With the loss to Pitt last weekend, most believe that the Charlie Weis era will end after the Stanford game next weekend. We are at the beginning of an annoying amount of media speculation, "updates" and other fodder that will be on every tv show, print newspaper, or magazine that covers sports. Personally, I will hate the two weeks because the games seem relatively meaningless until we know the fate of Coach Weis. Football fans are supposed to be excited about watching the games, but likely most ND fans are considerably less excited than normal for the final 2 games against UConn and Stanford.
Remember over the next few weeks, that daily ESPN "updates" are typically nothing more than regurgitated quotes and speculation - rarely offering any true insight to the situation. If Athletics Director Jack Swarbrick is half the sensible business man he appears to be, his decision and the coaching search (if needed) will be as tight lipped as humanly possible. Information leaks to the media will only fuel the fire, typically resulting in coaches in speculation getting raises or extensions, or releasing statements saying they "aren't interested in Notre Dame". These measures are often incredibly selfish, using the ND coaching search for personal gain, based on pure rumor or hearsay and not actual interest by Notre Dame. My favorite was back 5 years ago when Mark Mangino (Kansas coach), "pulled his name out of the ND coaching search". Thanks Mark, I doubt we were interested.
We've established that no one - not ESPN, not "IRISHFAN" handle on your favorite message board, nor your cousin that supposedly is friends with Charlie Weis's family - no one knows whether Weis will officially be fired, or who his replacement might be. So now, we can move on not to speculation on whats actually going to happen, but opinions of what should happen.
Charlie Weis should be fired by Notre Dame on Sunday, November 29th, the day after the Stanford game.
Weis is a good man and a good, hard working coach. He has kept academics at the highest level possible, while recruiting good young men with football skills. His teams have nary had an off the field issue that was not minor in the grand scheme of a program (Tennessee, I'm looking at you!). He is an alum that gives what little time he has left to his family's charity, and he loves the school immensely. This man needs to be treated with respect and class, but alas, shown the door.
As I've stated before, Weis will be remembered as the person who answered the key question of doubt about Notre Dame football: Can we recruit with the elite programs? The answer is a resounding yes. Notre Dame football can get enough talent to win a National Championship. Maybe not every year, and certainly there are less recruits available to us than Alabama, Florida, USC, etc. But the talent level will be there if you find the right recruiter.
Moving on towards who the next coach should be is tough, but since this is a blog, we'll do it. Typically when teams or program fire a coach, they hire the opposite: someone with opposite traits to balance out the problems with the previous coach. We'll start with Weis's main problems that have caused him to be a failure as a head coach at Notre Dame, in my opinion:
- Lack of head coaching experience
- Lack of college head or assistant coaching experience
- Defensive coaching
All this means two candidates rise as the top two guys in addition to the another candidate who always can have the job (Urban Meyer). The two coaches that fulfill the 3 deficiencies of the Weis era are Bob Stoops (Oklahoma) and Brian Kelly (Cincinnati). More next week on these 3 candidates and why I think each would be a good head coach at Notre Dame. Pitt game preview tomorrow.
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