasting Nelly on headphones as listening to the sounds of the natural world, nothing sounds as utterly square as "Rah! Rah! Rah!"

"The culture that these songs came from goes back to the early 1900's songs for white athletes," said Glenn Richter, a former director of the University of Texas marching band. "They picked musical styles that were popular at the time, but that has changed radically. There's very little out there now that reflects the current student-athlete."

All this weighed heavily earlier this fall on Aaron Alcala-Mosley, a 22-year-old bass drummer in the University of California marching band. The university was accepting submissions for lyrics to a new fight song, and Alcala-Mosley wanted to enter. He said he sat down to compose the night before the deadline.

"I wasn't into the call to violence," he said. "Instead of annihilating Stanford, I thought I'd focus on the idea of Cal winning."

Alcala-Mosley studied fight song lyrics of other universities and noted they shared two characteristics: "A timelessness, and a cheesiness."

His entry, "California Triumph," won hands down, and doesn't lack for either:

Boldly, sons and daughters,
From our hearts our song we sing!
For all the glory we shall bring her,
Alma Mater's name shall ring.

"It's kind of generic, but also what we felt we wanted," said Robert Calonico, the director of bands at Cal. "The stuff our world has been through makes you stop and think, 'Is this really what we want in our song?' And Berkeley students are very sensitive."

Sensitivity has not traditionally been the aim of the fight song. Most are martial versions of war cries, meant to intimidate the competition into a quivering mess. Thomas C. Duffy, the music director of the Yale band, said the common theme of most fight songs was "who's going to do what to whom, and how bad."

Duffy said also that given the modern prevalence of female athletes - unthinkable in the day many fight songs were composed - there's often a notable disconnect between fight song lyrics and who is being urged to fight.

"We sing 'the sons of Eli' when the sons of Eli aren't even on the field," he said, referring to a line from Yale's fight song.

A few universities have tried to subtly nudge their fight songs into the modern era.

Drake University in Des Moines changed the opening line of its fight song from "Here's to the man who wears the 'D' " to "Here's to the one who wears the 'D.' "

Brigham Young University changed the line "Stalwart men, and true" to "Loyal, strong and true." But for the most part, changes to fight songs do not go over well with alumni or fans, so most remain the same as they ever were.

"It would be a major upheaval to turn over tradition," Duffy said. "You'd alienate more people than you'd win over."

Some of the anachronisms in fight songs are too subtle to bother any but the most obsessive sports historians. The University of Alabama fight song, "Yea! Alabama," invokes a Rose Bowl victory and threatens drowning to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, even though Alabama hasn't been to the Rose Bowl since 1946 and no longer counts Georgia Tech as a regular rival.

So why not tweak a line or two to make the song more current?

Mitchell Shaw, 38, a hard-core Alabama fan known to many sports talk radio listeners in the state as "Mitchell from Montgomery," said no way.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," he said. "That's like changing the uniforms - you're not going to do that."

Summing up the view of many fans, Shaw added: "I know we live in the past. But at least we have a past."

Some fight songs invoke the past more deliberately than others. L.S.U. looks to medieval times:

Like knights of old we fight to hold
The glory of the Purple and Gold

San Diego State looks to ancient Mexico:

Fight on and on ye Aztec men
Sons of Montezuma, we will win again.

For sheer anachronism, though, perhaps nothing can approach the fight song of the Albion College Britons, in Albion, Mich., some of which is written in Middle English.

Fyte Onne, for Albion,
Her destiny is in your hands!
Fyte Onne, and don't give in,
No fighting Briton ever has!

As for violence, some fight songs cite specific methods, while others generalize. Fans of St. Olaf College in Minnesota issue a broad warning to rivals: "We fight fast and furious, our team is injurious."

Perhaps fittingly, the Air Force Academy fight song - "Off We Go (Into the Wild Blue Yonder)" - goes into more detail, promising to give the opposition a good strafing:

Here they come, zooming to meet our thunder,
At 'em boys, give 'er the gun!
Down we dive, spouting our flame from under
Off with one helluva roar!

But as the name suggests, most fight songs are about fighting. And fighting some more. University of Massachusetts fans sing:

Fight, fight, Massachusetts!

Fight, fight every play!
Fight, fight for a touchdown!
Fight all your might today!

Southern California fans strike a similar chord:

Fight on for ol' S.C.,
Our men fight on to victory.
Our alma mater dear
Looks up to you,
Fight on and win
For ol' S.C.
Fight on to victory
Fight on!

Some old fight songs are pacifist in nature, but they dispense with promises of violence in favor of getting drunk. The New Mexico State fight song declares:

Aggies, oh Aggies
We'll win this game or know the reason why
And when we win this game
We'll buy a keg of booze
And we'll drink to the Aggies
'Til we wobble in our shoes

As for Cal's new song, Calonico said it was too early to know how well it would be integrated into the actual games.

"A lot of old blues said they love it," he said, using the term for Cal alumni.

At games, he said: "It still hasn't really caught on. We've plastered the words up on the Jumbotron so that people will sing along."

Asked if he would recommend that other universities amend their fight songs, Calonico said, "It's what worked for us."

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Nifty multimedia postscript: to listen to any of these songs, mosey on over here.

Insightless | by Jay

Maybe you missed it amid the haze of a holiday hangover, but apparently Notre Dame is playing in a bowl game tomorrow. Yep, we're squaring off against one of the Pac-10 also-rans in a converted airplane hangar out in the desert to the delight of literally hundreds.

(By the way, what exactly is the "Insight.Com" bowl, and how long has it been around? Well, it used to be the Copper Bowl, then it was the Domino's Bowl, the Weiser Lock Bowl, and finally the Insight.com Bowl. It's got an illustrious history of games like unranked Cal vs. unranked Wyoming in a 17-15 nailbiter in 1990 -- a good game, no doubt, but not exactly the caliber of matchup ND is used to. By comparison, and if anything shows how far removed we are from past glories, that same year Cal and Wyoming faced off in the Domino's, Rocket was returning a punt against #1-ranked Colorado in the Orange Bowl.)

I took a quick poll of the BGS staff to determine if Notre Dame playing Oregon State in the Insight.com Bowl is a good idea, and came up with...well, not much. Some of the reasons why this game might be worthwhile, depending on your point of view:

Going Out in Style. For the seniors on the team, this might be a chance to wrap up their careers in a better way than a 31-point blowout at USC. Quinn remarked that "we want to send them [the seniors] out on the right note."

Ty Factor. According to some of the players, we're playing for Ty. "We want to show this country what coach Willingham has done for us in the past as men and as football players," senior linebacker Derek Curry said. "I really want to win it for him. His spirit lives on within us." Carlyle added: "It's to show our appreciation for him and what he's done for us."

Record Achievement. I think Darius has the chance to break the freshman running record. There might be another individual record or two up for grabs.

Payback. The last time we matched up against Oregon State, it wasn't pretty. Revenge against Oregon State for the 41-9 Fiasco Bowl blowout would be a touch of vindication as well as a chance to end the recent 0-fer bowl win streak.

Payout. We get a bonanza of $750,000 for playing this game. Yee-haw.

Development. During the season, because of NCAA practice limitations, the younger players don't get a chance to develop, as there just isn't any time for them to get any meaningful practice. Every minute is spent on game-planning and prepping for the next game, and very little attention is paid to the youngsters. It's why you always hear coaches talk about seeing how the "young kids" are progressing during bye weeks -- it's really their only time to focus on the development of younger players. The extra Bowl game practices extend the opportunity to take a look at the up-and-comers and give them some firsthand gridiron grit.

It's Football. Football players love to play football, and we love to watch football...so any football game is better than no football game. Right?

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But if you think about it, this bowl game is a bad idea -- for all sorts of reasons.

Injury Risk. This goes without saying -- any time spent on the practice field or in the game is simply more opportunity to get hurt. And unfortunately for us, the injury bug has already bitten: Shelton (knee) and Stovall (hamstring) both got hurt and both are listed as "doubtful" for the game. Justin Tuck also tweaked a lingering knee problem and might not play.

Holidays on Ice. Playing in a Dec. 28 game meant that players had to spend Christmas away from their families and required them to practice during finals week. These problems don't arise when we play in the only bowls to which we should ever accept invitations.

Poor Matchups. BGI points out that

"Strictly rating this game on paper, Notre Dame doesn't match up well. Oregon State quarterback Derek Anderson averages nearly 300 yards passing per game. The Irish rank No. 114 in pass defense and No. 91 in pass efficiency defense. The Notre Dame secondary hasn't recorded an interception in seven games."

Yikes.

Lame Ducks. This might be simply a point of etiquette or outward appearance, but it's incredibly awkward to have the old staff still hanging around a month after the new coach has been announced. While it's nice of Baer and Diedrick and the other coaches to stick around to coach the bowl game -- especially from a player's point of view -- their presence delays the building of the new regime, which should be well underway (assistants named, offices turned over, a base of operations established) and casts a pall over what should be a new beginning. Moreover, it leads to things like...

Conflict of Interest. The spectre of Greg Mattison operating out of ND's offices and practice fields while recruiting for Florida really raises the bile. And ever since he joined Urban Meyer's staff, rumors abound that Mattison has been contacting ND's recruiting list (committed or otherwise), trying to entice them to go to Florida. If you get fired off a job, I'm pretty sure your old company wouldn't let you use their office and phone lines to steal away clients to your new employer. I'm not sure why Greg hasn't been walked to the edge of campus by security yet.

Breaking Even, maybe. The bowl boon is a measley $750,000, and the cost of travel and expenses potentially outweigh the payout. We're transporting the team, coaches, the staff, school officials, and the entire band, putting them up, feeding them -- and we're not even making our money back. Think about that -- we're actually paying to play this thing.

It's All for Nothing. Overshadowing everything else discussed thus far is one simple fact: this game is completely meaningless. A win would be nice, but it really wouldn't help us. There's no recruiting edge to speak of, nobody to impress, no sportswriters to sway for the polls, not even a sense of redemption or public reckoning (see the '92 Sugar Bowl, where even though ND was out of the national title hunt, we still figured we needed to 'prove' to ourselves and to the world that we were a good team, and went out and took the wood to a highly-favored Gator squad. Sweet vindication). As for "playing for Ty", I think it's a nice, but misguided sentiment, and not a reason to mobilize all the effort it takes to pull off a bowl campaign. To me, it sounds more like an after-the-fact rationalization than an a priori catalyst.

In short, it's a polished turd of a game with a cheapskate payout against an anonymous Pac-10 player (with a decent passing attack) in a crappy wannabe bowl sponsored by a garden-variety dot-com, played in a baseball stadium right in the middle of the Christmas holidays, coached by lame ducks and traitors, and having absolutely no impact whatsoever in the rankings, standings, or national picture, nor at the very least holding any personal ties of competition or vindication against say, a long-standing rival or another historical Irish opponent. It's devoid of meaning, interest, and purpose.

But hey, it's football.

On the verge of...something | by Jay

At Christmastime, you generally know what you're going to get: a sweater from grandma, twenty bucks from Unlce Phil, egg nog and ham, and some good holiday cheer. This year there's another big present under the tree for ND fans that should be cause for celebration: a new football coach, and with him, a new attitude and direction for Irish football.

But out on the Christmas cocktail circuit this season, I've noticed an little uncertainty in the mood of ND fans. Amid the comfortable predictability of the season is a sense of bemused caution: I mean, we're pretty sure that stocking's going to be stuffed with goodies this year, but we've gotten lumps of coal the last couple of times out. We know what it's like to run downstairs on Christmas morning to an empty living room; instead of leaving presents, Santa ate the carrots you left for the reindeer, stole your stereo and drank all your beer ("By George..."). So forgive us for not exhibiting unbridled exuberance just yet. "Cautious optimism" is usually cited to describe such a period, but I think I'd rather characterize it as optimistic caution.

That said, there is a sense that unlike the last two coaching regimes, something is happening. The waters are moving; there is a restless energy and a feistiness within the program that we haven't seen for quite a while. And for most of us, just knowing that things are in motion makes us nod and smile and keeps us warm.

In a way, the energy and spirit reminds me a little of being an exchange student in Europe in the fall of 1989. In early November of that year, the Berlin Wall came down, and all of Germany seemed to explode with passion and pent-up euphoria. Potsdamer Platz was an around-the-clock party as rock bands played and people chipped their own souvenirs from the most visible and oppressive symbol of the Cold War, now reduced to a playground of rubble. West Germans reunited with family members left behind in the East, and East Germans roamed the produce aisles of supermarkets on the western side, marveling in the selection of fresh fruit and vegetables that for all this time had only been a few miles away.

Amid the celebration, however, was a real sense of uncertainty about the future. Things were in motion, sure, but where was it going? While Germans partied, the rest of Europe worried about the hard practicalities of reunification, and what kind of impact that would have on Europe's economy, security, and culture for years to come. The chaotic enthusiasm and passion of the Germans were infectious, but the future was still very uncertain.

While the ramifications of Notre Dame football are relatively minor compared to this example, I do find the zeitgeists somewhat similar. We've got more energy invested in the football program than we've had in over a decade, and we sure hope things are moving in the right direction. In fact, it's hard not to think of this as another momentous transition in the vein of Kuharich->Ara or Faust->Holtz. Recent ND message board activity reflects this: lately we've had inquiries about Ara's "rally at Sorin" and the mood on campus when Holtz was hired. If we're not overtly making Weis out to be a football savior, we're at least obliquely wishing it.

While the comparison of Charlie to Ara and Lou is premature, it's completely understandable. And while the direction we're heading isn't exactly clear right now, maybe there is more emphasis on the optimism rather than the cautious in the usual phrase used to describe the expectations of ND football fans. We might not know exactly what's under that festive wrapping, but when we shake it around, and listen, and let our imaginations go, it's hard not to get our hopes up.

Merry Christmas from all of us at BGS to all of you.

Weis and the OL | by Michael

Here's a recent Boston Herald article that discusses the current Patriots' OL. It gives a little insight into their scheme and what kind of offensive linemen that Weis will probably target as OL.

The key phrase for me was the following:

"Of course, that's by design. The offense devised by Belichick and offensive coordinator Charlie Weis calls for a wide use of screens, draws and pulling linemen. That means the Pats need athletic blockers, and those players tend to be smaller."

Some may be wondering, 'Are those guys on our roster yet?' There might be a few but there aren't a lot; Davie did a poor job recruiting anything other than bigger, slower OGs, and Willingham did a poor job recruiting OL number-wise. Therefore, I would fully expect Weis to take advantage of the OL talent already on hand and use less of what has been so effective for the Patriots this year. Now it certainly appeared in 2003 that Morton, Stevenson & Levoir were all playing overweight, and this year they seemed considerably lighter, so it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities to believe that they could continue to redefine their body shape and approach the kind of OL shape which Weis wants. I'll go on a limb, though, and say it wouldn't surprise me if Dan Santucci found a home somewhere along the OL. With Ryan Harris, Santucci is one of the best athletes we have, and with good coaching, both should excel next year.

As far as recruiting, it's hard to say what Weis' initial strategy may be when it comes to OL, but is there reason to be concerned? Short-term, perhaps, but long-term? Hardly. Let's take a look at the high school careers of the 5 starting OL for the Patriots.

RT Brandon Gorin (Purdue) - Earned first team all-state honors as a defensive tackle at Southside (Muncie, Ind.) High School in Muncie … Played on the school’s nationally-ranked basketball team and competed in track and field as discus thrower.

C Dan Koppen - Earned All-State, All-Area and All-East Penn Conference first-team honors as a senior offensive lineman/defensive end … Captured Prep Star All-American accolades as a senior … Big 33 selection in 1998 … Had 10 sacks and scored eight touchdowns, carrying the ball on occasion … Earned defensive MVP honors in the 1997 Kaylee Rotary Bowl … Also played in the 1998 McDonald’s Lehigh Valley all-star classic … All-Conference second-team selection as a junior … Served as team captain as a senior … Versatile athlete who was also a two-year track and basketball letterman.

LT Matt Light (Purdue) - Second-team Division II all-state choice as a linebacker, adding All-Darke County, all-conference and All-Southwest District honors as a senior at Greenville (Ohio) High ... Three-year two-way starter who played guard as sophomore, tackle as junior and tight end as senior ... As a senior, he had 69 tackles, including 15 stops for 63 yards in losses, two forced fumbles and two pass break-ups … Added four catches for 75 yards with one touchdown ... Also lettered in track ... State qualifier, district champion, all-conference and all-county pick in the shot put.

LG Joe Andruzzi (Southern Connecticut St) - All-city selection in football at Tottenville High School in Staten Island, N.Y. where he was an offensive and defensive tackle.

RG Stephen Neal (Cal State-Bakersfield) - A five-sport athlete at San Diego High School, he competed in wrestling, football, swimming, tennis and track and field.

Not only were none of them high draft picks, but none of them were on any Lemming, Superprep or equivalent Top 100 lists. Neal didn't even play collegiate football.

Here's the quandry. You can't really make big, slow guys much faster than they are. Because of that, in the years ahead, I think our recruiting rankings may suffer a little because we'll offer more TEs and smaller OL with good footwork and quickness but who lack impressive highlight reels of pancake block after pancake block. But there's good reason - their previous successes - to believe that Weis, with rumored OL coach John Latina [Clemson, Kansas State, Ole Miss, Pitt (under Joe Moore)] can put together a NASTY offensive line. Purely speculating, fans may get annoyed or upset that we aren't landing as many "name" OL targets, but at the same time, Weis' productive offenses should be able to start attracting more skill position players.

In fact, he may already have his strategy underway. Three of his initial phone calls after taking the job were to one current TE verbal, Joey Hiben, and two other uncommitted TEs - Erik Lorig, whose name hasn't been mentioned in months, and James Dray. Coincidence? Hard to say. But all three are extremely talented and can play multiple positions...

Not Exactly Dead | by Jay

A "dead period" for contacting football recruits begins today and continues through January 1st. According to the NCAA rule,

A dead period is that period of time when it is not permissible to make in-person recruiting con- tacts or evaluations on or off the member institution’s campus or to permit official or unofficial visits by prospects to the institution’s campus. The provision of complimentary admissions to a prospect during a dead period is prohibited, except as provided in Bylaw 13.8.2.5 for a prospect who visits an institution as part of a group. During such a dead period, a coaching staff member may not serve as a speaker at or attend a meeting or banquet at which prospects are in attendance, except as provided in Bylaw 13.1.9 and may not visit the prospects’ educational institutions. It remains permissible, however, for an institutional staff member to write or telephone prospects during such a dead period. [13.02.4.4]

Hmm. It appears there are no restrictions on appearing on Monday Night Football; nothing in there about virtual living-room visits to every recruit in the country via national television.

Black and White | by Teds

Notre Dame's recent firing of Tyrone Willingham has elicited all sorts of negative emotion on various fronts, including the ire of the print media, which revels in contemptuously pointing out its own recipe for injustice in the same sort of way that Courtney Love enjoys a good dust-up with the authorities.

One of the biggest problems with allowing raw emotion to dictate the thrust of editorial matter is that indispensable elements of good writing, such as reason and supporting evidence, get left out in the cold. Take, for example, the article penned by Pete Sampson, a beat writer for none other than Blue and Gold, a publication dedicated to covering Notre Dame sports and primarily football. One might think that having a closer, day-to-day perspective on the program would give Sampson better insight than most journalists and allow him the benefit of reflecting on Willingham's three-year tenure at Notre Dame for what it really was. Unfortunately, he's stricken with the same fixation on race as the end-all, be-all that has warped the minds of so many other media creatures, and he'd apparently rather stroke his own feathers about the fact that NPR invited him into a "cultural" discussion of Willingham's ouster than discuss the coach's accomplishments in the job he was hired to perform.

To wit, here are some excerpts from his weekend column, in italics. (It's a paysite article, so click over to read the entire thing):

Notre Dame sullied itself by dumping Willingham after only three seasons, and the discourse that followed left the school looking like the bastion of arrogance that many people believe it to be.

Ah, yes, the arrogance of Notre Dame in all its glory. It's interesting that Sampson doesn't elaborate on the "discourse that followed", because all I witnessed was an athletic director practically dragged to the podium at gunpoint who bent over backwards in defense of everything Willingham upheld during his three seasons of employ ("Sunday to Friday") that didn't have a lick to do with his primary function. It's worthwhile to recognize that football coaches at major programs are not paid to chaperone players, orchestrate study hall sessions or hold hands. It's winning games that makes the world go 'round, and anyone pretending otherwise is kidding themselves, even at a school like Notre Dame which prides itself on graduating its players and maintaining a "higher standard". That the University expects more from its student-athletes in other respects does not absolve them from desiring to excel on the field of play. In fact, nothing could (or should) be further from the truth, and incoming school president John Jenkins said as much in a public statement last week.

"Arrogance" is one of the most popular words used to describe the University in the wake of this unpleasantness, but no one has yet to clearly quantify what it is that's so arrogant about the dismissal of a coach whose teams were mediocre and trending downward, consistent only in their inconsistency. Mississippi's head football coach accumulated a record eerily similar to that of Willingham at a program with lower expectations and a fraction of Notre Dame's tradition of excellence, but there was little criticism of the school or cries of unchecked arrogance when they decided to fire him in the wake of Willingham's removal. The reality is that people see what they want to see. If they have it set in their mind that ND "puts themselves on a pedestal", then they'll twist whatever supporting information is available to fit squarely into their worldview, whether it's a matter of the Irish rejecting overtures regarding conference affiliation or simply dismissing a coach who failed to do his job adequately.

The structural flaw today isn't Notre Dame's reluctance to give Willingham his first full contract, as was customary with other semi-failing coaches Gerry Faust and Bob Davie. That pair floundered through years four and five before getting canned. Why make the same mistake three times?

The flaw is Notre Dame's failure to understand that there were bigger issues in play with Willingham's firing than wins and losses.

And in this one instant, Sampson torpedoes whatever argument in support of Willingham he might have been attempting to foster. He plainly admits that the fourth and fifth seasons afforded both Faust and Davie proved to be little more than a repeat of what they accomplished during the course of their first three years on the job, which was underwhelming, to say the least. And yet he's insistent that Willingham's color should have afforded him a free pass to prove every bit as incapable of leading a major program to prominence as the mediocre white coaches in Notre Dame's skeleton closet were. How exactly that exercise in futility would advance the cause of minority football coaches in the world of college football isn't clear to me.

When Notre Dame fired Willingham, the University dumped a football coach. That's obvious. But the school also deposed a role model, a mentor, a philosopher and an icon. Willingham went where no African-American coach had gone before, straight to the top of the college football food chain. When The Sporting News named him Sportsman of the Year and Sports Illustrated called him one of the Top 10 most influential minorities in sports, Willingham became a beacon of opportunity in a college football coaching landscape that's short on it.

One of the most popular and lazy defenses of Willingham has been to resort to speaking of him in very general personal characteristics rather than his record of performance, and this is no exception. Willingham is predictably characterized here as a "role model" and "mentor", but those are hats that college football coaches regularly wear in handling their own players, as well as those they attempt to bring into the program. I've seen very little hard evidence that proves Willingham to be a better role model or mentor than the average college coach. Sampson ups the ante by waxing delirious with terms like "philosopher" and "icon". Willingham doesn't speak extemporaneously enough to qualify as a chatty tax accountant, let alone a philosopher. The man may be a lot of things, but Plato he ain't. And any "icon" status Willingham might have stumbled into has simply been gifted him by unconscionably generous writers such as Sampson, certainly not based on anything accomplished in accumulating a .560 winning percentage over ten seasons as a head football coach.

Notre Dame then snuffed that flame. Most Notre Dame fans missed that dimming. Most media members did too, or at least ignored it. That's because race isn't a popular topic to discuss, especially when dialogues go the unfortunate way that Paul Hornung's did last season.

If Sampson honestly believes that most media members missed the racial aspect of Willingham's dismissal or thinks that it's not a popular topic for discussion, then he must be so completely debased from other media outlets and forms of mass communication that I can only assume him to have been shot forward in time to December of 2004 from a staring point sometime during the Taft administration. If anything, Willingham's actual performance has been needlessly dwarfed by handwringing over his skin color and flowery platitudes about what a fantastic individual he is in spite of his actual record of performance.

So we talk about the legacy of Year Three, the glut of 21-plus point losses and the sub-par recruiting. We don't want to be bothered with the fact that something more important is in play.

Of course we want to talk about "Year Three", because it represents Willingham's most recent and meaningful performance in his job as Notre Dame football coach. Of course we want to talk about the losses and the recruiting, because they represent tangible failures in the execution of his obligations to his employer, for which he was paid handsome, seven-figure annual salaries.

There are three African-American coaches in Division I-A football now that Willingham landed at Washington. Notre Dame knew that number before it let its coach go after three years.

I'm going to say this once and only once: the University of Notre Dame is not responsible in any way for how the other 116 Divison-I football programs conduct themselves. That Willingham's ouster from ND left only two African-American football coaches in major college football is unfortunate. It's also not Notre Dame's responsibility to carry the torch for minorities in this particular arena at the expense of its own fortunes simply because practically no one else is willing to accept the relay. There's entirely too much made of the fact that Willingham was fired by the University and not enough made of the fact that they gave him a meaningful opportunity three years ago to begin with. Not that I believe Notre Dame should have been awarded a gold star by the NAACP for the hire, but I don't think it's too much to ask for some consistency in the reaction to and treatment of the two events. Instead, the embarrassing hissy-fit that Sampson and other irresponsible media members have thrown in defiance of Notre Dame's decision has accomplished nothing but to discourage other major programs from considering minority coaches in the future. Why would any halfway-intelligent university open themselves up to the potential of such a media-induced tempest when there are perfectly good white candidates available who can be hired and fired with not much more trouble than second-shift fry cooks at Hardee's?

Notre Dame trustee and football alumnus Dave Duerson told a Chicago radio station that: "Anyone who's walking around with blinders thinking racism doesn't exist and race doesn't matter, they're fooling themselves."

Duerson's blind support of Willingham has been painfully apparent to many ND followers for some time. And of course racism still exists, but Duerson cheapens the impact of the word and does a great disservice to those who are genuinely discriminated against by recklessly insinuating that there's been such wrongdoing here. Duerson would do well to apply the same critical eye with which he has recently denounced the state of the Chicago Bear organization to that of his other beloved former team. The reality is that the same directionless attitude and lackluster play which has plagued the Bears for a number of years has also been a hallmark of Willingham's Irish teams since the tail end of his first season on the job. That Duerson's is apparently oblivious to the parallels one could easily draw between the two teams is sufficient to make me wonder who's actually wearing the blinders.

When someone in (Chandra) Johnson's position shaves her head to protest the process, when a group comprised of minority students (not a large contingent in the Notre Dame student body) demonstrates against Willingham's ouster, when an NPR show contacts a sports reporter to make sense of the blow to opportunities in college coaching for African-Americans, those issues deserve the attention over football recruiting, offensive schemes or bowl bids.

No, they don't. The job of the Notre Dame football coach is to win football games. By any historical measure of this team's fortunes, Willingham's performance in leading the program has been inadequate. The insinuation of Sampson and so many others seems to be that the University should treat Willingham with kid gloves, that the expectations for him should be lessened based on the color of his skin and the cultural significance of his success or failure in this job. But if the greater goal is to reach a point in time at which the world no longer sees color and considers all individuals truly equal, what sort of message would the school be sending by acting as if Willingham should be riding the equivalent of the coaching short bus? Isn't it far more offensive to Willingham and those of his race to analyze his handiwork with diminished expectations than to hold him to the expectations set by coaching greats like Rockne, Leahy, Parsegian and Holtz?

(By the way, did Pete Sampson just say that a black woman shaving her head in protest is more important that the fortunes of the Notre Dame football team? I was pretty sure that he did, but then I blacked out for a spell and my head smashed into the keyboard. Err...where were we?)

In almost five years at Blue and Gold Illustrated I've talked to dozens of football alumni about what makes this University so unique. Ask 10 to define the "spirit of Notre Dame" and prepare for 10 different answers. Some talk about academic excellence, most talk about leaving the University a better place than when they found it. Even more talk about giving something back to society.

No one mentions beating Southern California or Boston College.

Well, that's a problem, and it's indicative of the sea change fostered by the recent administration and feared by the old guard. Winning should matter. And if we consider football important enough to pay the coach $1.5 million annually for his services or to charge our alumni and fans $53 a ticket to watch the games in person, then I can only assume that it really does. Like it or not, success in football has a great deal to do with the widespread following Notre Dame enjoys, the revenue it generates, the buildings it houses and instructs its students in and the value of the diploma it awards its graduates. The University has parlayed its gridiron exploits into improving its stature in many other respects and shaping a school that is one of very few that is recognized worldwide today. It's quite possible that there wouldn't be a Notre Dame at all without that damnable foothold of great football history, and I'm quite certain that the soapbox Sampson is preaching from would disappear faster than hard road under Wil-E Coyote if the school had always been so laissez-faire about the fortunes of its team.

When Notre Dame fired Willingham, athletics director Kevin White boldly stated the football program had never been better from Sunday-Friday than with the deposed coach in charge. It was the Saturdays and that 21-15 record was the problem. So Notre Dame, or at least the incoming president, vice president and a couple of wealthy trustees, demanded more.
But they got less. Not because the University hired Weis, a dynamic alumnus coach with three Super Bowl rings, but because Notre Dame made some major edits to its mission statement in firing Willingham.

I'm impressed that Sampson possesses the foresight -- all of 20 days since Willingham was relieved of his duties -- to know what exactly Notre Dame will "get" from the coaching change. What I've personally gathered from this turn of events is that the school's new management is committed to winning football games at a championship level, a sentiment in and of itself that no one should ever have to apologize for, least of all a school with the tradition of Notre Dame. And Sampson will have to point out to me the part of the University's mission statement that references the coddling of minorities for the purpose of enacting widespread societal change, because that passage is not one that I'm familiar with.

But when football success comes at the cost of Notre Dame's spirit, that's where a line must be drawn. The deal when Notre Dame hired Willingham was that the school could not only win games, but also start to remodel the landscape of college coaching with its high profile hire. Three years later the University decided that reconstruction process wasn't worth the price of five losses per season. Notre Dame honored Willingham's contract in a buyout, but it skirted an obligation for something bigger.

Here's the kicker for Sampson and everyone else crying foul: there never was a "deal". Tyrone Willingham was hired by Notre Dame for the express purpose of winning football games, not to act as the instigator in a societal domino-tumbling session. If there was any greater cultural significance to the event three years ago, it was extrapolated by Sampson and his ilk at the time. Now that the "landmark event" has come and gone without any sort of greater change coming about on the landscape, all that's left are unfulfilled wishes and bruised feelings.

And this gets to the root of why everyone is so angry at Notre Dame for having the gall to wake the Willingham's enablers from their fanciful dreams. The average media creature looks at Tyrone Willingham and sees in him great things. They watch him in the press conference as he bids farewell to Notre Dame -- proud, upstanding, diplomatic -- and flesh out his hard, bony character with all sorts of heroic qualities in order to build the feature-film-worthy individual they so badly want him to be and the barrier-breaking legend they wish for him to become. Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that he's a respectable and hard-working man but nothing truly spectacular. And the biggest hit is that he's not a very good football coach. He's been at this for ten years and led two solid-to-great programs without making a championship-contending dent in any single college season, so hopeful rationalizations about "learning from his mistakes" and the like ring somewhat hollow at this point. Willingham simply doesn't have it in him to be what everyone so desperately wants: not a fine, upstanding man, but rather a historic winner.

Not that this will stop Pete Sampson or anyone else in the media with an axe to grind from trying to cloud a black-and-white issue of wins-and-losses with one of another type entirely.

Background Check | by Jay

Pete Thamel has a great piece today in the New York Times, full of interesting anecdotes, and digging a little more deeply into the backstory of the "coach who never played the game":

"While he was coaching at Franklin, Weis received a call from the Giants. They were preparing for the Houston Oilers, who used a run-and-shoot offense, and they asked for help analyzing films. Weis began evaluating players part time for Tim Rooney, who was then the Giants' personnel director.

Even then, Weis had a swagger. Giants coaches would needle him, asking why he was spending so much time at their offices and not working at the high school. Weis would say he needed to install only half the offense, because he did not want to beat teams, 100-0. "Sure enough, I'd pick up the paper and Franklin would win, 50-0," Rooney recalled last week with a laugh.

After his season at Franklin, Weis took a brief break from coaching and returned to South Carolina, where he worked for a month selling long-distance phone service to businesses. Then he received a call from Bill Parcells, whom he came to know when he was moonlighting in the Giants' film room.

Parcells hired Weis for an entry-level position on the Giants' staff. He worked in the film room and later was an assistant to the special-teams coach. In training camp, the former Giants tight end Mark Bavaro remembers Weis chatting about Notre Dame, their alma mater. Bavaro had no idea who Weis was. "I was like, 'Who let this guy under the ropes?' "

In a special-teams meeting during the 1990 season, Parcells asked who would replace Dave Meggett on punt returns if he were hurt. Weis chimed in with an answer, and Parcells shot him a cold stare. "You've been in this league about five minutes," Weis recalled Parcells saying. "No one cares what you think."

Eventually, they did. The Giants' general manager at the time, George Young, who had also worked his way up from the high school ranks, became intrigued with him. Weis wrote concise scouting reports, and Rooney said he had a knack for player evaluation. Weis was able to learn from a talented staff, which included the assistant Bill Belichick.

Check out the entire write-up if you have a moment. It's a refreshing breather from the same old cut & paste bio we've seen recycled a zillion times in the last week.

Backlog of Thoughts.... | by Sean

Some random thoughts before heading out into the Christmas battlefield that is the Fox Valley Mall.....

DALLAS COWBOYS, NEW YORK YANKEES, NOTRE DAME....

Oftentimes, when people mention Notre Dame football they draw the analogy to the New York Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys. All three are the "name" brands in their respective sports. When going on the road, they are the darling of opposing teams' box offices: their fan bases span the globe, and they always buy lots of tickets. When things are bad, their futility is as big a story as their past success, which is considerable, since nobody's won more Super Bowls, World Series, or national championships than the Cowboys, Yankees, and Irish, respectively. In short, all three are worldwide institutions, long on resources and short on patience.

But, unfortunately for Notre Dame, the analogy falls apart there, and here's why - the Dallas Cowboys and New York Yankees run their teams like a 21st century business. If they need something, the people in charge go and get it, costs be damned. They can afford to do business like this because they have the financial resources and actually USE them to their fullest extent. Conversely, Notre Dame runs its football program like a 1950's university. (To be fair, at least they've finally decided to pay their head football coach market value, so maybe they've crept into the 1980's.) What made me think of this was the report late this past week that Al Golden, noted UVA defensive coordinator and recruiting guru, has decided (for now) to stay put at UVA. A Charlottesville TV station reported that he got a bump up in pay from $180K to $220K to stay with the Cavaliers.

Let me point out that by all accounts, Golden is the top recruiter on the East Coast and is the main reason UVA has turned into a juggernaut on the recruiting trail. As critical as recruiting is to the lifeblood of a college football program - especially one, like Notre Dame, whose head coach is basically AWOL until February and whose previous head coach managed to recruit the worst class in the history of the school the year before - you'd think "Golden to ND" would be a done deal. To be more specific, what would George Steinbrenner and Jerry Jones do in this situation?

I'll tell you what they would do. They would make this a no-brainer. Golden would have a minimum $350K contract. Not only that, but they'd go to Charlie Weis and find out the names of every single guy he wants on his staff and they'd offer them deals that are at least $100K more than what they make right now. They'd assemble the "dream team" of coaching staffs. They'd set the market instead of lagging twenty years behind it. The staff would be fully assembled in about a week because it would be sheer idiocy for them to turn down the package Notre Dame was offering - prestige, exposure, money. And it would pay off in spades. The recruiting engine would be up and running with an energetic, reknowned, well-paid staff.

You can't tell me Notre Dame doesn't have the resources to make this happen. The amount it would cost to set the bar for paying a coaching staff would be peanuts for Notre Dame. Hearing about great assistant coaches staying at their current jobs instead of coming to Notre Dame over FORTY GRAND makes my blood boil. It doesn't have to be this way. Dallas Cowboys? New York Yankees? Please. If Notre Dame ran the business of its football program like those teams run their respective businesses, we're not even having this conversation. They'd have let Bob Stoops fill in the amount of the check back in 2001.

ROCKET I$MAIL

Hearing the Rocket babble on and on a couple weeks ago on Gameday about how ashamed he was to be part of the Notre Dame family and how those who made the Willingham decision must "repent" was about as comical as it was infuriating. What Rocket and others chastising the school fail to understand is that this was a BUSINESS decision. The Notre Dame football "brand", after five years of mediocrity on Bob Davie's watch, was still circling the drain with Tyrone Willingham as a coach. A very critical and lucrative element of the school's identity was at risk, and the leadership at Notre Dame sought to minimize that risk and protect their very profitable venture - Notre Dame football.

You, Rocket, of all people, should understand the business end of Notre Dame football. After all, you did pose for this Sports Illustrated cover back in 1991, didn't you?



I thought so.

REBEL, REBEL

Thursday, Ole Miss named USC defensive line coach Ed Orgeron as its new head football coach, replacing David Cutcliffe (who coincidentally appears poised to become the next Notre Dame offensive coordinator). Orgeron, 43, is a reknowned recruiter with ties to the deep South. Oh, by the way, he was also charged with repeated domestic violence back in the early 90's when he was an assistant at Miami (damn, I thought it was just the Cane players who did that kind of thing back in the day). Orgeron had a restraining order filed against him in 1991 by a Dade County woman. He was also involved in an incident in 1992 where he head-butted a bouncer at a Baton Rouge nightclub.

Despite these transgressions, Ole Miss went ahead and hired Orgeron. Let me be very clear that I have no problem with the hire. The incidents occurred many years ago and I'm all for giving people second chances. The guy, by most accounts, is a pretty good coach. However, the headline on ESPN.com for the article about Orgeron getting this job - an article which included the list of his brushes with the law - was "Orgeron promises Ole Miss will compete".

Am I being overly sensitive when I surmise that if Notre Dame were to have hired Orgeron the headline would have read something like "Irish settle for woman-beating, bouncer-assaulting first-time head coach"?

WILLINGHAM...."THE MESSIAH"?

I have to admit, Tyrone Willingham has played this thing perfectly. To his credit, he has been completely accountable for his poor record during his stint at Notre Dame. He rightfully took the high road the day after being terminated by the school, handling himself with the same class and dignity that he had since he arrived in South Bend three years ago. Frankly, there was no need for him to try to drag Notre Dame through the mud - ESPN, Fox Sports Net, and every English-speaking sports columnist in the Western hemisphere were doing a fine job of that all by themselves.

Then a couple weeks after being let go by Notre Dame, he lands the head coaching job at the University of Washington. All of a sudden, idiots are writing columns saying that Washington's future is rosier than Notre Dame's, and bigger idiots are saying that Tyrone Willingham will have Washington in the BCS within three years. Never mind that the latter would require a Tyrone Willingham-coached team to show improvement without any regression over a two year period or longer - something that statistically has NEVER happened in the coach's less than illustrious history.

Somewhere along the way over the last two weeks, the media has managed to snow itself into thinking that Tyrone Willingham is a first-tier candidate, or to steal a term from Monk Malloy, a "Messiah Coach". Despite a huge body of evidence that we've rehashed here at length (blowout losses, losses to heavy underdogs at home, poor recruiting), Tyrone Willingham is all of a sudden a savior in Washington and his absence from the home sideline in South Bend is "Notre Dame's loss".

It's not surprising that most people who espouse the "Willingham will be U-Dub's savior" line of thinking do so without citing any empirical evidence that supports their argument, since...well, there isn't any. Most people that are in the "Willingham will be U-Dub's savior" camp support their argument in one of three ways:

(1) Tyrone Willingham is a good man, a man of dignity whose focus on graduating players is to be commended.

My response to this school of thought? I agree wholeheartedly. You won't find a classier guy out there than Tyrone Willingham. He's a true man of integrity. Unfortunately, this does nothing to explain the inconsistent nature of Willingham's football teams, particularly the lackluster efforts of the 2003 and 2004 versions of the Fighting Irish. Wilingham is a good guy. Great, there's a lot of good guys out there, classy guys. I'm not saying it's not important, but it obviously doesn't correlate directly to wins and losses on the field, otherwise Willingham would still be employed at Notre Dame.

As for those who use "Willingham graduates his players" to support their pro-Willingham stance, puh-lease. The guy has coached at Stanford and Notre Dame. Last I checked, both places had a long history of graduating players before Tyrone Willingham got there. If you're giving him credit for this, then why stop there? Go ahead and give him credit for getting dressed in the morning and driving to work without getting into an accident.

All kidding aside, it will be interesting to see what happens from an academic perspective with Willingham at Washington. While it's not a bottom-of-the-barrel institution from a graduation rate perspective, it's no Notre Dame or Stanford. Last I checked, Washington was in the low 60 percent range in graduating its players (with a virtually identical rate for African American players). If that rate improves significantly, then I'll buy into "Tyrone Willingham, Bastion of Academia". If it stays the same, then he's just another football coach. (Somehow, I think the mainstream media will ONLY bring this up if the number goes up in a few years. Otherwise, if it goes down, well, you better know how to "google" to find the percentage.)

(2) Tyrone Willingham took STANFORD to the Rose Bowl in 1999. Yes, Stanford! He MUST be a great coach, right?

Uh, wrong. First, let me point out that this will be the closest that a Willingham supporter will ever get to proposing any type of statistical evidence that Willingham is a "great coach" - that he took Stanford to its first Rose Bowl in decades in 1999. Of course, here is what those Willingham backers will not tell you, either because they don't want to or they haven't bothered to look: the Pac-10 in 1999 made the 2004 Big East look like the SEC. The only thing separating the Pac-10 that season from powder puff football was shoulder pads and a TV contract. There were two teams in the entire conference that year (Stanford and Oregon) that won more than seven games. Six of the ten teams finished .500 or worse. USC was in the midst of the Paul Hackett Era. The conference went 1-4 in bowl games, including a 17-9 Stanford loss to Wisconsin where Ron Dayne ran for roughly 650 yards (at least it felt like it).

Also in 1999, Willingham's signature season according to his supporters, the Cardinal got blown out by Texas 69-17 in their opener, a game Willingham had nine months to prepare for. (And we thought the BYU game was bad!) Oh, and Stanford also lost at home to San Jose State in 1999, which is sort of like Notre Dame losing at home to Bethel College. The Cardinal finished the 1999 season unranked in the AP poll (24th in the coaches' poll).

(3) They don't support it at all, but instead spend their entire column bashing Notre Dame, presumably doing so under the assumption that each lame one-liner will add a point to Willingham's football IQ.

See Dodd, Dennis.

CONCLUSION

When Willingham was fired by Notre Dame, I was happy for the school because I knew we could do better (and I think we have done better with the hire of Charlie Weis), but at the same time I felt for Willingham because he did represent the school with class and dignity (albeit with the personality of a damp sponge). I even vowed to myself that I would root for Willingham wherever he might wind up coaching in the future.

And then "they" started coming out of the woodwork. The Mark Mays and Dennis Dodds of the world, trashing Notre Dame for letting Willingham go and subsequently putting Willingham in the elite class of college coaches, despite having no evidence at all to support their argument. They do realize a Willingham-coached team has never lost fewer than three games in a season, don't they? I mean, EVER. They must know this, right?

And so now I'm forced to root against Tyrone Willingham. Not just on September 24 next season, but for the entire time he is at U-Dub. I can't help it. I'd rather Notre Dame be vindicated and Dodd and May (and others) be (further) exposed for the dolts that they are than see a good man succeed.

Willingham is taking over a 1-10 outfit, so improvement will likely occur next year under (in spite of?) Willingham. How can it not? Frankly, improvement would probably occur under Rich Kotite. I just hope that in four years, after Willingham has gone something like 4-7, 6-6, 8-4, and 4-7, that the Mark Mays and Dennis Dodds of the world will say that Notre Dame was right to fire Willingham. Somehow, I doubt that admission will ever come.

How do I know that Willingham will go 4-7, 6-6, 8-4, and 4-7 in his first four years at Washington? Well, I don't. But there's a whole lot more data to support my argument than there is to support the argument that he will turn Washington into a juggernaut again.

the 10 Stages of Coaching Search Emotions | by Jay

In the wake of reports that Al Golden will remain at UVA...

1. Hmm, never heard of that guy before.

2. The more I read, the more I like.

3. Wow -- he's great! I hope we get him.

4. Holy Jesus, he's just about perfect. This guy walks on water and and we can't survive without him. He is The One. If we don't get him, we're doomed.

5. WE'RE DOOMED.

6. I can't believe we missed out on this guy. Our staff sucks. ND sucks. We effed everything up. Nobody likes us. ND is irrelevant.

7. Hmm. Maybe he didn't want to come in the first place.

8. You know what? There are other guys out there who are probably just as good. Maybe.

9. He was never that good anyway. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think ND said NO to HIM, not the other way around. He obviously sucks, so thank God we didn't get him. We dodged a bullet.

10. Hmm, never heard of this guy before...

It was my understanding there would be no math | by Jay

(Timeout now for a message from BGS friend and stat-head Jeff, who sends us this tasty mathematical confection).

Ara Parseghian once said that if he couldn’t win at ND in three years, it wasn’t going to happen at all. Ara was right.

I looked at the ND coaching records going back to Jesse Harper, and I found that after three seasons, about half the coaches improve their record during the next two seasons, and about half slide. However, there is a very high correlation (87%) between their records for the first three years at ND and their next two.

	first three	next two
Jesse Harper	.870	.853
Knute Rockne	.917	.881
Elmer Layden	.741	.806
Frank Leahy	.850	.972
Terry Brennan	.633	.650
Joe Kuharich	.400	.500
Ara Parseghian	.867	.775
Dan Devine	.800	.696
Gerry Faust	.544	.522
Lou Holtz	.714	.840
Bob Davie	.568	.609
Ty Willingham	.583
Correlation	87%

For you Arts & Letters types like Jay who are scratching your heads right about now, Correlation is a common function used by statisticians, and is a statistical technique to show how numbers are related. Numbers with -100% correlation are inversely correlated (when one goes up, the other goes down). Numbers with 100% correlation are basically functions of each other (they move in tandem). And numbers with 0% correlation have no bearing on each other (they are random).

So in our example, an 87% correlation means that your next two years are going to look fairly similar to your first three.

Looking at the table, the two ND coaches who improved most over years 4 & 5 were Lou Holtz and Frank Leahy, although there were some anomalies with these two: Holtz quickly improved on a very poor first year and Leahy’s fourth year occurred two years after his third year. Yet even these two only added an average of 1.5 victories per year during years 4 & 5.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the 7-5 that Willingham averaged while at ND was nearly identical to the 44-36-1 (6.6 wins and 5.4 losses in a 12 game season) he averaged over 7 years at Stanford. If Willingham had stayed on for years 4 and 5 and matched the performance improvement of Holtz or Leahy -- an absolute best-case scenario -- he would improve from his current 7-5 to one year of 8-4 and one of 9-3. What's more likely would have been more of the same: another couple of years right around 7-5.

So, what does this tell us about Charlie Weis? Well, not much, yet. But his first three years should show us with reasonable certainty (okay, 87% certainty) if he's worth keeping around for another two.

-- Jeff

Triage | by Dylan

In our ND Coaching Search: The Movie post, we cast Gary Burghoff as Father John Jenkins. Now, it would violate our journalistic integrity to alter it ex post facto, but we would like to take this opportunity to point out that our characterization of Jenkins as Radar O'Reilly was flawed (we still stand by our pick for Wilbon, however). The SBT has Jenkins’s words to the Faculty Board on Athletics, and it is a must-read. Key quotes:

“Because the decision facing the university was about who should be coach in the 2005 season and beyond, the period when I would be president, I felt it appropriate for me to have significant input on this decision. Consequently, on Monday morning, Nov. 29, I went to Fr. Malloy's office to discuss this situation, and urged that we should have a conversation with other leaders of the university about it. Fr. Malloy made it clear that he did not favor making a change, but expressed a willingness to have such a discussion.”

Later, and most interestingly:

“...Several people have spoken to the press and to me about the "traditional five-year contract" for Notre Dame football coaches. My understanding of this is as follows. When Fr. Ted Hesburgh hired football coaches he invited them to his office, told them they had five years, and sealed the agreement with a handshake. (At least that is the story Fr. Ted tells at the dinner table.) Indeed, except for Joe Kuharich (who coached from 1959 to 1962), all coaches have coached for at least five years. However, as you may know, today all coaches now have sophisticated agents who would not stand for such an informal agreement. Consequently, Coach Willingham had a contract that specified in great detail the consequences if either party terminated the relationship at any given point in the employment. It anticipated that either party might terminate the relationship before the term of the contract expired. (Five years, I believe, was never mentioned as a minimum.) It was under such a contract that Notre Dame hired Coach Willingham, and it was under such a contract to which he agreed to coach here. Had there been an assurance given to Coach Willingham or anyone else that he would have a minimum of five years, my position on this would have been different. However, I don't believe there was such assurance, and no one has ever said anything to the contrary.”

And the money quote:

"...Success in our football program consists of three things: 1) acting with integrity, 2) giving our students a superb education, and 3) excelling on the field. Success in only one or two of these areas is not the success we seek. Just as we would not tolerate a program which failed to graduate its students or to act with integrity, so we should not be content with one that fails to succeed on the field. I feel these three goals have always defined success for us in Notre Dame football, and this will remain so in the future."

Read the whole thing. Compare what Fr. Jenkins said yesterday to the previous public statements by the Administration regarding Willingham’s dismissal, particularly Kevin White’s neutered performance at the November 30th press conference and Dr. Monkenstein’s embarrassing rant to ESPN. What you see is a sea change. What you see is leadership. What you see is an unapologetic recommitment to principle.

The patient is on the table. The shrapnel has been removed and will soon be discarded. The bleeding has been stopped, and the surgeon is preparing to close.

At the 4077th, Radar O'Reilly ordered supplies. Radar passed on announcements from HQ. Radar slept with a teddy bear.

Father Jenkins is no Radar O’Reilly.

ND Coaching Search: The Movie | by Jay

These last few weeks have not been the feel-good comedy of the season. But they'd still make for a decent movie: lots of action (firings, hirings, people going ballistic in the press), some head-spinning plot twists (It's Urban! No, it's Clements! No, wait...), and loaded with mystery and intrigue (who really did fire Ty? Why did Meyer turn us down? And how many razors did Chandra have to go through to get that perfect sheen?).

We got together at BGS to cast the movie, which we plan to shop around to the studios. Here's who we have lined up so far:

charlie weis john goodman

monk malloy donald sutherland

john jenkins gary burghoff

tyrone willingham samuel l. jackson

urban meyer frankie muniz

pat mccartan dave thomas

chandra johnson curly neal

dave duerson reginald veljohnson


joe theisman don johnson

mike shanahan chuck e. cheese


brady quinn gary busey

kevin white john ratzenberger

darius walker smoove B

bill diedrick kent baer

kent baer bill diedrick


bill belichick sam kinison

tom clements gary cole

nathan hatch max wright

gene corrigan leslie nielsen

bobby petrino james cagney

michael wilbon francis


I think that would make for a very, very mediocre movie.

We is ND | by Jay

From this morning's Chicago Tribune:

[Friday] afternoon, Weis had a telephone interview with a six-member committee of players: quarterback Brady Quinn, tight end Anthony Fasano, offensive lineman Ryan Harris, linebacker Brandon Hoyte and defensive ends Justin Tuck and Victor Abiamiri.

"Talking with him then, as our head coaching prospect, I was excited," Quinn said. "I left the room thinking, 'That's the guy. We need that guy. However you can do it, make sure he accepts the job.'"

I love reading stuff like this. I love that we actually involved the current players in the process (especially Tuck, who now it seems is reconsidering a jump to the NFL in favor of sticking around for another year). And I love the enthusiasm Quinny shows in talking about his new coach.

NDNation's bound up a nice volume of Weis quotes and opinions to satisfy your appetite for even more background on Charlie (easily doubling our brief rundown yesterday). And the best part is the compilation of players' (and even a few recruits') first impressions. Check it out if you get a chance.

Weis gets it in a way Willingham never did | by Michael

and there are some incredibly promising developments going on.

None better than recruiting.

Former Irish CB verbal Brandon Harrison is expected to pick between Michigan and Iowa in an ESPN chat today. While losing Harrison is a big deal (regardless of what anybody says about 5'8 corners), I have noticed a huge difference between the first 24 hours of the Weis era and the first, oh, week or so after Willingham took over.

When Willingham took over, he took a long time to call back the current Irish verbals. In fact, he lost two of them. One of them was Jeremy Van Alstyne, who was projected to be in the DL mix for Michigan this year until an injury knocked him out. Check out what Van Alstyne's coach said back on January 14th, two weeks after Willingham took over.

"After (Tyrone) Willingham was hired, Jeremy never heard anything from Notre Dame. No home visits and no phone calls. I called Notre Dame myself and was told that Coach Willingham would call that night. He never called. Jeremy and I talked and he wanted to switch his commitment from Notre Dame to Michigan at that time.I told Jeremy we should wait and do this the right way. We wanted to give Notre Dame every chance to come in make their pitch. We never heard from Notre Dame so Jeremy called Michigan and committed."

That happened to other kids, too. Chris Olsen. This article is from Insiders.com (now Scout.com), and is dated January 8th - one full week after Willingham took over the team. It may be a paysite article, and you may not be able to access it, but here's the relevant part:

"No, he has not called me yet," Chris said. "I have not been in contact with anyone from Notre Dame since the new hire, but I'm hoping to hear from them sometime this week. It has not really hurt Notre Dame because I'm sure there is a good reason, I'm just going to wait and see about what they decide they want to do with me."

Now, let's check out Weis. Mike Frank of Irish Eyes called recruits last night and got their reaction to Weis' hire. Not only was he able to hear how they felt about their new head coach but he was also able to find out that they had actually talked to their new head coach.

For whatever reason, Weis, who only has been allowed two days out of seven to allocate toward Notre Dame while he's still employed as the Patriots' offensive coordinator, managed to call these recruits.

Charlie Weis was able to do in less than 24 hours what took Willingham days to accomplish - and in some cases, didn't get done whatsoever.

I'll say this...Derek Landri looked great last year, and Trevor Laws was impressive as a redshirt freshman, but I think most would agree that the loss of Greg Pauly wouldn't hurt so much had one phone call been made, and Jeremy Van Alstyne was playing for the Irish.

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Finally, a shameless plug. Mike Frank is the best in the business at following Notre Dame football, and even more so, Notre Dame recruiting. There is no one who does it as well as he does. Everyone should check out that site and sign up immediately. You won't be disappointed. This is going to be an exciting time for Notre Dame football, and given the way Weis has already called our verbals and some outstanding recruits, I think we're going to see an aggressive recruiting approach that we haven't seen in some time. There will be lots of news, and most of it will be good. I think the example outlined above precisely demonstrates how and why Weis will be a much better recruiter than Willingham, and that's not even getting into the comparison of their assistants' recruiting prowess. Can't wait to do that post once we hire some guys...

Potent Quotables | by Jay

If Bartlett's had been on hand, these are a few of the quotes they'd have taken down from Charlie Weis at Monday's press conference:

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• I'm here for the present and the future. I'm not here to talk about the past. I'm here as a guy that went to school here and that understands the idiosyncrasies of being in South Bend, Indiana.

• First of all, you find out what your players can do and that's what you have them do. We have a very broad, wide expansive offensive package, but you have to be able to utilize the personnel that you have available. I have a team that has multiple tight ends that can play, use multiple tight ends. If you have a team that has multiple wide receivers that can play, use multiple wide receivers.

• If it comes down to everything being open and it's X's and O's, I have to believe we're going to win most of the time.

• You are going to have a hard-working, intelligent, nasty football team that goes on the field because the attitude of the head coach will be permeated through the players. And I hate to include the nasty, but that is part of being a winning football team.

• This is an end-all for our family. We come to Notre Dame, it's with the intent of retiring here. That's why we're coming here. We don't come here to bounce somewhere else.

• It's really not rocket science when you think about it now. You exploit their weaknesses. We are into...attacking weaknesses of the [other] team both schematically and personnel-wise.

• [The AD] schedules [the games] and we play them. That's the way it is. If they are on road, you have to go win on the road. If they are at home, you have to win at home. And I think that the people complain about those things are looking for excuses.

• Bill Parcells said to me years ago..."You are what you are", folks, and right now you're a 6-5 football team. And guess what, that's just not good enough. That's not good enough for you, and it's certainly not going to be good enough for me. So, if you think they hired me here to go .500, you've got the wrong guy.

• When players going to college, when they go to front-line programs, they want to be able to play on Sundays. They want to play on Saturdays, so that they could end up playing on Sundays. Every one of them has aspirations when they come to major colleges to be able to play on Sundays. And I feel that one selling point that's a great advantage, not a disadvantage, I'm coming from teaching guys that play on Sundays, and I think that gives you, you're short-changed on one end, but on the other end you have a decisive advantage because you're there. They are watching you. Hey, go watch the game on Monday, we are playing Miami Monday night, just go watch the game.

• What's better recruiting [than] sitting in a Super Bowl locker room, "Hey, you sure you don't want to come to school here"?

• So here is a guy who just was this guy that went to college here and was the head football coach at University of Notre Dame. So think about it here for a second. That means the sky is the limit, right? You are going to college somewhere, what do you want to do? What kind of success do you want to have in life?

The Passion of the Weis | by Mike

At Notre Dame, Charlie Weis will be judged on his ability to deliver wins. As he is the football coach, this is as it should be. And in his first press conference today, Weis made it clear he knows this:

Really, that's the bottom line in this business, folks. It's if you win or if you lose.
...
So graduating kids is of the most important, bringing in character kids who will make the university proud is important. But it's all about winning games, that's why there's a coaching change.

However, it’s almost nine months until the first game of the Weis era – so the wins and losses will have to wait. Until then, Notre Dame fans will enjoy having a coach that shares their passion for Notre Dame. Bob Davie’s distaste for the university’s alumni and their expectations was palpable. While Tyrone Willingham made an effort to embrace the university’s tradition, his recruiting pitch sold the opportunity to play for Tyrone Willingham, Molder of Men, rather than the opportunity to play for the University of Notre Dame.

Weis’s NFL success will be a powerful selling point to recruits, and Weis acknowledged this in his statements.

I'm going to be very honest with you now, when players going to college, when they go to front-line programs, they want to be able to play on Sundays. They want to play on Saturdays, so that they could end up playing on Sundays. Every one of them has aspirations when they come to major colleges to be able to play on Sundays. And I feel that one selling point that's a great advantage, not a disadvantage, I'm coming from teaching guys that play on Sundays…

However, Weis made it clear why recruits should come to Notre Dame.

So the first selling point it has to be is they have to want to come to Notre Dame because of Notre Dame.

Dealing with the press is an important part of coaching at Notre Dame. Of Notre Dame’s last three coaches, one thrived on the media spotlight, another wilted under it, and one adopted a standoffish approach. While winning cures all ills, Holtz demonstrated how a coach who is comfortable with the media can use it to his advantage. Weis’s ability to deal with the press has been a question mark. Parcells and Belichick both keep their assistants off limits to the media. While Weis’s press conference was encouraging, there are still unanswered questions. Weis demonstrated that he can be confident, disarming, and, at times, humorous:

Q. Wondering if you had a chance to see any Notre Dame games this past season and what your impressions were of the team?

COACH WEIS: How could you not see any of the games?

There was also a pointed exchange with South Bend Tribune reporter Jason Kelly, when Kelly brought up Weis’s surgery in impolitic fashion. While Kelly probably deserved what he got, one wonders how Weis will handle his first press conference as a head coach following a loss.

Nonetheless, there was much that was encouraging in Weis’s press conference. While the real evaluation begins September 3, 2005 when the Fightin’ Irish take the field against Pittsburgh, for now Notre Dame fans can savor Weis’s passion for the job.

So if you're going somewhere, you should go where you feel that both you and your family can be part of something special, and I can't think of any other place better to be part of something special than this place.
…
This is an end-all for our family. We come to Notre Dame, it's with the intent of retiring here. That's why we're coming here. We don't come here to bounce somewhere else. If that's what I was going to be doing, I would not be taking this job and I would be waiting till the season ended in the NFL and try to get one of those jobs. I'm here because I want to be here. I'm proud to be here.

Then again, maybe this is what Notre Dame fans really wanted to hear:

You are going to have a hard-working, intelligent, nasty football team that goes on the field because the attitude of the head coach will be permeated through the players. And I hate to include the nasty, but that is part of being a winning football team.

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due | by Teds

As my opening contribution to this worthy effort, I thought that it was most appropriate to discuss the decision that made today's press conference announcing Charlie Weis as ND's next football coach possible. It's a decision derided by many with limited knowledge of the school or the football program, and it's one that I firmly believe will be looked back on years from now as the dawn of a new and better day in the history of the University.

So I'd like to share the letter that I will send to Father Jenkins, Executive Vice-President John Affleck-Graves and Board of Trustees Patrick McCartan and Phillip Purcell, mostly comprised of my thoughts prior to the aforementioned dismissal of Tyrone Willingham...

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Dear Father Jenkins:

This is the letter I had been composing to send you in the immediate aftermath of the Notre Dame football team's regular season. I present it now because I believe it would be foolish to ignore the recent state of the program and the administration's maintenance of it, as well as inappropriate not to acknowledge the positive, forceful measure you have taken since that time and offer you my most heartfelt thanks and encouragement in continuing your leadership in a similar vein:

With an ignominious and entirely predictable 41-10 defeat Saturday evening at the hands of Southern California, our longstanding rival and historical measuring stick, Notre Dame completed yet another underwhelming regular season. The team has now lost fifteen of their past twenty-eight contests going back to October of 2002, eight of those by a margin of more than three touchdowns. And it's been more than a decade since the Irish have been a legitimate contender in a championship race.

It's often said that the historical fortunes of this football team are marked by a natural ebb and flow, but the current status of the program is not indicative of the tide merely receding in predictable fashion. This is a matter of erosion. And that is why it is imperative that you do everything in your power to act now in an effort to reverse the damaging trend, not merely in the replacement of a football coach but also in the restoration of the spirited flame of a beloved institution that is weakly flickering before our very eyes.

I didn't grow up in a Catholic household, nor did I spend my Saturday afternoons as a young child watching and rooting for Notre Dame. Like so many other subway alums across the country, my father developed a lifelong attachment to the team and the school at large based on their gridiron exploits in the years immediately surrounding World War II. While that fanaticism never overcame me as a youngster, I knew a good opportunity when presented with one and gladly accepted an invitation for undergraduate admission to Notre Dame in the spring of 1990.

Once I arrived on campus that fall and first watched the Irish play at Notre Dame Stadium, vanquishing rival Michigan to open the season, I morphed from casual spectator to true believer literally overnight. It wasn't simply the happy result of the game that transformed me. What resonated just as much was soaking in the electric gameday atmosphere, watching the band march with precision and purpose from the shadow of the golden dome to the edge of the stadium and seeing the campus grounds saturated with legions of alums and other Irish fans who treated their visit less like a weekend respite than a mecca. My devotion to the team and the University was rooted in the overwhelming spectacle glimpsed on that day, a growing feeling that I was part of something special and entirely different than an 18-year-old freshman might experience at practically any other school. Anymore, I wonder if the incoming Notre Dame freshmen of today are treated to even a fraction of the happening that captivated me not all that long ago.

In recent years, the unmistakable fighting spirit and unbridled thirst for greatness that scores of Notre Dame supporters fell in love with throughout the course of the past century have taken a backseat to revenue streams and political correctness. We talk of softening the football schedule because other, less-demanding programs do it. We consult with various conferences about gridiron membership because we fear the most pessimistic ramifications of continuing to stand alone. We crack down on tailgating and other gameday activity with increasingly draconian measures because we have as little respect for the responsibility of our own students, alumni and fans as we have for the unique, invigorating flavor of the Notre Dame football experience. We engage the BCS in discussions to "streamline" our piece of the pie because we no longer have the confidence or even the desire to do what is necessary to earn a full share. We have the tradition, the stature and the resources of a dominant male lion, but we treat our legacy as bad reputation and conduct our business as if merely another sheep in the herd. It's half-past time to take back our rightful place in the jungle.

The football program, the athletic department and the University in general have reached a critical crossroads. You have the power to to finally tip the scales in the other direction, to undo the neglect and mismanagement burdening our beloved old school, to restore our legacy of excellence on all fronts. It all begins with you. I pray that you possess the courage and conviction to do what is both necessary and just to reconnect the possibilities of our future with the glories of our past.

Now almost two weeks removed from the above missive, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking that critical and difficult first step in the right direction. Thank you for having the strength of character to make an unprecedented and generally unpopular decision. Thank you for showing the world that it's acceptable for Notre Dame to care deeply about football as more than a simple diversion and cultural curio. Thank you for demanding greatness in that pursuit as much as we would any other. You have the unwavering support of thousands upon thousands of alums, students and supporters just like me. And at the risk of speaking on their behalf, I hope that your exacting expectations will not be restricted to the leadership of the football team as you continue to guide the University through the 21st century.

God bless,

Theodore S. Peterson
Class of 1994

a Weis Reader | by Jay

Some recent bookmarks and links, collected from all over the web -- good ones, all worth a read. Perhaps I should just toss these out there en masse and let y'all pick and choose.

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• Charlie Weis' Official Bio from the New England Patriots homepage.

• CSTV's comprehensive overview of Weis' career.

Bill Polian on Charlie Weis: "Charlie has proven to be one of the outstanding offensive minds in football. His teams are exceptional in their use of personnel, exceptional in the way they attack defenses, exceptional in the concepts they use. You've hired a guy who clearly is on the cutting edge of offensive football."

• "Doing the Weis Thing", PatsFans.com, 5/24/04:

"The bottom line is that Weis hungers to be a head coach somewhere, even in the collegiate ranks...He doesn't want to spend the rest of his coaching life in Belichick's shadow, just like Belichick didn't want to always be known as Little Bill...What Belichick is doing for his old friend is actually a favor. He is greasing the skids for Weis to become what he desperately wants to become."

• "Mix Master -- Patriots offensive guru Charlie Weis will change up his style in a heartbeat", Sports Illustrated, 10/6/04:

"The cerebral nature of the Patriots' offense usually takes second billing to their defense, but it's a very high-toned affair, very high indeed, and you get the feeling it can operate any phase of the game if it chooses to. Make that, if Weis chooses."

• "Players, Weis, had a Real Connection", Chicago Tribune, 12/11/04:

"No, I love to move the football," he said. "I am known like that because that is what we have done to move the football. A lot of times, not stereotypically but philosophically, people say, 'Well, they want to throw it.' Well, I want to throw it because it works. If it's not working I don't want to be throwing it. So a lot of it has to do with what players you have."

(and three from Michael's Weis preview from last week:)

• Just like he drew it up - an article from Notre Dame Magazine, this really sheds some light into Weis' background.

• For Weis, creativity does the trick, Boston Globe, 2/1/02:

Weis, in his second season at the helm of the New England offense after two years calling the plays for the New York Jets, has long been known to throw in a wrinkle or two to catch the opponent off guard. He sees trick plays as a way to ''go for the jugular,'' but they also do something else: They make the game fun for his players.

''I think we look forward to practice to see what Charlie is gonna come up with next,'' said receiver David Patten, one of the Patriots' top tricksters. ''I think it helps guys stay focused, I really do. It's not the same old stuff. It keeps guys perked up.''

• 11/17/04 Charlie Weis press conference - some interesting lines about the ND job, how David Givens was used at ND and basic offensive philosophies.

• Finally, a very worthy link and something quite important to him, Charlie's personal charity, "Hannah & Friends." Hannah & Friends is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to providing a better quality of life for children and young adults affected by Autism and Global Delays.

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As always, if you come across any other articles you think might be worth linking or saving, please don't hesitate to send them along.

Nasty | by Jay

When's the last time you heard that in reference to Notre Dame football? (By my recollection, it's been since the pregame "scuffle in the tunnel" against Miami oh, about 16 years ago).

Just watched the announcement presser. While we wait for the official transcript for further commentary -- and boy, were there a lot of tasty morsels from Charlie today -- here's something to chew on. This blurb is from a review of Patriot Reign, the story of the '04 Patriots Super Bowl run:

Belichick and his staffers will rarely, if ever, say anything even mildly controversial when speaking on the record. I can't remember Belichick ever openly criticizing one of his players.

However, the book contains a few brutal assessments, many in extremely blunt terms. In the case of fullback and special teamer Patrick Pass it came as a surprise. For one, he's still with the team. Another is that you learn that coaches Charlie Weis and Brad Seely along with Adams share a special kind of contempt for the role player.

"The only thing in his defense -- and believe me, I can't stand the (expletive deleted) -- is that the quarterbacks like him," Weis is quoted as saying.

Seely asserted that he wasn't tough enough. Adams suggested running him off.

I like the sentiment. Tough, but brutally honest -- and I think we got a glimpse of that same attitude today in Charlie's official introduction.

Although I've come to detest Boston sports teams over the past few years, I may have to choke down my animus and pick up the book. A friend from Boston says it's got a lot of insight on our new admiral and how he operates.

Charlie in Charge | by Pat

With the official Notre Dame press release on und.com, the Great Notre Dame Coach Search of 2004 has finally come to an end.

Charlie Weis, a 1978 University of Notre Dame graduate and owner of three Super Bowl champion rings as products of a stellar 15-season career as a National Football League assistant, has been named the 28th head football coach of the Fighting Irish.

The selection puts an end to a sometimes public, but largely private search that lasted 13 long days. The search received around-the-clock attention from media analysts eager to find new ways to criticize Notre Dame, as well as Notre Dame fans eager to move on from a near decade of lackluster Notre Dame Football. Both groups, however, agree that Weis is a shrewd football mind and a major reason the New England Patriots are working towards their 3rd Super Bowl in four years. Whether he will able to run the entire program with no head coaching experience is the one question on everyone's mind, but for now most Irish fans are cautiously optimistic.

Other tidbits from the press release offer Irish fans hope of improvement in areas sorely lacking at Notre Dame in the past eight years..namely offensive play calling, player development, and even video game design (!).

A widely-respected disciple of professional coaching standouts Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick, Weis currently is the highly-regarded offensive coordinator of the New England Patriots (under Patriot head coach Belichick). He has played an integral role in New England's victories in two of the last three Super Bowls - and the Patriots currently own the best record in the NFL in 2004 at 12-1.

In Weis' first tenure with the Patriots from 1993-96, he assisted in the development of some of New England's all-time best individual season performances from Coates, Martin and Terry Glenn, respectively. During his first four seasons in New England, he coached three different positions. In 1993 and `94, he served as the Patriots' tight ends coach and, in his second season at the position, Coates set an NFL record for receptions by a tight end with 96 and earned his first trip to the Pro Bowl. In `95, Weis coached the Patriots' running backs and was credited with developing Martin, a third-round `95 draft pick, into one of the premier running backs in the NFL. That year, Martin won league rookie-of-the-year honors and set franchise rushing records with 1,487 yards and 14 TDs. In `96, Weis coached the New England receivers, with Glenn leading the team and setting an NFL rookie reception record with 90 catches for 1,132 yards and six TDs.

Charlie Weis served as a consultant for the video game NFL Quarterback Club '99 - providing game strategy for the Nintendo 64 product made by Acclaim and designed by Iguana.

I hope I speak for all of the calm, patient, and always understanding Notre Dame faithful when I say: the first game is in 265 days, Charlie. Get cracking.

Sunday Morning Doublebacking | by Dylan

While I stand by my previous post, I do believe that Charlie Weis is a very good choice to get the program back to where it has to be. As Michael points out below, the worst thing you can say about him is that he didn't turn Rick Mirer into a great NFL quarterback. Even the most cautious consideration of his record reveals a first-rate offensive mind. I think the greatest causes for joy are his consistent development of his quarterbacks (Ray Lucas?) and his commitment to owning the line of scrimmage through a power running attack.

Obviously, the biggest question mark is who he will bring in to coach the defense. But Coach Weis has been coaching in the bigs for a long time and I have no doubt he will assemble a terrific staff.

What gets me excited, in spite of the mess that led up to his hiring, is that we finally have a coach who will approach the job with an understanding not simply of the importance of winning, but of winning at Notre Dame. For all that we don't know about him, I think we can take for granted that he will not play for overtime at home against the defending National Champions. Ever.

We have hired a coach who is at the pinnacle of his profession and has chosen to change course and take responsibility for restoring Notre Dame to greatness. That alone is reason to celebrate.

Now, Charlie, about the green jerseys...

Saturday Morning Quarterbacking | by Dylan

Since it hasn’t officially happened yet (though there are solid reasons to believe it will soon), I’ll make some (hopefully) premature remarks about how Charlie Weis came to be the head coach of the Fighting Irish.

While Weis is a spectacularly successful NFL offensive coordinator, and while he may be exactly the right guy to bring ND back from the near-dead, his hiring would demonstrate that the systemic problems that existed one month and one year ago have not been corrected. They’re simply being perpetrated by a new cast of characters. I wish Coach Weis well and I think he’s going to be fine, but the events that led to his hiring were a series of unmitigated disasters, borne of incompetence, beginning the moment Ty Willingham was (rightly) fired.

The ascendant faction in the BOT acted too quickly by firing Willingham without a replacement in hand. “Agreements in principle” are worth exactly as much as the paper they’re printed on. Nothing. If they felt that Meyer was the answer, they needed to have a signature before Ty was canned. From the moment we fired Willingham, we have been in free-fall a la Wile E. Coyote, grabbing at branches on the way down. Whiffing on Meyer put us into a time crunch. The stunning thing is that this was entirely foreseeable. The same thing happened 3 short years ago. We should have learned. By denying ourselves essential time, we narrowed our field of vision.

As was the case in 2001, in the past week we have found ourselves flailing at NFL head coaches who had one to two months of the season to work through, and one college coach in particular who was preparing to play in the National Championship game. By repeating the mistakes of ’01, by not allowing ourselves enough time, we made the failure to land Gruden, Shanahan, or Stoops a fait accompli.

The product of this breakdown in discipline has been what appears to be the hiring of a man who has one year of head-coaching experience – in high school; someone who, on 11/30 should not have reasonably been considered among the top ten candidates for the job. By that measure, this is another failure, both of leadership and of vision. I hope, as do all Irish fans, that, in spite of this botched process, we have found the next Pete Carroll.

Now, with that all (potentially) behind us, GO IRISH!

As "The Weis Era" is approaching inevitablility... | by Dylan

As the CW settles on Weis (at least if our readership and the second interview are to be so interpreted), Karl (1of1) over at NDNation fires a parting shot at "Ed." Tough, but on the money.

As for Weis, I like his credentials in the same way I like a steak from Outback. Of the choices on the menu, it's not a bad option. The problem is, there's a Ruth's Chris across town. With a bit more sacrifice (some hungry minutes in the car, a little more money) we could have a more satisfying meal.

We're pulling open the door at Outback now, and I think we need to get back in the car. The longer we refuse, the further our options narrow and we risk getting served some gristled piece of horse meat.

Flying Blind | by Jay

When Charles Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis, he left his radio behind. "When the weather is bad you can't make contact with the ground," Lindbergh said. "When the weather isn't bad a pilot doesn't need a radio." In fact, Lindbergh couldn't even see forward out of the plane -- there was no front window, and he only had a small periscope to peer out the side. To navigate, he used the stars and a small compass, and fighting through the fog and ice and his own fatigue, there were times over the Atlantic he had no idea how far he was to Paris, or where exactly he was. Lindbergh related later how he got some unlikely help:

The first indication of my approach to the European Coast was a small fishing boat which I first noticed a few miles ahead and slightly to the south of my course. There were several of these fishing boats grouped within a few miles of each other.

I flew over the first boat without seeing any signs of life. As I circled over the second, however, a man's face appeared, looking out of the cabin window.

I have carried on short conversations with people on the ground by flying low with throttled engine, and shouting a question, and receiving the answer by some signal. When I saw this fisherman I decided to try to get him to point towards land. I had no sooner made the decision than the futility of the effort became apparent. In all likelihood he could not speak English, and even if he could he would undoubtedly be far too astounded to answer. However, I circled again and closing the throttle as the plane passed within a few feet of the boat I shouted, "Which way is Ireland?" Of course the attempt was useless, and I continued on my course.

Eventually he got back on track, and 33 hours after taking off from Roosevelt Field in New Jersey he touched down to a perfect landing at Paris' LeBourget airport to a cheering crowd of 150,000.

This morning I felt a bit like Lindbergh, flying blind with only a couple of instruments to gauge our progress, putting my faith in the experimental contraption known as the Search Committee, and looking to the stars. There were signs that land was near:

University spokesman Matt Storin, when reached via cell phone Friday night, responded as follows: "While there was debate in the decision not to retain coach Willingham, I can tell you that the university administration is strongly united in the search for a new coach. And we're nearing the conclusion of that process."

And yet there was some indication that we were still out over the water. As the media opinion was coalescing the last couple of days towards Shanahan (fading), Weis (holding steady), and Clements (gaining), yesterday we found out Redskins defensive coordinator Greg Blache (and former Irish defensive back) had been contacted for the job earlier in the week. In fact:

Redskins officials believed Friday night that Blache, 55, had such an excellent shot at the job that they had begun contemplating scenarios if and when he left Joe Gibbs' staff, a league source said.

Another name to surface was ex-Browns coach Butch Davis, who was on everybody's talking points from the very beginning, but didn't make the 'official interest' ledger until late last night.

Now, If we're still proposing names and conducting interviews, it would seem that we're still in the middle of a much longer process. It doesn't make sense to be bringing up new names unless we're still canvassing. But the Chicago Tribune (according to sources) says that we're in fact much closer than that: "A source with knowledge of the search said White and Jenkins would like to choose a candidate to present to the decision-making body of seven that is expected to meet Saturday in South Bend." That's today.

If the Trib is right, and as of today, White and Jenkins really do have it down to one candidate, then we're going to see something very soon. Unofficial sources (okay; the emails from "connected" friends choking my inbox) say that we're close, too. Yet at this point all we've got is hearsay and conjecture (note the Trib article byline, for instance), and we very well could be waiting for another week or two.

Which is fine by me. I can wait (I think). But more importantly, when we land, whether it's Monday or a few weeks from now, let's hope our staff was as good as Lucky Lindy, and we're about to touch down in Paris, to the cheering thousands, right on target. For the last few searches, we've been doing this a little too often; this time, let's get it right.

Why Charlie Weis should not be our next head coach | by Michael

"With the second selection of the 1993 NFL draft, the Seattle Seahawks select Rick Mirer, quarterback, University of Notre Dame."

We all know what has happened since. Mirer simply never developed. Even under current Pats wunderkind assistant Charlie Weis, who is a contender for the head coaching position at Notre Dame.

In 1998, my beloved Jets were on fire, and Weis had them racking up yards and points left and right. We lost in the AFC Championship game to Denver (the name of their head coach escapes me at the present). And so going into 1999, there was a lot of excitement that Bill Parcells would bring us to the Super Bowl a mere three years after replacing the coaching embarrassment that was Richie Kotite (curiously, I haven't heard any ESPN reports that Kotite has turned down the ND job).

But alas, during the first game of the 1999 NFL season, the New York Jets lost Vinny Testaverde to a season-ending injury.

Enter Rick Mirer.

As good as Charlie Weis is, and damn, he is good, even he couldn't develop Mirer into a serviceable NFL quarterback. Mirer's numbers on the season were very pedestrian. Mirer started six games that year and played in eight.

54% completion percentage (career 53.3)
6.03 yards per attempt (career 5.86)
5 TDs, 9 INTs
60.4 QB rating (career 63.5)

Eventually, Weis, like just about every other coach in the NFL, gave up on Rick Mirer and moved on to 3rd string QB Ray Lucas.

And somehow the Jets, who started the season 1-6 after Testaverde's injury and Mirer's struggles, finished the season 8-8.

And so, in all my searches for why Charlie Weis should not be the next head coach of Notre Dame, I have found some damning evidence. He couldn't fix Rick Mirer.

Or does that just make him mortal?

Coaches, coaches, everywhere | by Jay

Last night Fr. Jenkins, Kevin White, and former player (and current ND benefactor) Jim Morse talked to Tom Clements in Buffalo, and the South Bend Trib has it that they'll talk to him again today. No word on what was discussed. Maybe they chatted about the weather, or what the current hotspots on Chippewa Street are. I wonder if the open coaching job came up.

Meanwhile, ND is about to interview Charlie Weis, and it could be as soon as today or Saturday. They've asked for and been granted permission by the Patriots to contact Weis, who's reportedly expressed interest in the job.

But the big story yesterday involved Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan. A report on Fox Sports television out of Denver claimed that Shanahan had been offered the ND job, and was "likely to take it." The money was rumored to be around $3.5 million per year for 5 years. The report never appeared in print or on the web, so only the folks watching the report live got to hear it firsthand.

BGS (like many others) heard this story a couple of days ago and was sitting on it, but if you perused any of the ND message boards yesterday morning, you knew that something was up and the story had been leaked. Subtle hints were being dropped and scrutiny was focused on this article from Wednesday, in which Shanahan hemmed and hawed about his future with the Broncos:

With his popularity never lower and second-guessing of his strategy seldom higher, Shanahan must now contemplate what was unthinkable when his team was winning Super Bowls.

If the decision were left to Shanahan, would he definitely want to coach the Broncos again next year?

"What I'd like to do," said Shanahan, deftly sidestepping the inquiry, "is really talk about the Dolphins."

There is an NFL coaching vacancy in Miami, but somehow I don't think Shanahan was seeking a Florida address to mail his résumé and references.

The reeling Broncos have a home game Sunday against the Dolphins.

Where Shanahan will be coaching in 2005 is a topic he would most definitely like to avoid.

So, on Wednesday, he's zigzagging to avoid questions about his future. But then Fox Sports went public with their Shanahan-to-ND story, and the Shanahan camp scrambled to put together a statement. Here's what they came up with, late last night:

"As I said all along, I have four years remaining on my contract, and I intend to honor it," Shanahan said through a team spokesman Thursday night.

That's it. No mention of Notre Dame. No mention of being contacted; no mention of not being contacted. No mention of being offered the job. No mention of any contract details. Nada. Zilch. For all it seemed, this could have been a response to ongoing speculation that Shanny was going to simply hang it up in Denver at the end of this season anyway, not a direct refutation of an actual job offer from the Irish. (Of course, that didn't prevent headline writers from recycling another "Irish spurned by X" jab.)

Compare and contrast with what Jim Fassel had to say about a similar thanks-but-no-thanks earlier this week:

“I have no plans to pursue or accept a college job this year...I want to end some of the speculation regarding my coaching future...It’s flattering to have my name associated with elite and very special collegiate programs. However, my intention is to return to the NFL as a head coach next season. My passion is to help a franchise go to and win the Super Bowl."

Seems pretty clear. Even Mooch spelled it out that the Irish had called him, and he had declined to talk about the job.

So what's going on? For one thing, maybe there really wasn't anything substantial between ND and Shanahan. This seems highly unlikely, however: Shanahan's been a longtime fan of the Irish, having grown up Irish Catholic in Franklin Park, Ill. (a Chicago 'burb) and all that. Back in the Great Search Fiasco of '01, Shanny was consistently reported to be talking with ND about the job, and even the details of the proposed contract (10 years, $30 million) leaked to the press.

So, taking account of Shanahan's purported fondness for Notre Dame, and knowing that ND was talking to other NFL coaches as well, I think it's safe to assume there was at least some gauging of interest between the two parties. That said, at this point it's tough to say if actual numbers were agreed upon, and whether an official contract was offered. We've heard that there was an offer on the table, and that Shanahan was mulling it over when the news broke yesterday. But who knows...sources, even good ones, have been all wet before, and we know from painful experience that a deal is never done until you sign on the line that is dotted.

(A poster over on UHND had an interesting take on the situation, saying that the Shanahan statement is posturing over buyout money with Pat Bowlen, the Broncos owner. Seems as plausible as any number of other scenarios, I suppose.)

It's my hope that Mike is still thinking about it, and that his statement last night was just an effort to quell rampant speculation in the middle of the Broncos' playoff run (they're 7-5, just on the bubble). He certainly seemed to leave the door open, albeit a crack.

Where do we stand? | by Pat

Over on ndnation, SEE is offering up some insight into why everyone should relax and not read into every thing they read in the news.

They've got this thing clamped down tight, very tight.

Don't believe the rumors because people with high access inside the athletic department don't know what's going on right now. We've got sources and sources of sources who are clueless and guessing. These are people who under normal circumstances would know... and they don't.

In our opinion, that's a sign that professionals who don't like to lose are running the show.

We think we know what's going on right now and it is good, BUT... we're operating with a limited amount of information and frankly we don't want to know.

Here's what we do know:

Jenkins wants to fix football, he's a serious dedicated man.

So is JAG [John Affleck-Graves, executive VP]. If you've read about him, you know he may be green, but he is not a weak man and he wants football fixed.

Purcell is the CEO of Morgan Stanley, McCartan heads a prestigious law firm.

These are not people who panic, these are not people of weak will and they expect and are used to getting excellence.

These are people who are committed to academic and football excellence and are willing to take the public hit.

If you hear nothing assume it's good.

If you hear about Notre Dame on ESPN, assume it's wrong and intentionally harmful.

Monk lashing out at ND means that he's out of the process completely. That, in case you haven't been following is great news. He'll be the hit of the cocktail party circuit which is all he really cared about anyway. One thing is clear, he does not care about Notre Dame. The man who urged everyone to keep it in-house when he was getting his way threw ND under the bus when he lost out.

The Essential Charlie Weis | by Michael

Just like he drew it up - an article from Notre Dame Magazine, this really sheds some light into Weis' background.

For Weis, creativity does the trick - sounds like Weis would want to bring his 8-year old son to be his offensive coordinator. I have no problem with that - so long as the kid continues to draw up creative plays and doesn't blame the players for "lack of execution." Plus, I bet he'd come cheap. And labor laws for 8-year olds probably coincide with NCAA practice limitations.

11/17/04 Charlie Weis press conference - some interesting lines about the ND job, how Givens was used at ND and basic offensive philosophies...

The problem with Weis is that according to this article, he wouldn't be able to interview for any head coaching positions until the playoffs. Apparently the Patriots - in a change of policy from previous years - will allow coaches/front office personnel to interview during a one-week period during the playoffs. When during the playoffs I'm not exactly sure...but could Notre Dame wait that long to not only hire Weis, but simply interview him?

That is the question. From the articles, I think most will agree, he's at least worth an interview.

Let's Pretend For a Minute.... | by Sean

I know this is going to be sensitive, but since sometime in the last seven days Notre Dame somehow became the symbol of racial injustice, please indulge me and let's play a game of "make believe":

You're an athletics director at a BCS conference football power. Your school has a tradition of football excellence, but recently you had to fire the head coach of your football team because he was "only" averaging around 6 or 7 wins per season. So it's time to select a new head football coach. You sit down at your desk and write down all the traits that would be embodied in the "perfect coach" - great leader of young men, skilled game tactician, relentless recruiter. You make your short list of candidates that your school is going to target, maybe a dozen guys who fit the description. Because you're merely trying to identify "the best", your list naturally includes a handful of African American candidates.

But the color of the coach's skin is not a factor. You just want the best.

Just before picking up the phone to make the first call, you glance at the TV and see the Notre Dame coaching situation leading Sportscenter again. You pause and reflect on this week's events in South Bend. Notre Dame fired a coach three years into his contract. A coach on whose watch the football team became a comedy of "on the field" failure - numerous blowouts, questionable play calling, and generally inconsistent (if not pathetic) performance. A coach who, while a good man, was overseeing a program that was in further decline. You read the piles of statistical evidence supporting the termination of Tyrone Willingham and you think to yourself about what you would have to do if that were happening at your school. It's a no brainer, he'd have to go. Performance like Notre Dame's since 2002 would be a borderline felony at your school. Firing the coach would probably touch off a mini-celebration.

But you look closer at South Bend and notice one glaring problem. The termination of Tyrone Willingham was not touching off any type of celebration about a renewed dedication to winning. It was, however, triggering a firestorm of racial tension. You look down at your list again, and reflect.

You think back to the last week, and you remember every single ESPN "talking head" blatherfest leading off with the "injustice" of the Willingham firing. Never mind that these are the same people who just weeks earlier had ridiculed the Notre Dame on field product - WILLINGHAM'S product - to no end. Rational thought went out the window at 1:00PM on November 30.

You see the Notre Dame Black Alumni Association issuing statements about how unfair the termination of Willingham was, calling it "unprecedented". Never mind that you could use the exact same adjective to describe the poor performance of Willingham's teams over the last 25 games.

You see high profile Notre Dame football alums on television, when given the opportunity to stem the tide and tell people why this decision was really made, instead decide to pile on and say that the school "[did] Willingham wrong" and the "Notre Dame mystique is dead". Never mind that it's that same mystique that is a major reason why at least two of the sportscasters in question have jobs commenting about college football.

You see a mini-civil war at Notre Dame breaking out over the issue of the firing of a black head coach three years into his contract, when all of his white predecessors in the last twenty years got at least five years. Never mind that two of those white coach's tenures ended with their eventual firing and that Willingham has overseen more failure in many categories than either of the two white coaches in question (in some categories, combined).

You see them say that Notre Dame "broke their contract" with Tyrone Willingham. Never mind that the university will be adhering to the agreement to the letter by paying the full buyout of said contract - a contract that Tyrone Willingham signed and his representation negotiated.

You glance at the recent firings of coaches at Stanford, Florida, Ole Miss, and Indiana. Each of these coaches - all white, by the way - got fired only three years in (or less), and the only people saying a word are those nodding their heads with approval. Never mind that these coaches all had time left on their contracts as well. They underperformed, and all will receive buyouts.

You're the athletics director at a big time school, and you're about to make a monumental decision. You consider all of this - the campuswide strife, the undue criticism, the selective tunnel vision of the naysayers. You ask yourself what would happen at your school if you were forced to make the same decision Notre Dame made. And you'll never admit it, but now the color of the coach's skin IS a factor in your decision.

Maybe Raghib Ismail, Michael Wilbon, Alan Grant and Bill Rhoden should consider this before insinuating or accusing Notre Dame of firing Tyrone Willingham because he is black.

Meanwhile, on page D10 of ESPN.com | by Dylan

Amid the super cool BCS analysis and "ND is Dead" commentary, is something we already knew.

Key quotes:

The institute used NCAA statistics for the study. The statistics were taken from four freshman classes, beginning in 1994-95 and ending in '97-98, with each class given six years to graduate.

Of the four California schools going to bowl games, Southern California had the highest overall graduation rate at 58 percent, followed by UCLA at 55 percent, California at 48 percent and Fresno State at 40 percent.

and later:

Syracuse (78 percent overall, 69 for black players), Notre Dame (78 and 74) and Boston College (77 and 76) had the best graduation rates overall and for black players.

Hold on, Dylan. Are you suggesting that Notre Dame cared about academics and black athletes before Ty Willingham?

Wow | by Jay

More fallout: Monk goes nuclear.

Frankly, I'm stunned that he would say something like this in the middle of a coaching search.

EDIT: Here's the full text. Read and discuss.

---

By Darren Rovell
ESPN.com

NEW YORK -- Notre Dame president Rev. Edward Malloy said on Wednesday that he was upset about how his university fired Irish football coach Tyrone Willingham last week.

"In my 18 years, there has only been two days that I've been embarrassed to be president of Notre Dame," said Malloy, who was speaking a panel at the Sports Business Journal's Intercollegiate Athletics Forum. "Tuesday and Wednesday of last week."

In his three seasons of coaching Notre Dame, Willingham was 21-15. Malloy said he was not part of the decision-making process because he will retire in June.

"I thought we were going to abide by our precedent, which was a five-year window for a coach to display a capacity to be successful within our system and to fit. Both [athletic director Kevin White] and I have a very high regard for [Tyrone Willingham]. Having lost to Southern Cal, we had a meeting called by my successor [John I. Jenkins] with a strong presence of the Board of Trustees, which led to a result."

Malloy said he didn't fault anyone in particular in the process, acknowledging that there was a lot of pressure to make a decision, including the thought that the next great coach might have been available to the school.

"There was also the phenomenon of the messiah coach," Malloy said. "Everybody wants to be on the A-list. This year, I think there are 14 college football positions that have changed or are changing. There are probably three people that are on the messiah list, which means 11 programs have no messiah."

Utah coach Urban Meyer was a Notre Dame assistant, but chose to sign a contract with the University of Florida instead. Detroit Lions head coach Steve Mariucci said he was contacted by the school, but chose to stay in the motor city. Louisville head coach Bobby Petrino was also contacted by the Irish, but announced on Tuesday that he is staying with the Cardinals.

"Notre Dame will get a coach," Malloy said. "I hope that person does well. But I think the philosophical hit that we have taken is a significant one. I am not happy about it. And I do not assume responsibility for it. I think it was the wrong move and the fact that other schools have made similar choices after three years suggests that they are feeling the same pressures that we are."

"All the good coaches who get fired will get another job, in college or pro," Malloy said. "Their future is not at risk, but what happens in the transition is that the institutions get tarnished in ways that I think in the long run we pay a huge price."

A Couple Thoughts | by Sean

A couple thoughts:

(1) This coaching search is starting to take on the shape of a bizarro version of "The Apprentice". Each day (or seemingly, each hour) a new candidate is "firing" Notre Dame. Or at least, that's the perception. Technically, you actually have to have a conversation with someone to fire them, but why let that get in the way of the mainstream sports media's "kick ND while they're down" fun? I will say that, as we've all locked in on our personal favorites for the job and some have fallen by the wayside, I'm starting to feel pretty good about putting all of my chips on the "Tom Clements" square on the ND Coaching Roulette table. At this point, I need for Clements to get hired so that I can make up for what I lost on my Bill Rancic-Raj Bhakta "Apprenctice 1-Apprentice 2" exacta. DAMN YOU, RAJ!

(2) Counterpoint to Dylan's post yesterday about hiring Lou Holtz as a short-term solution. I disagree that it would be a win with the media. To the contrary, I think the media would crush us for having to fall back on a 67-year old coach who was "retired" a couple weeks ago, who by the way, has had the job before. I think Notre Dame would be ridiculed that nobody wants this job, and it would be painted as Holtz doing the school a favor. Second, as for it "[alleviating] the growing sense of panic", everyone would know this is a temporary stopgap measure, so I think it would only serve to heighten the panic and make the search for a permanent coach an ongoing distraction throughout the season. In short, hiring Holtz would be a year long advertisement for those who adhere to the school of thought that this job is difficult to fill and "undesirable". Finally, at the end of the day, this thing is still about wins and losses, and I to think that Holtz can reach back and throw his 98 MPH heater from the 1988-1993 days is unreasonable, although I will admit that even under a watered down version of Holtz, 31 point blowouts would be a thing of the past. The fact of the matter is, with his legacy intact and the tenuous health of his wife, this wouldn't be a "win" for Holtz. And in the end, for him, that's what matters. (Healthy debate on the BGS blog. I like it!)

Fallout | by Jay

In America these days, the subject of race is always incendiary. We knew that firing a black coach would generate some acerbic reactions, and not just in the press. Yesterday we had reports of two groups issuing statements, but of different tenors and borne of different agendas.

1. On Monday the ND Faculty Senate voted 26-4 to pass a resolution to express "its concern over the decision to terminate the contract of football coach Tyrone Willingham." The gist of the complaint:

"The Senate is particularly troubled by the signal that his firing sends regarding the role that intercollegiate athletics plays in the life of this University. The Senate extends its appreciation to Coach Willingham for his commitment to exemplary academic standards and for the professional integrity he brought to the football program and the University."

Now, I liked almost every one of my professors at Notre Dame. Nearly to a person, they were intelligent, conscientious, and inspirational. But to be honest, not one of them was a football fan (okay, maybe one). I really think that to most professors at ND, football is a distraction from purer, more academic pursuits; a sidelight to the real purpose of the University. Put it this way: when football prospers, the faculty are pissed.

So here comes Tyrone Willingham, a coach from one of the premiere institutions of higher learning in the country, and he does everything a good, upstanding coach is supposed to do at Notre Dame. He runs a clean program. He makes sure the kids get to class. He upholds the academic standard, and really lives up to that "molder of men" image he likes to talk about (and as far as I'm concerned -- and I know there are opinions out there that differ -- that's not a façade). He does everything the right way.

The only problem is, the head football coach isn't being held to the same standards as a professor. There's this little performance clause called wins and losses, something completely foreign to the classroom. Strictly speaking, the coach isn't a faculty member; he's part of the support staff of the University, and he's got a very specific job to do, and a fairly transparent measuring stick to adhere to. So when the Faculty Senate votes to censure the firing of the football coach, I don't put much stock in the opinion. Think of it this way: if the football coaches all got together and voted to pass judgment on an English professor, you'd laugh, wouldn't you?

The thing they're missing is that any number of people (hell, half the people reading this blog right now) could accomplish the baseline academic duties required of the football coach. You and I could make sure our charges got to class, kept up the grades, and stayed out of trouble. Ty did this sufficiently, but to be honest, ND has always had a high rate of academic success for its athletes, so Ty's achievement, in context, is not particularly noteworthy. But the football coach isn't simply a placeholder for academic enforcement, and his job is much broader.

His job is to win football games, period.

2. The other voice of discontent came from the ND Black Alumni association, reported in an article in the South Bend Tribune on Tuesday. As detailed in a letter to the Board of Trustees, their complaint shares much of the same outrage as the faculty senate:

"The decision made by the Administration is both premature and unprecedented. It disregards (Willingham's) outstanding first season, off-field success and increased integrity and academic strides among our football players."

Personally, I can understand the outcry from the Black Alumni Association, to a certain extent. After all, here's a guy who was named the 6th Most Influential Minority in Sports, right after Arte Moreno (and just before Yao Ming). As Sports Illustrated wrote last May:

# 6 - TYRONE WILLINGHAM (49)
Football Coach, Notre Dame
Clout comes with winning, especially on the grandest stages. No one exemplifies this better than Willingham, who in just one season restored the glory to perhaps the most prestigious program in college football. His success as Notre Dame's first African-American coach could embolden other schools to hire a black football coach.

I don't pretend to fully understand the plight of blacks in America and the pernicious discrimination that has worked against them for so long, but I certainly have a great deal of sympathy for promoting the hiring of minorities, especially in the college coaching ranks, where the numbers of coaches of color are deplorably low. So when Tyrone Willingham was first hired, I read the decision as being at least in part about getting the first black coach installed at ND, and so I was impressed that Notre Dame decided to break new ground and set an example for the rest of the NCAA. I appreciated the symbolic importance of getting a black man in the head coach's office at the University of Notre Dame, and I realized that this could have a ripple effect across the rest of college football (Unfortunately, it didn't. The numbers of black coaches are even fewer now than they were when Ty was hired).

So, this was a good thing -- as long as the rest of the job description was fulfilled as well. Unfortunately for ND, and to the chagrin of everyone cheering for his success (including the Black Alumni), Ty turned out to be a less than adequate coach. By any rational, objective measure of achievement, Willingham just wasn't getting it done -- and there was no reason to believe things were going to get better. I could rehash the damning statistical failures -- terrible offensive production, questionable coaching strategies, some of the worst blowouts in ND's history -- but we all know them by heart at this point.

The essential thing to remember is that the job is larger than the color of your skin, and if you're not getting it done on the field, then you don't deserve to continue coaching. (Below, Dylan posits a simple thought experiment on this very issue. Try it out for yourself).

One final note from the Black Alumni letter, and it's an interesting one:

"It seems as if the decision [to fire Willingham] was made in a bubble. I don't know of any people of color who were consulted," [group chairwoman Danielle] Boucree said."

This statement cuts both ways. On one hand, you'd think that ND's brass would want to consult with their black alumni if they were thinking of firing Ty, if only to gauge what the reaction would be and to maybe mitigate any potential fallout. ND's always (and notoriously so) making decisions without consultation of various affected parties, whether it's the students (banning SYRs, for instance) or the alumni (funds appropriations to white elephant projects), and so this type of hubris isn't exactly foreign to us.

On the other hand, there's no reason to believe that the general reaction to Ty's firing would have been any different had they consulted with them. We all could have predicted a firestorm of criticism at the prospect of firing a black coach, and I'm not sure there was any legitimate way of avoiding it. Even if "people of color" were involved in the decision, would that have mitigated the outcry? Of course not. If you would rather measure a football coach's worth not by wins and losses and athletic achievement, but rather by a sensitivity to his "symbolic" worth as a black man in a head coaching position, then it really doesn't matter why you fire him. It's going to be a brouhaha any way you slice it.

He's out. And you're out, too. | by Jay

"And I don't think I'm in, either."

Well, Petrino's out. As Pat and I were discussing last night, this isn't really a great surprise. We all know Bobby's not long for Louisville, but he can only help his golden boy rep by pasting the Big East for a couple of years while waiting for a plum SEC job to open up. Why take a rebuilding mission under the Dome when you've got 1) the top offense in the country, 2) a weak schedule, 3) an easy path to the BCS, and 4) Brian Brohm about to take over?

(Sidenote: don't you love ESPN? The link to this article from their main page reads, "Luck of the Irish: Petrino staying in Louisville." They never miss a chance to tweak us.)

At the risk of crashing the economy… | by Dylan

Maybe it’s time to take a step back – to call off the dogs. While I’m sure the U knows what it’s doing, our primary accomplishments in the search to this point are:

1) Incurring direct hits to the groin.

and

2) Making a bunch of young coaches really rich.

What was true on December 1st is true today. There aren’t that many proven coaches looking for new jobs, so what to do? What we can’t do is settle. The speculation about Petrino and Hawkins is, in my humble opinion, not tied to their ability, but their availability. As is clear from the 2001 letter to Garrett (at the time, the second coming of Elgin Baylor), making a huge splash is not necessarily required to find the right guy. But I can’t shake the idea that there was an element of luck involved with the Carroll hiring at USC. I’m not sure that we’ll be as lucky, and “hope” is not a strategy.

So why not Lou? Why not give Coach Holtz the chance to retire, not as the coach of a team that forfeited its bowl eligibility in a Pacers v Pistons reenactment, but as the man who came back to the only job he ever loved to rescue an American sports icon?

Holtz, Part Deux would solve a couple of problems. First, it would be a win in the media. Shouldn’t matter, but it does. Stopping the bleeding isn’t a primary concern, but it’s certainly a nice side effect. Second, it would give us time. It would alleviate the growing sense of panic, not just in alums’ and recruits’ homes, but in athletic offices across the country where receivers coaches are now being offered $10 million extensions. Some time would drastically reduce the possibility of a fourth consecutive catastrophe. Time would enable us to gently, quietly attempt to dislodge contracts in effect in places like Tampa and Norman, while not having to worry about the current coach looking over his shoulder. With a year’s worth of lead time, do you really think ND could not persuade any number of college or NFL coaches to come and resurrect the sleeping giant?

Fr. Ted, would you like to make a phone call?

Barry? | by Michael

BadgerNation.com: Source says "no way"

If there is no way that Alvarez would be interested in the Irish head coaching job, then why haven't we heard him say anything in the press? All it takes is a simple, "Thanks but no thanks, I'm happy coaching Wisconsin."

I am beginning to think that Alvarez is high up on the list at this point, and that he may end up being our next head coach.

If that's the case, although I was lukewarm at first, the more I read about Alvarez the better I feel. I didn't start following the Irish until '93 and so I wasn't around for the peak of the Holtz years. His offenses have always struck me as ordinary despite excellent talent at RB (Dayne, Fletcher, Davis) and WR (Chambers, Evans, ?) but that may be a simple matter of not being able to recruit great QBs. Luckily, the Irish have never had any trouble recruiting quarterbacks...heck, even Bob Davie was able to land three in one year, or four if you count Abe Elam who played the position for a day before moving to DB.

His staff consists of excellent recruiters and they go everywhere for talent...California, Texas and Florida. Not bad for a state school in Wisconsin. Not bad at all. They'd be able to fit right in at Notre Dame and our national recruiting.

Too Much [bloody] Perspective | by Jay

BGS compatriot and reader Tom points out a January 1, 2001 open letter to USC athletic director Mike Garrett about the imminent hiring of Pete Carroll at USC. The rhetoric feels familiar, doesn't it? A few quotes really leap out at you:

"You needed to hit a home run with this hire. This looks more like a scratch single."

"Carroll might end up being grand, but the perception in the here and now is what matters for a program that's on the wane. And that perception isn't good."

"Carroll doesn't know college football...I'm talking about things like academic issues, recruiting and dealing with alumni."

"Contrast that to the job search at Alabama. Marquee names such as Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer and Miami's Butch Davis seriously considered taking the job. In the end, the Tide got TCU coach Dennis Franchione [read: Urban Meyer -bgs], one of the hottest coaches in the college game."

"It was hard for you to believe people didn't fall over themselves to coach your beloved USC. But it's not that good of a job because it's not 1975 anymore."

Print out this article as a handy Bingo card for when ND finally makes its hire.

Zen and the Art of Mid-Major Football Maintenance | by Pat

With all of the coaching candidates being thrown out there by the media and people who have had a bit too much egg nog, the name Dan Hawkins keeps coming up, but no one really knows much about him.

So just who is Dan Hawkins?

Nope.

Not quite.

Uhhh...no.

The Dan Hawkins in question is the current head coach of the Boise State Broncos. You know, that other undefeated head coach of a mid-major football program out west.

No one truly knows if Notre Dame is targeting Hawkins or not, but if ND does select Hawkins, it will be quite a jump for a coach who's coaching experience is limited to two schools...Boise State and Willamette.

And yet, according to this Kelly Whiteside article, Boise State appears to have somewhat of a streak going in terms of placing head coaches at BCS schools.

Boise State athletic director Gene Bleymaier hired a little known I-AA coach from Murray State, Houston Nutt. Not much was expected — Sports Illustrated rated Boise State 112th out of 112 teams in Division I-A football. But Nutt went 5-6, a huge success given the turmoil of the previous year.

Arkansas hired the Little Rock native after the season. Bleymaier then turned to Oregon offensive coordinator and Idaho native Dirk Koetter, who brought his high-scoring offense to Boise. In three seasons, Koetter won two Big West championships and two Humanitarian Bowls at Bronco Stadium. He left for Arizona State in 2001.

Time will tell if Notre Dame will make a move for Hawkins, but in the meantime he is pushing Boise State even further than Nutt or Koetter did. So far he is 44-6 as the man in charge of the Broncos and holds the current D-1 win streak at 22 games and counting. His Bronco's offense is currently ranked #2 in the country at 511.64 yards/game. That's one slot behind other potential candidate Bobby Petrino's Louisville offense and one slot ahead of ex-potential candidate Urban Meyer's Utah offense. His Boise State team finished the season ranked 9th in the BCS standings and he won the WAC Conference Coach of the Year award for the second time in three years.

So Hawkins does have a rather impressive resume given his limited experience and small stage. And repeated reports mention that Hawkins considers Notre Dame his dream job. The real question regarding Hawkins is, can we expect similar stellar results at Notre Dame?

By far the biggest adjustment for Hawkins would be the pressure and scrutiny from both the media and rabid fan base. Folks in Boise State are estatic over Hawkins' success thusfar. At Notre Dame, people would still be questioning the development of the backup QB and the number of passes thrown to the tight end. Will the so-called Zen Master be able to rally the faithful at pep rallies by quoting Gandhi and Chogyam Trungpa?

Another major concern is recruiting. Landing "Hawk" will lack the national impact that the Irish would need to put together a top 10 recruiting class this year. Hawkins has no experience recruiting against some of the top coaches in the country for the top talented high schoolers, although one could argue that recruiting kids to play in Boise on a blue field is a daunting recruiting task itself. But with his purely West Coast coaching background it is very fair to question his ability to make an immediate impact on Notre Dame's national recruiting stage.

Sure winning cures all and makes recruiting easy, but after back to back failed coaching choices and the repeated verbal and written whippings from certain bobbleheaded mouthpieces of the sports media, Notre Dame now needs a head coach who's hire makes a statment that Notre Dame is serious about regaining their spot at the head of the college football dinner table. In the case of Hawkins, his lack of experience with major conference football and limited national name recognition is not what the Irish need right now. He appears to be an excellent young football coach and hopefully is in a better position to lobby for the job the next time the Irish go shopping for a new coach, but at this time the Fighting Irish need to aim a little bit higher.

Rick Pitino is a jack-ass | by Michael

Didn't Rick Pitino send a daughter to Notre Dame?

His comments piss me off, and I'm generally someone who doesn't get pissed. Hardly ever.

Is the Notre Dame job truly so unattractive that he can't even lump it in with Florida? I'm really at a loss for words...I thought he was a guy who "got" Notre Dame. Guess not.

Whither Gary Barnett? | by Mike

Mark Mangino's recent statements, discussed in Sean's post, cannot help but bring to mind the nefarious Gary Barnett's comments in the wake of Lou Holtz's retirement.

Once news of Willingham's departure reached the Notre Dame message boards, the Barnett quips predictably made the rounds. However, Irish fans were left to wonder why Barnett made no such public proclamation this time.

The reason?

Mark Mangino ate him.


Kansas coach Mark Mangino, above, attempts to gain the attention of the nacho vendor during his team's 13-7 loss at Iowa State. (AP)

Enough is Enough | by Sean

I understand that when a job is as high-profile as that of the Notre Dame head football coach that people will be coming out of the woodwork to throw their name into the hopper. Some, like Dan Hawkins, Charlie Weis, and Tom Clements, are genuinely interested in the prestige and challenge that comes with such a position. Others float their name out there for the sole purpose of saying the next day that they are "not interested in the Notre Dame job", thus increasing the general public's and, more importantly, their current and potential future employers' perception of their worth.

I get that. We live in the United States, it's a capitalistic society, and by any (legal) means necessary people should get every penny they can. I guess. I'm not happy that a great university like that of Our Lady ends up being the punching bag in this whole process, but in this age where tearing down is much more in vogue than building up, I guess it's to be expected. So Jim Fassel floats his name out there via an associate, just long enough for Avani Patel of the Chicago Tribune to run with it and say that Fassel is a candidate for the Notre Dame job. Then, like clockwork, Fassel states the next day that he's not interested in a collegiate job. So now Fassel has "said no to Notre Dame". Even though Notre Dame never contacted him, nor gave any indication that they even care that he is still a United States citizen. Whatever. If this is the way the game is played, if this is the price we pay for our "irelevant" program being the lead story every day, then so be it. Hell, Fassel took a team to the Super Bowl. He made Kerry Collins - KERRY COLLINS - a Pro Bowl quarterback. If this is what he wants to do, fine. Who am I to stop him?

Here's what I'm not fine with: Kansas head football blimp Mark Mangino "taking his name out of the running" for the Notre Dame job. This from today's South Bend Tribune:

But the candidates Notre Dame is checking into seems to be taking shape with names surfacing Monday such as University of Kansas coach Mark Mangino, Northwestern coach Randy Walker, New England Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie Weis, former Cleveland Browns and Miami Hurricanes coach Butch Davis and UConn coach Randy Edsall....

When reached by phone Monday, Mangino admitted he has been contacted informally about the Notre Dame vacancy.

"There have been phone calls left at different places," said Mangino, who is 12-24 during his first three years at the helm of the Jayhawks. "But it has been nobody in an official capacity."
Mangino, whose team finished 4-7 this season, declined to say who contacted him or whether or not he is interested.

"I have a job that I am happy in," he said. "I am bent on building a Top 25 program here at Kansas."

Now, I'm sure that the mainstream media has run with this one already, ridiculing Notre Dame that it can't even get the coach of Kansas to take its phone calls. That the Kansas job is a better job than the Notre Dame job. That it's easier to win at Kansas than at Notre Dame. But I'm going to have my say anyway, and here goes, and I will bet my son's autographed Carlyle Holiday road jersey on this:

There is no way on God's green earth that anybody who matters at Notre Dame contacted Mark Mangino, either formally or informally, for anything other than his recommendation on the best cheeseburger joints in Big XII cities. Up to this point in his head coaching tenure at Kansas, Mangino is best known for three things: (1) practically starting a fist fight at one of his son's high school football games a couple years ago; (2) accusing the BCS of fixing his game against Texas this season; and (3) winning his third consecutive "Macy's Award", given to the college coach who is most likely to leave coaching and become a parade float (much to the chagrin of perennial runner up, Ralph Friedgen). For those of you who have never seen the corpulent Mangino, I would post a picture here, except (a) I don't know how, and (b) it wouldn't fit on my hard drive anyway.

There is posturing, there is extreme postruing, and then there is Mark Mangino pulling his name out of the Notre Dame head coaching search. Yeah, the school has "informally" contacted a coach who is 12-24 at Kansas and coming off a 4-7 season. Sounds to me like someone needs an extension...or needs a raise....or needs to avoid being fired. Get over yourself, Jabba.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go withdraw my name from the list of candidates for the Notre Dame head coaching position. I'm no longer interested in the job. I am committed to building a winning sales team with the company I currently work for. The school never did contact me, but...you know, it's Christmas time. I need a bigger bonus. It's all about posturing, baby.

ND needs to close the talent gap with the Dallas Cowboys | by Dylan

We just watched a player one year removed from Ty Willingham's offense rush for almost 200 yards and three touchdowns against the second-best team in the NFC on Monday Night Football.

The defense rests.

Feed the Studs | by Jay

And in our continuing series on the coaching carousel...

I dug up a couple of articles here and here on Bobby Petrino from the summer of '03, when he was just getting ready to kickoff his first season as a head coach. Some things I didn't know:

* He previously served as Louisville's offensive coordinator (1998). That year, L'ville led the nation in scoring at a 40.4 ppg clip.

* He is not necessarily a pass-first kind of guy, although he does clearly prefer a good passing game, with a strong running game to set it up ("First of all, we've got to be able to run the ball real well to take the pressure off the quarterback...") When he was Auburn's OC, he marshalled a powerful running attack, and mixed in passes as the running game became the focus of attention from opponents' defensive strategies. He seems to take the team's strengths (running or passing) and work from there, building towards a powerful, balanced offense. Petrino sums up his philosophy in three words: "Feed the studs."

* At the time, he was plenty excited to air it out at Louisville, with a special focus on "yards after the catch":

...in fact, that receivers are under orders to run 40 yards after every catch, even if the whistle has blown. If they don't, Paul Petrino chases them, screaming to take the ball to the end zone. For the running backs, their orders are to run at least 20 yards on every carry. "We want those guys thinking about making the big play," Bobby Petrino said. "You want to make it a habit."

* He loves to talk to alumni, and he loves drumming up support for his program. He had one jag last summer where he went 14 straight days in a row with a scheduled speaking engagement. He seems to have zealously embraced those PR-type of duties that a coordinator doesn't have to deal with, but that are so crucial for a head coach trying to build a program.

* All that enthusiasm generated a tremendous amount of support for the program, and Louisville had a record 7,000 attendees to their spring game that year.

***

Petrino had a solid 2003, going 9-3 with only one bad loss (to Memphis), but losing to Miami Ohio in the GMAC bowl (getting dissected by future Steelers star Ben Roethlisberger). However, the program was clearly on track. They finished among the nation's leaders in offense and scoring, and were able to leverage their success into a solid recruiting class led by all-everything quarterback Brian Brohm.

This year, they've been even better: #1 in offense in the country, scoring 50+ points per game, averaging 536 yards per game. Their only loss was a 41-38 nailbiter at Miami (FL) where the Cardinals outgained Miami 507-431 but still lost.

I think I agree with Michael below; Bobby Petrino is a great choice for the Irish at this point. He's young (43), he's fiery, and he's smart as hell.

One note of concern though, from a Bill Kirk/Student Affairs/tailgating police standpoint: Petrino loves to drum up fan support, and actually talks about tailgating as an important part of the football gameday. Uh oh. Along those lines, I was in attendance at the Notre Dame/USC joint football luncheon last week before the game, and Pete Carroll talked about how he hoped the fans were going to be "jacked up" and "partied up" for tomorrow's game. Out of the corner of my eye, I think I caught a wince from Monk. I hope Fr. Jenkins is the kind of guy who enjoys a beer and a brat before the game.

If only a big-time coach were interested in Notre Dame | by Dylan

Someone like Barry Alvarez?

Nah. ND Football is dead.

Petrino update | by Michael

Big news from Louisville. Just a few small quotes but big in meaning.

Petrino doesn't have to wait until after the bowl game to talk to other schools. Great news, though with Petrino's past you can't say for certain whether he would have adhered to that rule anyway...

Petrino is my personal choice. He is a brilliant Xs and Os offensive mind who also happens to be a relentless recruiter. Up until this article, the AD had been adamant that all contact would have to wait until after their bowl game. When John L. Smith was at Louisville a few years ago, word leaked out during halftime of their bowl game against Marshall that he was leaving for Michigan State. Understandably so, the AD wants to avoid something like that happening again.

So at least now, ND wouldn't have to wait until January 1st to talk to Petrino, which would have killed recruiting. And if Petrino isn't interested, or if ND becomes uninterested after talking with him, they can quickly move on to the next target.

Fassel wants to remain in NFL | by Michael

My guess is he's holding out for an NFL job. I'm a little surprised that he didn't at least meet with Stanford, where he goes way back (he coached Elway). His unimpressive stint as the head coach of Utah from '85-'89 must not be giving him any warm fuzzy feelings about returning to campus.

Coach wants to remain in NFL
ESPN.com news services

Jim Fassel told ESPN's Chris Mortensen on Monday that he is not interested in any college coaching job, including Notre Dame and Stanford. Fassel is staying focused on remaining in the NFL.

Fassel, 55, confirmed that there had been dialogue with Stanford but said the reports about Notre Dame were "absolutely unfounded."

"My attorney is a Notre Dame grad, so they're confusing him with me," Fassel joked. "In fact he called me last night about the rumor in me being interested in Notre Dame and somebody called him to see if I was intersted. The answer is no, respectfully.

"I also informed Stanford today that I'm not interested in their opening," he added.

The Chicago Tribune reported Monday that, according to a friend and former associate of the coach's, Fassel was interested in restoring Notre Dame to glory. The Trib also said that Stanford, while interested, may not have the monetary resources necessary to sign a former NFL head coach.

Fassel became head coach of the New York Giants in 1997, leading the team to the Super Bowl in 2001, and was fired at the end of the 2003 season. He was the Arizona Cardinals' offensive coordinator before leaving for New York and this season is a senior offensive consultant to the Baltimore Ravens, the team his Giants lost to in the Super Bowl.

ESPN and the Doctrine of Preemptive War | by Dylan

One thing that is clear from the events of the past 10 or so days is that the relationship between the national media and Notre Dame has never been worse. Even at the height of Holtzian success and Dunbarian ignominy, the scorn being heaped on Notre Dame seemed less angry. Less frantic. What’s changed?

Here’s what. For the first time in almost 20 years, Notre Dame has shown that it has the institutional will to take decisive action with regard to the football program. The firing of Ty Willingham and the quick (if poorly finished) pursuit of Urban Meyer are harbingers of the re-establishment of an aggressive pro- (as opposed to anti-) football camp under the Dome. This, of course, is an intolerable situation for ESPN and their minor league of sports-talking heads around the country, because, as everyone knows, when Notre Dame wants to win, it does. What choice does the attention deficited contrarian sports media have but to go preemptively nuclear? It has been mind-blowing watching them twist and contort as they’ve tried to assert contradictory premises as lynchpins to larger arguments. Among them:

Notre Dame Is No Better Than Anybody Else

This is the key to understanding ND hatred. Kevin White made a Michael Kinsley gaffe. He told the truth. Willingham did have the team in fine academic standing. But when White made his “Sunday through Friday” remark, he gave the press a simple meme to run with, namely that Notre Dame is now giving up on the student-athlete ideal in pursuit of football glory. That is, in a word, crap. Ty Willingham did a great job in stressing academics, but ND’s graduation rates have been superior for decades, including in times of championship-level success. What chaps ESPN and the other promoters of 21st century college football is the essential truth that Notre Dame is better than almost everybody else, and demonstrably better than every single one of their current darlings (Meechigan, Miami, Texas, Southern Cal, Oklahoma, et al). Notre Dame still actually holds those quaint values of excellence in mind, body, and spirit, and it drives those who make their livings off the current corrupt paradigm crazy. In their minds, the way to address the hypocrisy is not to drain the swamp, but to flood the valley and spread the pestilence (that metaphor is teetering on two wheels, General Lee style). When everyone is dirty, it's less important to be clean.

Notre Dame Is Racist

Of course, you can’t fire an African-American coach until you hire him, but that’s beside the point. This dilemma can be resolved by a simple thought experiment. Imagine Ty Willingham as Lou Holtz’ replacement and Bob “Barzini” Davie as his successor. Imagine that each football game of the past eight years played out just as they did. Davie would have been fired within 5 minutes of when Willingham was.

Notre Dame Football Is Irrelevant

Which is why it’s been the lead story for a week, of course.

So all hope is lost, right? We will never be able to sign A-list recruits in the face of such a potent and negative media onslaught, right? We will never be able to land a premier coach because, after all, Notre Dame Football is dead, right? Wrong. The news that the coaching search did not fizzle with the loss of Meyer, but has rather expanded and gained momentum with high-profile coaches in the college and professional ranks making inquiries with Notre Dame is direct evidence to the contrary. They are calling ND. They are asking about the job. They know what Notre Dame was, what it is, and what it can be. There is a new commitment on campus, and you can expect a slew of commitments to campus in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

The screeching that is coming, and that will come, from ESPN is music to my ears.

Rashômon | by Jay

Whom to believe? There's a tremendous amount of speculation about how the Urban Meyer story actually transpired: some of it anonymous, but detailed; some of it sketchy, but credible; and some of it just plain batshit (if I could, I would link to the rantings of an entertaining, but delusional friend I commiserated with at last Saturday's Christmas party). The confluence of rumor, CYAing, and public Monday-morning PR quarterbacking (by all camps) has made this story incredibly difficult to piece together.

These days, with so many bits and pieces filtering in from different sources, I feel like one of the 6 blind men trying to describe an elephant. According to various Urban legends:

* Meyer was signed by Florida weeks ago, and met with ND out of respect
* Meyer demanded too many academic concessions from ND, knowing they wouldn't comply, and he'd be free to take the UF job
* Meyer's wife Shelley vetoed moving to South Bend
* ND actually reached a verbal agreement with Meyer, only to see him turn it down the next day
* White had Meyer in the bag, but the ND brass turned him down
* Jenkins was turned off to Meyer and ND never offered him the job in the first place
* Bob Davie and Earl Bruce convinced Meyer that ND wasn't for him
* Meyer was insulted by ND's lowball dollar offer
* ND matched UF's money; the fallout occurred due to other issues

Then there's this article from the Gainesville Sun about the wooing of Meyer, by Pat Dooley, who interviewed Florida AD Jeremy Foley yesterday. It goes into a fairly high level of detail about the conversations between UF and Meyer, but because it sticks to a timeline analysis (rather than trying to break down exactly what went into Meyer's decision calculus) it doesn't help us get inside the mind of the guy whose dream was to coach at ND.

The rational voice in my head says we'll probably never know how close we actually were -- if we were close at all. Was Meyer seriously considering us? Or was it an act? It's tough to say. As a wise man once said, "There's what's right, and there's what's right, and never the 'twain shall meet."

Two down...nine to go - recruiting in the wake of the coaching search | by Michael

While the Irish look for a new head coach, their recruiting class hangs in limbo.

There were expected to be some losses as a result of Willingham's departure. Sure enough, Lawrence Wilson, an athletic DE who was supposedly the #1 pass-rusher we wanted this year, decided to de-commit from Notre Dame. Depending upon when we hire a coach, we still have a shot at landing Wilson. However, Willingham was a big reason why he chose the Irish.

News even worse in the secondary. Brandon Harrison is a top 10 nationally ranked CB whom we landed over the summer. He said he was going to keep his options open, though he still considered himself an ND verbal. That didn't last too long, however. This past weekend he trekked to Iowa, and he pulled the trigger.

The loss of Harrison is devastating because we need CBs and we don't have too many targets left on the board. He could have potentially started next year as a freshman.

And so there are nine recruits left...Evan Sharpley, Asaph Schwapp, David Nelson (whom Urban Meyer has already contacted about checking out Florida), David Grimes, Martin Frierson, Joey Hiben, Scott Smith, Kevin Washington and David Bruton.

Of those, from what I've read I simply can't imagine Grimes, Hiben, Smith or Bruton will go anywhere but Notre Dame. We'll see where the rest end up...

Fassel throws his name in the ring | by Mike

As mentioned below, the Chicago Tribune has reported that Jim Fassel is interested in the Notre Dame job. No direct quotes from Fassel himself, but there may be something to be said for a coach that doesn't publicly comment on ongoing discussions (if indeed, any are occuring). Also mentions Tom Clements' interest.

Fassel makes it known he'd like Irish job
By Avani Patel
Tribune staff reporter
December 5, 2004, 11:34 PM CST

Jim Fassel, who led the New York Giants to the Super Bowl in 2001 and was fired after last season, may be interested in trying his hand at resurrecting the Irish program, according to a friend and former associate.

...

Former Irish quarterback Tom Clements, the offensive coordinator with the Buffalo Bills, also is very interested in returning to his alma mater as the head coach. Clements played in the Canadian Football League before working as a lawyer. He returned to coaching in 1992, when he took a job as the quarterbacks coach at Notre Dame under Lou Holtz.

Clements stayed in South Bend through 1995 and went to the NFL in 1997, when he joined the New Orleans Saints' staff. With only four years of college coaching experience, Clements knows he is a long shot...

Enter Mike Shanahan? | by Michael

Frankly, I'd like to see us take an NFL coach...a guy like Shanahan or even Fassel. I see Fassel as the safe choice, but Shanahan would be an impressive get and I think would definitely get us turned around. Interestingly enough, former ND assistant coach Kirk Doll is now on Shanahan's staff.


Decade might be enough
By Mark Kiszla
Denver Post Staff Columnist

San Diego - Nobody in America knows more football than Mike Shanahan. But there comes a time when all the X's and O's begin to look the same, and a coach's message is reduced to white noise.

That time is now for Shanahan and the Broncos. The NFL's most beautiful mind has run out of fresh ideas.

After a 20-17 loss to San Diego, there was nothing new for Shanahan to say about this game, his team or where it all went wrong.

"When it was on the line, we couldn't get it done," said Shanahan, uttering an early epitaph for a season of false hope.

Any coach who understands clock management instinctively realizes when it is time to go.
"There's about a 10-year shelf life in this business, maximum," said Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer, employed in the NFL since 1975.

The 10th season of Mike Shanahan in Denver seems doomed to end the same disappointing way as every one of his previous five years.

Departing the visitors locker room, Broncos linebacker Al Wilson angrily slam-dunked his playbook into a hamper.

With the team bus waiting, veteran receiver Rod Smith was too peeved to put his angst into words, declaring: "Got nothing to talk about. You saw the game."

We've all seen this performance by the Broncos too many times. A bad bounce here, a dumb turnover there, no luck anywhere. "Kind of the story of the year," Denver safety Kenoy Kennedy said.

Looking for a fresh edge, Shanahan traded for cornerback Champ Bailey, trying to show the NFL his genius also applies to defense. But the results of this bold experiment prove only that the Broncos are not significantly closer to being serious championship contenders than in any season since John Elway retired.

And so it goes. The story grows older every year.

"At the outset, it takes you a few years to get things in place as a coach. Then, if you have the good fortune to be able to stay there for some considerable length of time, it gets easier. But the minute you start getting into year nine and year 10, it becomes more difficult, because you keep trying to find different ways to get your message across," said Schottenheimer, who has won 174 regular-season games as head coach of four NFL franchises. "But try as you might, and I'm an English major, when you get so far down the road, it's pretty hard to find a new way to convey the message."

With a 9-3 record, the Chargers own a two-game lead in the AFC West. Win the division, and San Diego would be the fourth team to be best in the West since 1999. The other recent champions are Oakland, Kansas City and Seattle, which has moved out of the division.
Denver has been just another NFL franchise for longer than Broncomaniacs would like to admit.
Schottenheimer walked away from the Chiefs after 10 years. "I had a great run in Kansas City and could have stayed there," he said. "But I just felt it was time to give somebody else a chance."

Without a doubt, Shanahan has earned the right to determine when and how he wants to leave the Broncos.

Respect, however, has ceased to be the issue. How satisfying can sneaking in the back door of the NFL playoffs be for Shanahan? The pain of one loss bleeds into the next defeat, until a coach goes numb.

"It will hurt for a while, and we'll see what we can do," said Shanahan, a monotone voice carefully dispensed from a poker face. "You don't know what's going to happen down the road. You can take it a game at a time, and figure it out at the end."

As a man obsessed with control, Shanahan understandably hates unfounded rumors and idle speculation about his future. So we offer this as nothing more than a suggestion for a coach who has gone stale:

Notre Dame needs to start acting like an elite football program that's willing to pay the price for success. Shanahan could use a new challenge and gratification that money can't buy.
While it is conceivable he can discover another 1,000-yard rusher, develop a quarterback who is truly a worthy heir to Elway and maybe lead the Broncos back to the Super Bowl one of these years, the odds are that Shanahan's remaining time in Denver ultimately will end in disappointment.

There is absolutely nothing left for Shanahan to say that the Broncos have not already heard.

Nothing except goodbye.

ND Coaching Search - One Man's Opinion | by Sean

I consumed 6 beers while typing this, I'll have you all know. So get comfy.

First, before getting to the "who's next?" part of this rant, a lot of blame has been kicked around over the last 24 hours. Kevin White. John Jenkins. Monk Malloy. The Board of Trustees. I think we all know where the blame lies for the state we are in right now - it's those freaking green jerseys! Think about it. Everything was cruising along just fine, 8-0 record, top 5 ranking, Fiesta Bowl in sight. And then out come the green jerseys against BC. So 7 home losses, 5 losses by more than 30 points, and two piss poor recruiting classes later, here we are - sitting outside the Meyer house with a freshly bruised forehead from the door getting slammed in our collective grills. Whoever our next coach is, please, we implore you - LEAVE THE GREEN JERSEYS IN THE CLOSET! Better yet, have a bonfire at the press conference and burn them up.

Anyway, the school has egg all over its face right now from a p.r. standpoint, and rightfully so. But what's being lost in this whole thing is that things were not going to turn around under Coach Willingham. He is a great man, but has proven to be a scattershot game coach, questionable motivator, and mediocre recruiter. This whole search, at the end of the day, though, is not an Urban Meyer issue. We, the alumni and the university, made it an Urban Meyer issue by going after him right away (the right move, by the way). We just didn't get our guy. But the chances are very high that we will come away from this with a better head football coach than we had a week ago. It just won't be Urban Meyer. I guess what I'm saying is "This, too, shall pass."

(One side note to those who say "Now look at you, Notre Dame. You fired Willingham and didn't even get your guy, Urban Meyer." and use this as the reason it was a mistake to fire Willingham. Let's assume for a second that ND doesn't fire Willingham, that he's still our coach in 2005. Presumably, Urban Meyer still goes to Florida for the 2005 season. NOW, imagine the backlash this time next year when Willingham has continued to be Willingham (7 wins, at best) and Meyer is winning an SEC Championship in Florida. The same people would be saying, "You see, you should've taken your shot at Meyer in 2004 when you had it. He had an ND out clause at Utah. He could've been yours, Notre Dame." So at that point we end up firing Willingham and hiring someone on the Plan B list anyway, and have wasted another year trying to run the Bill Diedrick playbook under Coach Willingham, AND have the constant second guessing of "you should've gone after Meyer". At least the way it's played out now, we took our shot. We missed, it's a p.r. nightmare, oh well. Once the firestorm today is over, I'm still ok with them letting Willingham go, even if John Q. Public thinks it was "unfair". Screw that. It's college football. It's a performance based business, not a soup kitchen. I guess what I'm saying - AGAIN - is "this, too, shall pass".)

I'm not sure how Urban Meyer would have done as the Notre Dame head coach, nor how he will do at Florida. My guess is he will have them in the SEC Championship game next year, at a minimum. They have a TON of talent. I do know the reasons why I thought Meyer would be a great fit, and it wasn't so much the prolific, wide open offense that he runs nor his renowned motivational skills. Now more than ever, the University of Notre Dame needs someone who can passionately sell the school to recruits. Someone who bleeds blue and gold, and who assembles a staff that bleeds blue and gold. Urban Meyer, I thought, fit this bill.

My main concern now is that we need to hire someone who loves Notre Dame. This is clearly a unique place that needs to be positioned properly with recruits by a head coach and staff who KNOW and have experienced success here. With Meyer out of the picture, I'm seeing a lot of names being kicked around and this is taking on an eerie 2001 feel to it. The names are all very good coaches (Tedford, Ferentz, etc), but do these guys really love the school? Do they embrace the history and tradition of the university? And if they are hired and have some success, will they be inclined to leave when the NFL comes calling? (Admittedly, that last one would be a problem I'd welcome right now - a coach good enough to be courted by the NFL, but you see my point.) Like Davie before him, Willingham came in with really only a general working knowledge and healthy respect for Notre Dame. I never got the feeling that either one LOVED the school. In fact, Davie flat out refused to acknowledge the mystique; Willingham to his credit, always talked about how special the place is, but was clearly not able to translate that into a language 18 year old kids could decipher (see Rankings, Recruiting 2004). Also, they assembled staffs that included NO Notre Dame graduates. THAT boggles my mind.

At the end of the day, I'd like someone with a track record of head coaching success, but more than anything else I really think we need to do our best to "keep this in the family" if at all possible, even if it means hiring someone with no head coaching experience. So I'm going to lay out who I think the pipe dream candidates are, who the main candidates are, and then who I think SHOULD get the job.

PIPE DREAM CANDIDATES (5% chance at best)

BARRY ALVAREZ - Wisconsin head coach and athletic director

Pros: Former ND defensive coordinator....understands the tradition at ND....has made Wisconsin into a perennial Big Ten contender.....great personality, would be a solid p.r. hire

Cons: He is the Knute Rockne of Wisconsin football.....age, does ND want to hire someone in their late 50's?....the ND he'd be walking into now is very different than the one in 1989.

GRADE (if hired): A-

---

BUTCH DAVIS - former Miami (FL)/Cleveland Browns head coach

Pros: Rebuilt Miami into a national power under NCAA sanctions, and did so while cleaning out the Miami dirty laundry of the 80's and early 90's....great recruiter....NFL experience and track record of sending guys to the pros.

Cons: Has mentioned he wants to take a year off....supposedly, overstressed from Browns job, the Notre Dame job will probably not help that condition....reputation for being very overbearing, not easy guy to be around....no Notre Dame affiliation....stint with Browns did his game coach reputation no favors

GRADE (if hired): B

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JON GRUDEN - Tampa Bay Bucs head coach

Pros: Has won at the highest level.....an offensive guru.....intense motivator....has Notre Dame affiliation in his background....would satiate the Notre Dame Nation

Cons: Makes $4M a year....has an ego the size of the Florida Panhandle....no collegiate coaching experience, throws into question his ability to recruit and assemble a college staff....has already said he's not interested, but ND may make a phone call just to check for sure.

GRADE (if hired): B+

---

BOB STOOPS - Oklahoma head coach

Pros: How much time do you have?....turned Oklahoma into a national champion in two years....renowned defensive mastermind....assembles the best coaching staffs in college football....young, aggressive, risk taker....Midwest guy with Catholic roots....arguably the best coach in the game today....has spoken fondly of ND before

Cons: Makes nearly as much as top NFL guys....has a legacy intact at Oklahoma that would be tough to leave.....great recruiter at OU but no academic handcuffs there; could he recruit as well at ND with tougher standards? Or more to the point, would he even want to?

GRADE (if hired): A+

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MAIN CANDIDATES (will all likely get a phone call; even money the next ND coach is in this pool of candidates)

KIRK FERENTZ - Iowa head coach

Pros: Clearly a turnaround artist as he has made Iowa a fixture near the top of the Big Ten and in New Year's Day bowl games...an offensive line guru with NFL experience....a Joe Moore disciple....Kevin White gave him his first head coaching job at Maine....young, good recruiter with a Midwest power base

Cons: No previous affiliation with Notre Dame...A disciple of Joe Moore, may hold ill will toward how Notre Dame treated his late mentor....has been mentioned often as a successor to Joe Paterno at Penn State....will always be on the NFL short list....just signed a new deal at Iowa...does it really matter if he has ties with White, since White has as much power as Chuck the Janitor right about now?

GRADE (if hired): A-

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DAN HAWKINS - Boise State head coach

Pros: A winner, 44-6 at Boise State....Catholic, with the now famous "ND out clause" in his contract (for what that's worth).....offense is ridiculously proficient, always in the top 3...has said on more than one occasion that he'd like to coach at ND....probably in the school's price range as his Boise extension offer is in the $500K/yr range.

Cons: Boise State to Notre Dame seems like an awfully big jump....his teams defenses have not been much to write home about....least impressive resume of all the candidates, before Boise State he spent several years at a place called Willamette, wherever that is.....how will his space age offense work against a BCS caliber schedule?.... this may be nitpicking, but the guy has no eyebrows. Have you ever seen him? It's really very strange.

GRADE (if hired): C+

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BOBBY PETRINO - Louisville head coach

Pros: One of the great offensive coaches in the country....except for Meyer, probably the hottest up-and-comer in the collegiate coaching ranks....young, good recruiter

Cons: No ties to Notre Dame....recruiting at Notre Dame versus Louisville is a whole different ballgame in the classroom....flirtation with Auburn last year was awkward and somewhat slimy......seems to be more of an SEC guy

GRADE (if hired): B-

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MIKE SHANAHAN - Denver Broncos head coach and General Manager

Pros: Proven winner with two Super Bowl rings and perennial playoff team in Denver, despite revolving door at skill positions during his tenure....offensive genius......multiple 1000 yard rushers on his watch (David, Gary, Anderson, Portis).....Catholic with Chicago roots....instant credibility with recruits

Cons: Availability, may not be through with current position until mid January.....no ties to Notre Dame.....has had total autonomy in Denver for so long, how would he react with having to answer to an AD, school president, and demanding Board of Trustees......physically looks like rat....refuses to wear any type of hat in snowstorm games and winds up looking like Frankie Carbone in "Goodfellas", hanging from a hook in the back of a meat truck

GRADE (if hired): B+

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JEFF TEDFORD - Cal head coach

Pros: Probably a more amazing turnaround than Ferentz at Iowa....from 1-10 three years ago to a likely BCS bid and top 5 ranking this season....a QB guru, responsible for high powered offenses everywhere he's been....would be a name that would regain recruiting momentum.

Cons: No Notre Dame affiliation....West Coast guy, would he come to South Bend?.....recruiting contacts in the Midwest, does he have any?....Like Ferentz, an NFL short list guy

GRADE (if hired): A-

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JOE TILLER - Purdue head coach

Pros: Outstanding offensive coach....turned dormant Purdue into a year-in and year-out competitive outfit in the Big Ten....has been to a bowl every year at Purdue....Midwest power base in recruiting as well as surprising recruiting success in a former ND hotbed down in Texas

Cons: No Notre Dame ties....sometimes questionable in game coaching moves (i.e. Gary Godsey throwing more passes than Drew Brees in 2000 ND v Purdue)...would the ND Nation embrace the head coach of what has become a hated rival?

GRADE (if hired): B-

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CHARLIE WEIS - New England Patriots offensive coordinator

Pros: Notre Dame graduate....NFL experience would be enticing to recruits....has run an efficient, winning offense at the highest level.... wants the job

Cons: No head coaching experience at any level....appearance - not exactly someone you can put on a poster for the football program (unless it's somehow tied to a rib eating contest)....likely not available until February as Pats will probably go deep into the NFL postseason....if he wasn't an ND grad, wouldn't even be considered.

GRADE (if hired): C

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CANDIDATE I WOULD HIRE IF I WERE RUNNING NOTRE DAME

TOM CLEMENTS - Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator/former Notre Dame quarterback and assistant coach

First, let me say that the only knock on Clements is going to be that he has never been a head coach. But this isn't half-wit Bob "It is what it is...all ball" Davie getting his first crack at head coaching. This is a guy with a law degree. Anyone who has ever spent any time with Clements will tell you that he's an incredibly intelligent guy.

As for the reasons I think he would be the ideal choice - first of all, he wants the job. He wanted it in 2001, and I'm guessing that hasn't changed. This is not someone Notre Dame is going to have to hard sell on coming to Notre Dame and then overpay to get them. Clements will come immediately and at a reasonable price.

Second, there is no danger of Clements asking the administration to lower the admission standards. He will know and embrace these standards because he has played and coached under them before.

Third, the guy has NFL coaching experience over the last ten years that will prove to be very valuable in getting kids that want to not only get an education but play at the next level. He's coached for several different NFL clubs so his base of contacts in the league is probably quite vast.

Fourth, he will likely stock the staff with ND graduates. Maybe not all ND grads, but at least a few who will be able to convey the spirit of Notre Dame to recruits and, just as importantly, to the current players. I really don't get the sense that these players know what it's like to truly play Notre Dame football.

Fifth, and most importantly, this would be a tremendously popular move with the alumni base. THIS is the move they should have made three years ago after the O'Leary thing blew up in their faces. Keep it in the family. Clements has his fair share of advocates within the high powered alum, which will help. I think this is a move, given how the Meyer thing went sour, that would be tremendously popular. I'm picturing Clements at the press conference announcing his acceptance of the job and I'm picturing him talking about the spirit of Notre Dame and how special a place the university is, and truly MEANING it. Not just saying it because his paycheck says "University of Notre Dame" on it, but saying it because that's how he truly feels and always will feel. And I get excited about having a guy who can go out and re-sell Notre Dame without having to be sold on it himself. Any of these other guys I've listed above are going to have to be convinced that the Notre Dame job is the right move for them. And how can you truly know if they believe it? Tom Clements believes it. We thought Urban Meyer did. But we now see, Urban Meyer had a desire to seek the position of head football coach at Notre Dame, but when push came to shove, he wasn't a Notre Dame man. He didn't graduate from the school. He never ran out of the tunnel in anything other than an assistant coach's windbreaker.

This is a critical hire for the University. They need to hit a home run. Clements won't feel like a home run to the general non-ND public if he gets announced because, frankly, I doubt many people even know who he is. We'll probably get our fair share of "you fired Willingham for someone who's never been a head coach before" fallout. Who cares? We'll have to wait until September to start winning football games, but we'll have one of our own running the program immediately. We need that now more than ever. The last two regimes have shown that to be true.

So that's my take....the green jerseys suck, but Tom Clements most certainly does not. Hire him.

Oh yeah, and this, too, shall pass.

GO IRISH!

162 years ago today | by Pat

While we hear the names of every head coaching candidate under the sun and news of the irrelevancy of Notre Dame's football program continues to lead off every sports show and editorial column, today is a good day to pause and look back to where it all started.

December 5, 1842

Beloved Father,
When we least dreamed of it, we were offered an excellent piece of property, about 640 acres in extent. This land is located in the county of St. Joseph on the banks of the St. Joseph River, not far from the city of St. Joseph (Michigan). It is a delightfully quiet place, about twenty minutes from South Bend. This attractive spot has taken from the lake which surrounds it the beautiful name of Notre Dame du Lac. . . . It is from here that I write you now.

Everything was frozen over. Yet it all seemed so beautiful. The lake, especially, with its broad carpet of dazzling white snow, quite naturally reminded us of the spotless purity of our August Lady whose name it bears, and also of the purity of soul that should mark the new inhabitants of this chosen spot . . . . We were in a hurry to enjoy all the scenery along the lakeshore of which we had heard so much. Though it was quite cold, we went to the very end of the lake, and like children, came back fascinated with the marvelous beauties of our new home. . . . Once more, we felt that Providence had been good to us and we blessed God from the depths of our soul.

Will you permit me, dear Father, to share with you a preoccupation which gives me no rest? Briefly, it is this: Notre Dame du Lac was given to us by the bishop only on condition that we establish here a college at the earliest opportunity. As there is no other school within more than a hundred miles, this college cannot fail to succeed. . . . Before long, it will develop on a large scale. . . . It will be one of the most powerful means for good in this country.

Finally, dear Father, you cannot help see that this new branch of your family is destined to grow under the protection of Our Lady of the Lake and of St. Joseph. At least, this is my deep conviction. Time will tell if I am wrong.


E. Sorin

the broken clock | by Jay

San Francisco Chronicle sportswriter Glenn Dickey is certainly no titan of his industry, but he seemed to have jerked this one over the wall and into the bay.

Dateline: January 1, 2001. Tyrone Willingham has just accepted the head coaching job at the University of Notre Dame. Dickey, in a fit of clairvoyance, writes that Willingham is about to be "exposed":

Because the pros are the bigger story in the Bay Area, college coaches don't face the intense scrutiny of their pro counterparts. He won't have that luxury at Notre Dame. The national media will descend on South Bend and make his life a hell. They'll ask tough questions and do tough stories. Losses will be dissected. His personality, or lack of, will be under the microscope. Tyrone Willingham won't have a prayer. He should have stayed at Stanford.

I wonder if he'll be penning another Bay Area-coach-to-Notre-Dame story anytime soon. Let's hope so. And let's hope his crystal ball predicts a different outcome this time.

Gator Stew | by Jay

An educated guess at what transpired with the Meyer circus, via the Florida Sun-Sentinel. Seems to comport with what I've heard.

Serenity Now | by Jay

THA over on NDNation has some soothing words for anyone exercised over certain media commentary about the state of our program. He writes:

"Some of you who are not NY Yankees fans (to pick up your example) may be shocked by all this accumulated hatred being released. Those of us who are Yankee fans--and Sinatra fans!--are used to press hatred and revel in it. Hated by the press and by TV and Radio personalities! Can there be anything better? When SC was staggering around in its coaching search, a few years ago, there was no national hue and cry. Here and there a story, of course."

He goes on to offer the obvious (yet oft-overlooked in the heat of the moment) remedy:

"ND must make a careful search and choice. It should not, in my opinion, satisfy impulses to spend a gazillion dollars on some NFL coach who demands the moon. That will generate continued bad publicity and plausible moral outrage on its own campus. It should pay reasonable college-level market rates, and if necessary slightly above. I'm responding here to a thread about Shanahan's salary. I have no idea if the figures bruited about there are correct, but if they are, and if he were a candidate, and if he expected comparable dough at ND, I would, speaking personally, say no.

The Searchers must make a superb appointment. If they do, then I suspect the coaching fraternity and the commentators will suffer in silence. Their worst fear will have materialized. They know that with the right coach, ND will be as formidable as it was a mere 11 years ago. Mere. Mere. Mere. Nothing major has changed structurally in the game or in the program over that tiny period to account for ND's catastrophic decline. Bad coaches have accounted for it."

I have to admit, I was disappointed with Rocket's ramblings yesterday, and I was fairly incensed at what Aaron Taylor spit out ("the mystique is dead", over and over). These bits of bile really sting, especially from some of our former legends.

It can all change in a heartbeat with the right hire, though.

the opening scrawl... | by Jay

It's Sunday, December 5th, 2004, and Notre Dame football is in turmoil. After firing Tyrone Willingham last Tuesday, ND thought they had a deal in place with wunderkind Utah coach Urban Meyer, only to see it evaporate as Meyer took the open position at the University of Florida instead. Thus, as of today, ND is still casting about for direction, while the national sports media gloats at our predicament in a spasm of over-the-top ridicule. Even some of our former standout players have been piling on (did you catch Aaron Taylor at halftime of USC/UCLA last night?)

Yet things are fluid, all is certainly not lost, and a number of potential candidates have appeared on the horizon. It's an exciting time to be a ND football fan, as things are very much up in the air. I feel like I've been shaking a magic eight-ball over and over, but the only answer I get is "Ask Again Later".

As the coaching search moves forward, we'll post whatever tidbits of insight come our way. We hope this blog will serve as a useful repository for some of the excellent commentary we come across, and we hope you indulge us in some ruminations of our own.

it begins | by Jay

Outlined against a blue, gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again.