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Notre Dame Football in limbo; administrator does not retain Charlie Weis, lets coach go with half-decade left on contract
Leprechaun Express: Notre Dame Football Intel Update, Dec. 1, 2009
Notre Dame announced on Nov. 30, 2009, that it was not retaining Notre Dame Head Football Coach Charlie Weis after five years on the job, with six years left on his contract.
Weis inherited a program with its foundations at their weakest point in a century. He rebuilt the roster with top talent across four-plus class years, finished with an overall winning record and eligibility for four bowl games in five years, including two BCS bowls, secured Notre Dame's first bowl win since 1994, and developed a top-10 offense and a solid defense.
While Notre Dame finished the regular season 6-6 in 2009, their average loss was by roughly four points, and no loss was by more than a touchdown. At least two of Notre Dame's losses, against Michigan and Pitt, featured what turned out to be corroborated by video evidence to have been brazenly incorrect calls by officials that turned the outcome of games.
If Notre Dame had a stronger record as a team, or if there was not an unspoken movement to make the Heisman more of team award than the individual honor it was created to be, Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen and wide-receiver Golden Tate would probably both be finishing among the Heisman leaders.
Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick confirmed at a Nov. 30, 2009, press conference that he had recommended to university president Father John Jenkins on Sunday, Nov. 29 that Weis not be retained. He also indicated that he informed Weis of the decision just after Notre Dame's last-minute loss to Stanford before the team took a red-eye flight back to South Bend.
Ironically, had Swarbrick followed the criteria which ESPN claimed he had articulate to them, Weis would have been retained. According to ESPN, Swarbrick had said Weis would be evaluated based on factors that included academics, recruiting, and on-field performance.
In academics, Notre Dame football led the nation. In recruiting, Notre Dame has been among the upper echelon of programs. Even with this year's incoming freshmen, when recruiting media services had tried to argue that Notre Dame had a weaker class, closer examination revealed that Notre Dame was actually among the top-10 when measured by the quality of each recruit, man-by-man.
On the field, Notre Dame was outstanding, having a winning record under Weis, and showing the ability to play with everybody in 2009, including the final game going to the wire with a Stanford team that recently blew out Southern Cal and beat Oregon in a shoot-out.
Everyone knew it would take Weis five or six years to rebuild the program, so that this year was really the first year he was starting anew with a full plate of talent. Even factoring in a dismal 3-9 record in Weis's third year, the balloon payment for the Bob Davie-Tyrone Willingham downturn, Weis still had a winning record that would have made him coach for life at most schools.
So the real factor was that, at Notre Dame, at least by past measures, being head football coach is a little bit like what it used to mean to be president. You only did it for five or ten years, and you only did it if you were at the top of your game. The coaches who stayed were not just good, but Hall of Fame coaches.
In fact, in the modern era, at least one Hall of Fame coach, one who won a national championship, left after only six years, and amidst discontent from some quarters because he went 9-3 and 7-4 before rebounding to compete for the national title in his sixth year.
Even in the 1930's, a highly successful Notre Dame coach who had been one of the Four Horsemen, and who won at least one nonconsensus national title as coach, was offered only a one-year contract extension. He left to become Commissioner of the National Football League and was replaced by Frank Leahy.
Weis in fact rebuilt the foundations of the Notre Dame football program, and it has the infrastructure to be close to competing for national championships, if the positives that have been built are retained and not dismantled by a rash coaching hire, as happened at Michigan.
Impatience by an administrator, one with little background in football and apparently commuting from Indianapolis more than two hours away, has resulted in the rebuilding being interrupted. Only time will tell if Notre Dame can find a coach as good as Charlie Weis, when repeating the mistakes displayed in the past with the sudden, last-minute move with no plan in place.
In the past, such a move resulted in the Davie-George O'Leary transition. Then, the last time an administrator did this, it was Charlie Weis himself who rescued the Irish and took on the task of the big rebuilding project.
Meanwhile, there is a vacancy at the head of the NCAA, and the Notre Dame athletic director was the runner-up the last time. If the athletic director does indeed move to the NCAA, we will be left wondering if he will even be around for opening kick-off in the fall.
And the NCAA will have set itself up with a kind of "Revenge of the Administrators" theme. The previous NCAA president, God rest his soul, was an Indiana administrator who fired Bobby Knight. If they select the Indianapolis lawyer who recommended not retaining Charlie Weis, the NCAA will get another Hoosier administrator, following the man who fired Bobby Knight with the man who, without justification and at great expense, fired the Notre Dame head football coach.
Meanwhile, the cost of the transition will be in the many millions, at a time when America is in the midst of a Depression, at a time when tuition is so high as to be unconscionable, and at a time when those millions could have been spent on what is supposed to be Notre Dame's Catholic Mission, such as by feeding the hungry, helping women in crisis pregnancy, helping the elderly, or working for peace and justice.
Ironically, the one individual at Notre Dame who had people calling for him to be fired with the greatest intensity, Father Jenkins after honoring a pro-abortion politician at graduation, was given a job extension by the Board of Trustees.
Weis went 9-3, 10-3, 3-9, 7-6, and was 6-6 heading into the bowl game this year. His overall record while rebuilding the Notre Dame program has been 35-27, including one bowl win.
Weis's winning percentage of .565 is just slightly lower than Joe Tiller's winning percentage at Purdue of .583. In contrast to the Notre Dame debacle over Weis's departure, Tiller was made Purdue's Head Coach Emeritus, left after a transition period of at least a year, including the coach-in-waiting serving on Tiller's staff in the interim. And Tiller was invited to rally the Purdue crowd through the PA system during their game with Notre Dame this year.
The coming days and weeks will be crucial to see if the sky falls in on Notre Dame over the rash and untimely firing of one of the best coaches in all of football.
Cincinnati Coach Brian Kelly is one possible candidate who still has one game left in his regular season, leading his undefeated top-5 team against Pitt on Saturday, Dec. 5. Kelly's team, while pulling out close wins, is eerily reminiscent of Weis's team in terms of having a top-5 offense but a defense only middling in its performance. Against Connecticut, Weis's defense gave up 13 points in regulation. A week earlier, Kelly's defense gave up 38. To be fair, Kelly has gotten lower-rated players to over-perform. He has had to, not being nearly as good a recruiter as Weis.
It might be that the only way Notre Dame can get a coach as good as Weis, with the potential to continue the upward trend Weis established, is by hiring Jon Gruden, with Gruden retaining as many of the offensive coaches as possible, and examining how to tweak the defense. But Gruden would never find an offensive coordinator as good as Weis, and would have to work hard to recruit as well as Weis.
Notre Dame Assistant Head Coach for Offense, Recruiting Coordinator, and Wide Receivers Coach Rob Ianello is acting interim head coach until a new hire is made. Notre Dame is bowl-eligible, but has not determined whether it will be going to a bowl game, still awaiting the final results of other teams' games to see what Notre Dame's options will be for a bowl.
Link
:: Charlie Weis Will Not Be Retained As Notre Dame Football Coach, Notre Dame Football release with resource links
Keywords: Notre Dame Football, Charlie Weis, Coaching Change, Coaching Hire and Fire, Jimmy Clausen, Golden Tate, Brian Kelly
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