Irish Madness: #16 Seed Play-In Matchups

We're off and running out of the blocks with 4 matchups pitting #16 seeds against each other for the distinction of meeting a #1 seed in the official Round 1.  We here at WeIsND use common sense in referring to the numerical rounds of competition, unlike some other "Madness" tournaments.  But that's neither here nor there - let's get to some matchup breakdowns!

1963: Syracuse 14 - ND 7   vs.   1985: @#4 Miami 58 - ND 7

Leading off with some throw back games that share a common thread - both happened to be the last on the sideline for their respective coaches.  Joe Kuharich's tenure came to a merciful end at the hands of the Orangemen (nice to see programs crossed the p.c. line back in the 60's).  Renowned as the only Notre Dame coach with a losing record, Kuharich stumbled to a 17-23 mark over 4 seasons from 1959-1963.  His overall winning percentage could have been worse seeing as the week before the Syracuse game, ND's game against Iowa was cancelled in the wake of the JFK assassination.  

If you didn't click on the link above with the score of the game - do so now for some terrific old reel footage of the game.  Your ears will perk at 0:20 when Syracuse's fullback's name is given.  I imagine Kuharich's players could have guessed he wouldn't be returning for the '64 season, but at least they gave the throngs of fans that packed Yankee Stadium a nice diversion from the national tragedy, as the announcer remarks, "The South Benders are playing inspired football."  

On the other side of the overmatched coach playoff stands Gerry Faust, who amassed a 30-26-1 mark in 5 seasons, but gets credit for leaving some bowls and silverware in the cupboard for Coach Lou.  And for recruiting Tim Brown.  As for the blowout in South Beach, I'll let Jeremy describe its memorableness:

"’85 Miami was a terribly miserable game for any ND fan.  But the reason why it probably takes this matchup is that it helped to stoke the flames and led to what became perhaps the most heated football college football rivalry of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.  The teams only played a handful of times during that stretch, but every game felt like the fate of the world rested upon the outcome.  Good vs. Evil.  Catholics vs. Convicts.  And Lou could always point back to the 1985 game any time he wanted to stir up the Lads and inflame their emotions."

So do you like your exiting coaches to go out with the semblance of a fight or a complete thud?  A loss that rings in the Era of Era or a loss that gives birth to a truly riveting, albeit short-lived rivalry.  You decide.  

2010: Michigan 28 - @ND 24   vs.   2011: @Michigan 35 - ND 31

Two classic "memorable for all the wrong reasons" games.   Choose your weapon of Denard destruction as back-to-back heart-wrenchers welcomed Brian Kelly's first two meetings in this rivalry.  Both crushing comebacks occurred inside of 30 seconds, ripping victory away in the same manner UM's weasel mascot steals breakfast from the gentle marmot.  The 2010 game lacked the spectacular back and forth see-sawing of leads that the 2011 game delivered.  But what '10 lacked in theatrics, it made up for in pure, unadulterated brain farts.  Exhibit A: Denard 87-yard run untouched. Exhibit B: Kyle Rudolph slips past secondary for 95-yard go-ahead TD.  Exhibit C: BK's QB roulette was in full bloom with 3 untested signal callers getting the opportunity to underwhelm. Particularly love the last plays of each half with Nate Montana and Dayne Crist throwing the final jump ball attempt a combined 27 yards deep of the end zone.  Wowzers.   

As for the 2011 game...you know what, I've written too much about these nightmares.  The less I write and you think about either of these games, the better.  One must advance, but the cruel fate of getting pummeled by their in-state brethren awaits. 

1994: #6 Michigan 26 - @#3 ND 24   vs.   1996: #4 Ohio St 29 @#5 ND 16

When top 10 heavyweight programs square off in the House That Rock Built, magic is often in the air.  Unfortunately, these two Saturdays mixed the wrong potion and ended up with black magic spoiling the day.  

I vividly recall watching the '94 Michigan game (the last time both schools squared off both ranked in the top 10, btw) in the parking lot of a Ft. Wayne high school parking lot in between matches of a high school tennis invitational.  What I don't remember is how much punishment I handed out to my next opponent in my inconsolable state after Todd Collins bested Ron Powlus in The Shootout in South Bend.  Derrick Mayes's corkscrew turning TD grab is one of the greatest clutch catches I've ever seen.  Listen to the announcer positively gushing about Powlus.  It's as if Beano Cook is in the production van singing Powlus sweet nothings in his earpiece.  For such euphoria to be swept away as time expires by the leg of Remy Freaking Hamilton still galls me.  

1996 turned out to be Holtz's swan song.  If this game had turned out differently, maybe the team marches on to contend for the title...maybe Lou doesn't leave...maybe a better succession plan than DC Bob Davie gets worked out... who knows.  The Irish had just gone to Austin and stolen a victory from #6 Texas, with another top 5 foe waiting for them the following week.  Except the Buckeyes were the better team, immediately, running back the opening kickoff inside the 15-yard line.  It seemed all downhill from there as the drama on the field never matched the fanfare of hosting Ohio State for the first time since the 1935 Game of the Century. 

1991: #13 Tennessee 35 - @#5 ND 34   vs.   2007: Navy 46 - @ND 44

Two down to the wire finishes that stand at opposite ends of the memorable spectrum.  If underdogs and sportsmanship and swaying and frozen ropes of snot and streak-stoppers and hitting rock bottom as a program appeals to you, the '07 loss to the Midshipmen amidst the Losingest Season Ever checks all the boxes.  

On the other hand, the "The Miracle in South Bend," as Rocky Toppers affectionately refer to this '91 game, was exceptionally high caliber.  The Irish happened to be on the wrong end of a comeback for the ages.  When Rick Mirer takes a long sack off of a broken play, it sets up a longer than it should have been field goal for Craig Hentrich.  Big deal, we thought in the stands, sitting comfortably on a 31-7 near the end of the 1st half.  The field goal was blocked, Hentrich was injured (he couldn't kick the game winning FG with :04 left) and momentum decided to wear orange from there on out.   

                                                              * * * * *

Those are your play-in game matchups.  Which resonate more with you?  Cast your vote on the right side of the page, leave your comments here or send Tweets to @WeIsNotreDame, spread the word about #IrishMadness and check back in the coming days for more matchup breakdowns and the next batch of memorable games to vote on. 

Irish Madness - The Quest for the Most Memorable ND Football Game

It's been more than 4 months since ND played for the National Championship.  The Blue-Gold game is now in our rearview mirror.  To keep ND football in the forefront and piggyback on the glow of the magical 2012 season, we've created an entertaining experiment: a 4-region bracket tournament that decides once, and until the next time someone does this, The Most Memorable Game in Notre Dame Football History*

Of course we'll hang an asterisk on this endeavor from the get-go.  Since very few, if anyone who may actually read this, have first-hand memories of the Rockne and Leahy dynasties, we limited the pool of entrants to the last 5 decades of ND football.  So 1960 is the first year our selection committee considered.  To equitably fill the bracket, each decade received 13 games each, with 3 wildcard selections rounding out a full 68-game bracket.

Fittingly, the four #1 seed games represent the last four championship seasons of 1966, 1973, 1977 and 1988.  Since "Memorable" doesn't discriminate between victory and defeat (though certainly we remember more fondly the wins), 19 Irish losses litter the bracket, some even "favorites" in early rounds, according to seed.  Did some memorable games not make the cut?  Of course.  Not surprisingly, the "snubs" were mainly games of recent vintage, many of which were stinging losses of varying pain thresholds.  But we feel confident the selection committee chose the most appropriate games for the bracket.  For giggles, we'll even post a "snub" list of the top 25 snubbed games for them to stew about in their media guides.

As you can see on the right side of the page, there are multiple polls of matchups, the first of which are the four play-in matchups pitting all #16 seeds striving for sacrificial lamb status in the main draw.  As the bracket progresses, we'll keep updating the voting windows with new matchups and welcome you back often to continue casting your deciding vote on the games you think are the most memorable.  What makes memorable you ask?  All in the eye of the beholder.

There's "memorable" for all the right reasons, like the '92 Snow Bowl with its unforgettable images, and there's "memorable" for all the wrong reasons, like Navy ending their ignominious losing streak in 2007.  This bracket brings you games of all kinds: heavyweight bowl game showdowns, top 10 rivalry grudge matches, riveting comebacks, equally riveting comebacks that fall just short, plays that take your breath away, drama that unfolds in waves, challenges for the #1 throne, with more than a couple #1 vs. #2 armageddon-type stakes.

These are the games that spin generational yarns, eliciting a touch of embellishment with each re-telling.  These are the games that crystallize those "I remember when..." moments, lending a personal gravitas to the memories of a game that you'd never trade.  These are the games that you witnessed in person with your dad, or watched with your uncles in the den, or a group of buddies at the pub, and still talk about that day in reverential tones.  These are the games that define Notre Dame coaches and players' legacies.

These games are the reason you meet Shawn Wooden backstage at an Umphrey's McGee show and instead of saying "A pleasure to meet you, I enjoyed watching you play" you shout "Bat it down! Batted down!"  And he relishes every second of the encounter that detours down memory lane...at least I think he did.

So enjoy this experiment and the blasts from the past, both near and far.  Please carry on any and all arguments/cheers of support in the comments section of each matchup breakdown and on Twitter: @WeIsNotreDame #IrishMadness

Anthony Crater leaving OSU and considering ND

Big big news out of Columbus this weekend with the decision of freshman point guard Anthony Crater to transfer from Ohio State. I must say that I was shocked to hear it. Crater was a pretty big recruit and the future at point guard for the Buckeyes, and I think he probably would have been starting by the mid-point of this season. He is saying that he didn't like the style of play at Ohio State, and he thought he was going to be starting from day one (he is currently behind a JUCO pg on the depth chart).

Anyway, the article in the Columbus Dispatch seems to indicate that Crater has ND down as one of the schools he is considering. ND has had some good luck with transfers in the past, and I think he would be a good get for the Irish if he has his head on straight. I've only seen Crater in a handful of games, but he has talent and great potential. He's sort of a Tory Jackson type player who can get to the bucket, but he's a good passer and good defender. In the ND style offense, he could be really successful.

ND needs to find a point guard in one of the next two recruiting classes. If we got Crater, he could be ready to play as a backup to Tory by next January and then take over the point guard job in 2010. Could be an intriguing scenario. It would be nice to have another point guard on the roster next year, so that we have don't have growing pains in 2010 of a freshman point guard.

On the other side of the coin is the crumbling empire of Thad Matta and Ohio State basketball. I don't know what is going on with his program, but they can't seem to hold onto guys or create any stability. They've now had 4 one and dones (Oden, Conley, Cook, and Koufos), one more likely one and done (Mullens) who is whispering that he wants out, and two high-profile transfers who left in their freshmen years (Crater and Evan Wallace). That is some serious turnover. If Mullens leaves after this year, this vaunted 2008 recruiting class will basically be wiped out. In other words, it was a complete waste to spend 3-4 years recruiting those guys.

I don't know how Thad is going to ever build a stable program at Ohio State when he has to revamp the roster every year. Matta is creating a scenario where he is going to be relying on freshmen and sophomores every single year. You can't win that way. One of the most important aspects of being a head coach in college is that you need to be a good program manager. You need to have a long term plan for how to build a program in terms of recruiting and roster management. I think Thad Matta is a very good basketball coach, but we've never really had a chance to see him at a program for more than a couple of years. He was only at Butler for 2 years and only at Xavier for 3 years. Now that he's in his fifth year at Ohio State, he's starting to show some serious flaws in terms of building a roster. It seems like Thad is either chasing one and done superstars or JUCOs and marginal guys. There's no middle ground of 4 year quality starter types.

Managing your roster is half the battle in college basketball. If you can't get your players to commit to the team and think long term as being part of the program, you aren't doing your job. Even though I knocked Rick Barnes for his coaching abilities, there is no denying that he knows how to manage a program and keep his blue-chip recruits happy and hungry. Can I take back what I said about Matta compared to Rick Barnes? That might be the dumbest thing I've said.

If I was Thad Matta, I would get out of the AAU scene for awhile. He somehow convinced himself that he needed to get into the AAU scene to win at Ohio State, and I just don't think he's an AAU kinda guy. Matta is a young guy, but he's more of an old school coach who likes to win with defense. And yet I'm getting the impression from the players and their AAU coaches that Matta was out on the recruiting trail promising all these guys that they'd be starting from day one and that the team would be up-tempo and that they'd build the offense around them. Those are flat-out lies. It's almost like Thad told his recruits whatever they wanted to hear just to get them to come to Ohio State even though he had no intention to follow through with his promises. You can't do that with players, and Thad is going to start getting a bad reputation in the AAU world if he doesn't watch it. Koufos's high school coach was bashing Thad last spring, and now we have Crater's AAU coach just killing Thad in the paper. Not a good sign. He has 2-3 "Burger Boys" coming in for 2010, but why wouldn't a guy like Tom Crean or some other coach be calling those guys right now and saying that Thad can't hold onto his players?

If you are going to recruit AAU types, you better be prepared to deal with egos and handlers and all that. And if you tell recruits that you are going to be up tempo and then play slowdown Big 10 basketball, you better be prepared for players to start getting upset and wanting out. Thad is a good coach who can win with rugged Midwest kids who are team players, and that's the type of kids he should be going after for the next few years. Get the 3-4 star types to build a foundation and then go after the right fits from the elite level.

As an ND fan, I like what Mike Brey has done with regards to recruiting. I know he gets some flak from ND fans about his recruiting, but I'd rather have underrated, committed 3 stars than some hot dog 4-5 star who doesn't want to play team ball and starts griping if he isn't getting his shots or minutes or whatever. Brey finds these underrated kids who know how to play the game and care more about the team than their stats.

On second thought, I don't know if I'd even want somebody like Crater on ND's roster unless he really just didn't like Thad and needed a change of scenery. His AAU coach was basically implying that Crater was on the "2-3 year plan" to the NBA, which is complete nonsense. That kid is going to be LUCKY to get drafted after a four year career no matter where he goes.

Finally, I wanted to put in a plug for my man Bob Huggins. When it's all said and done, Bob Huggins will go down as the most underrated basketball coach of the last 25 years in my opinion. He absolutely took Thad Matta to school on Saturday. I've seen him do it for years, so it wasn't exactly a surprise. And for anyone who thinks that Huggins can only win with "thugs", take a look at his WVU teams. Those kids are regular college kids, and he went to the Sweet 16 last year and most likely will have another dangerous team this year.

Huggins is a WINNER, period. He could win anywhere. He won at Walsh College, he won at Akron and took them to the NCAAs, he won UC when they were a hoops dormat, he won at Kansas State, and he is now winning at West Virginia. Huggs is an Ohio guy, and I actually think Ohio State should have hired him a decade ago after Randy Ayers got fired in 1997. He would have been phenomenal at Ohio State, and it's a shame that OSU didn't have the guts to go after him back then.

A turning point for the Irish?

Just wanted to throw out some thoughts on the big ND victory in the Aloha Bowl:

1) Loose, relaxed, healthy, and motivated can go a long way

What a difference it makes for this team to actually play with some confidence. One of the problems that I've noticed with ND football over the last 10 years or so is that we are so uptight out there on the field. Maybe our guys get bogged down with the day to day stuff in South Bend and schoolwork and all that. For whatever reason, there are a ton of guys who are either disappointments or straight up busts at ND that suddenly break out when they get to the NFL. How does that happen?? Is there something in the water at ND that stifles these guys in college??

This team went to Hawaii, relaxed, focused on football, and what do you know. They go out and play their best game in probably 3 years (if not longer). They were flying around, everyone was making plays, and the special teams looked better than it has looked than at any time in the Weis era.

I know it was just Hawaii (who is not a very good team and lost to some bad teams at home this year), but we SMOKED them. Good teams beat bad teams like a drum, and that's exactly what we did in this game. All three phases of the game played well, and everyone contributed. How do we look like gangbusters in the Hawaii Bowl but struggle to beat similar teams (SDSU, Syracuse) during the regular season?? Why can't we replicate that type of performance during the regular season? It's not like this team had a ton of practice time to revamp their team. We had like half a dozen practices before this game, and yet we played our best game.

Maybe our guys have too much on their plate in South Bend. Maybe they have to spend too much time shake alumni hands and going to "functions" and studying and doing all the other non-football stuff (going to mass, etc) that they are worn out by gameday. I really think there might be something to that. For this Hawaii trip, our guys had fun, they bonded, they focused on football, they were isolated from all the South Bend/ND drama, and it worked.

There's always been something strange about ND bringing in all these top 10 players and then watching these guys underachieve. Maybe there is too much "other" stuff going on in South Bend that our players can't focus on football. That's not a Weis problem. It's an ND problem. Football should be about fun, especially in college. ND the school needs to make sure that the players are having fun and enjoying themselves. When the players are enjoying the game, they are more likely to play well.

2) ND looked healthy, but why did they look so unhealthy at the end of the year??

If you looked at Clausen during the Hawaii Bowl and went back and looked at him down the stretch against Navy, Syracuse, and BC, it was like watching a different player. He had zip on the ball, he was stepping into his throws, and he was playing with confidence. Same goes for the linemen. These guys were worn out at the end of the year, but they looked good against Hawaii.

I think a big priority for this team in 2009 is going to be to focus on team conditioining. We were completely gassed in November both mentally and physically. You can't be a winning team if you are sucking wind and breaking down at the end of the year. That has to change if this team is going to be a BCS-caliber team.

Clausen needs to get stronger and get himself in the best shape of his life going into next year. If he breaks down again in the second half of next year, we are going to lose to the Pitts and UConns and Stanfords of the world. The same thing will apply for all of our linemen. We can win the battles up front if we are mentally and physically tougher than our opponents. ND was a soft team this year, and that can't happen again next year if we are going to be good.

3) Should Weis coach from the press box??

Call me crazy, but I actually contemplated this idea for quite a bit during the game. It might not be the worst idea in the world. ND was JACKED UP on the sideline for this game, and guys like Corwin Brown and Haywood were down there firing people up. We need that on the sideline. ENERGY. When Weis is down there, the sideline looks like a morgue. Maybe the players are intimidated by Weis. Maybe he makes them nervous or something.

Word is starting to filter out that Corwin Brown gave the pregame speech of his life before the Hawaii Bowl. I guess Weis let him do the speech, and the players were ready to run through walls for this game. VERRRRRRRRRRRRRY interesting. The same source seems to indicate that the players have to stifle laughter when Weis tries to give a speech. I really think that we might be better off with Brown down there on the field and Weis up in the booth giving his insight.

Weis learned his trade in the booth. He might be more effective up there calling plays and observing things from above. He can leave the motivating and player interaction to Corwin Brown and whoever he brings in as the offensive coordinator. I'm not gonna lie, I like this idea a lot. Play to your strengths. Weis is not a motivator, but he knows schemes and things like that. Corwin Brown is a fiery guy who can handle the sideline stuff.

Just throwing that out there. Weis can still be the head coach in charge of recruiting and the staff and all that, but maybe he should let his staff take more of a role in handling the players. That is not Weis' strength, but it could be a strength for some other guys.

4) Are we the Arizona Cardinals of college football??

This analogy has come up, and I think there's probably a lot of truth to it. We are a pass-happy team that runs into trouble when teams get physical with us and wear us down. By the end of the season, the pass-happy stuff is less effective when the weather starts turning sour.

I hate playing like that, but that is basically who we are. If we could put together a dominant (and physical defense) to go with that offense, it can lead to a winning program.

This team will go as far as Clausen takes us. Let's be honest, Weis doesn't put a whole lot of focus on running the ball, so we are going to need to give Clausen time to throw and make sure that he is healthy enough to carry the offense for a 12 game season.

Weis has put us in position to become a steady 9-10 win team down the road, and I'm actually fine with that. It is certainly an upgrade over the past 10 years. If he continues to recruit well, he could emerge as the John Cooper of Notre Dame. And that's not a knock at all. Cooper had a good run at Ohio State and produced a lot of very good teams. They never got over the hump, but he recruited a lot of great players and increased the overall stature and profile of Ohio State football. They became a big time brand again under Cooper, and Weis may have a similar effect on ND's stature. If Weis continues to recruit well, he'll probably do enough to stay at ND and hopefully produce some really good football teams.

5) How much of a bounce will this win give us going into next year??

I'm not sure, but it certainly helps to go out on a high note. There have been no shortage of teams in recent history (Texas in the Holiday Bowl and Alabama in the Independence Bowl) that have used a bowl win as a springboard into a great offseason and a great season the following year. If guys like Clausen and Tate use this game as an opportunity to take the leadership roles on this team and motivate the guys to come together as a team, we may look back on the Hawaii Bowl as the turning point of this program under Weis.

It's going to be an interesting offseason, and I'm looking forward to seeing what changes are made. I think we'll see some assistant coach changes, and I think we'll see an improved attitude going into next year.

Go Irish. We'll have plenty of coverage of the ND football team in the offseason.

URBAN!!!

Here's the radio interview with Urban Meyer from the other day where he is talking about his dream job still being up in South Bend at Notre Dame. WOW. Color me excited about this possibility. I'm assuming that Urban Meyer would not be interested in leaving Florida until Tim Tebow graduates, but perhaps something could be in line after next year?? Why would Urban Meyer say something like this and possibly jeopardize his recruiting at Florida unless he is actually serious about coming to ND?? Maybe he really does think of the ND job as a "down the road" thing ten years from now, but part of me thinks he is hinting at ND to come after him now.

I'll say this. If Urban Meyer is interested in coming to ND, the people running ND better be ready to move heaven and earth to get him. Offer him whatever he wants, give him whatever concessions he wants to build a championship football program at ND, and then get out of his way. No meddling, no games, no nonsense. Just win baby.

Maybe it is an arrogant thing to say, but the ND job offers something that the Florida job never will: Attention. If you coach at ND, everyone in America knows who you are and what you are all about whether you win or lose. ND is still the most prominent job out there. Florida is a great job in the college football stratosphere with their talent base, fan support, and resources, but it's still very much a regional job. Urban Meyer is a major figure in the Southeast and in the college football world, but the ND job would put him into another level as a sports figure. Urban Meyer can win 10 titles at Florida, but he'd more remembered for winning 1 title at ND. I think Urban Meyer understands that. Florida is a great situation for him to become a championship coach, but I can't see how Florida is his dream job. Meyer is a Catholic who grew up in Ohio and coached as an assistant at ND. I still think there is a lot of pull to the ND job for him, but maybe he wasn't ready to take it in 2004 (partially because ND was caught with its pants down yet again and didn't have any preliminary discussions with him until Ty was fired in December--two months after Florida started talking to him--and partially because Urban knew that the Kevin Whites of the world were clueless about how to give him what he needed to run a major college football program). Now that he's had success at Florida, maybe he's more confident about taking on a high-profile job like the ND job.

And for you clowns who don't want Urban Meyer because he jilted ND in 2004, get over yourselves. Roy Williams turned down North Carolina at one time too because he wasn't ready, but he seems to be doing just fine at North Carolina these days. Meyer wasn't ready for ND in 2004, and ND sure as heck didn't have a clue what they were doing when they half-heartedly pursued him. He was a young guy with a young family, and he probably wanted to make sure he did the right thing for his career and family at the time. If anything, the fact that Urban Meyer didn't take the ND job last time is proof that he's an intelligent guy. If he wants the ND job, ND would be absolutely nuts to not pursue him because of what happened the last time.

Here's a summary of the critical excerpt from the Rakes of Mallow blog.

Host: I think a lot of people were fascinated that you were looking at Notre Dame and the University of Florida and you turned down, what at one time was your dream job. Take us through that again and what was behind your thinking.

Urban: Well, Florida was already in the 11th hour. We met twice with Jeremy Foley and my wife, we were very drawn to Florida. Notre Dame is still my dream job and that hasn't changed. It's just that the time in my life that, to be the head football coach at Notre Dame,
you're on the plane recruiting because you recruit San Diego as hard as you recruit New York as hard as you recruit California, Florida, Texas, Ohio...it's a national recruiting base. I recruited there for 6 years and I spent every night in a hotel, in an airport and I'm
going to be a good father first.

Once my kids are done, maybe some day I'll go coach. I don't know that, that's way down the road. Being a father and being able to recruit the best athletes in America within a five-hour radius of my home, that's why I came to Florida and I thought we could have a great
chance at success.

Bill Parcells

As great as he was a head coach, is it possible that the lasting legacy of Bill Parcells in the NFL is that he’s the greatest GM/personnel director/franchise builder of all-time?? The man has taken over five NFL franchises in his career (Giants, Pats, Jets, Cowboys, and Dolphins) and has turned all of them into winners. Five for five. That’s almost 1/6 of the league. Miami was 0-13 at this time a year ago. Now they are sitting at 8-5.

Hiring Bill Parcells to run your NFL team is just about the safest bet in sports. If you hire Bill Parcells, he is going to come in, evaluate your personnel, identify your needs, bring in players who fit those needs and his vision for a successful team, and then hire a top notch staff to coach them (including himself in the past). I had never even heard of Tony Sparano until he got hired by the Dolphins, and now he’s leading an 8-5 team that was the worst team in the NFL a year ago. Give Parcells a year or two, and he will have you in the playoffs.

One thing that Bill Parcells has always understood that his protégé, Charlie Weis, has never seem to figure out is that everything starts up front in the NFL. Parcells has always been a proponent of big, physical offensive and defensive lines, and that’s where he usually starts with his franchises. If you watched Tony Romo last year, he was never touched when he’d go back to pass. He can thank Parcells for that line. He immediately went to work doing the same thing in Miami with the Jake Long pick (who is looking like a future Pro Bowler). Maybe Charlie Weis will learn this lessons in the offseason.

Crazy thought, after Parcells retires from Miami, maybe the Irish could bring him to South Bend as the “football AD.” Not the business side guy or anything like that, but a GM for football who can come in, identify problems, and make the right hires to get the program back to a championship level. Not sure how much that would cost us or if he’d even be remotely interested, but maybe he’d like to try to rebuild a college franchise one time after all these stints in the NFL.

And Aloha Means Goodbye!

Somewhere Larry Biel and Chad Ford are high-fiving about the Irish coming to the Islands for the Hawaii Bowl. Maybe we could talk Biel into doing the game for ESPN so that we could get a few “Aloha means goodbyes” and “WITH AUTHORITY” lines out of him.

Maybe I’m in the minority on this one, but I like this game for the Irish. Do we belong in the a bowl game at 6-6 after that disastrous finish?? No, not at all. If there were fewer bowl games, we would not have been invited. And to be perfectly honest, I would have had no problem with ND turning down a bowl bid. But let’s be real here. There was no way ND was turning down a bowl game. What schools are turning down bowl bids these days?? Alabama played in the Independence Bowl last year. I don’t even think you are allowed to turn down bowl games anymore. At the end of the day, ND was accepting a bowl bid no matter what.

Considering the other options that were out there, I’m actually pleased with the game that we picked. In my eyes, it’s a win-win situation. If our team actually takes this game seriously, circles the wagons, and wins the game, we could use it as a springboard into next year. Texas went into their Holiday Bowl game last year with something to prove, and they used that game as a rallying point headed into this season. Alabama did the same thing in Shreveport. I hope the ND players view this game as an opportunity and not as some sort of vacation. Hawaii is not a great team by any means, but they at least have somewhat of a name and the game should get a pretty good tv rating being around the Christmas holidays. If we go out and make a statement on national tv, it could be a turning point for this program under Charlie Weis. I’ll be the first to say that I’m not a believer in Charlie Weis, but I hope he views this game as the start on a path to redemption. He better be treating this game as the Super Bowl like Bo Pelini did when he was the interim coach at Nebraska. If he wants to grab some facemasks, I’m all for it.

And if we lose, big deal. This season has been a disaster anyway, so another loss isn’t going to affect our program any more than the Syracuse game or any other loss in the last 15 years.

Recruiting is also going to play a big story here. It sounds like Manti Te’o is still legitimately interested in ND, so we can use this game to put a huge sell on Te’o to come to South Bend. Te’o is the next Rey Maulauga. If we lose this game but pick up Te’o, the trip will have been worth it.

Will I be surprised if we come out flat and lose?? No, of course not. We’ve been uninspired for over two months now, so nothing would be surprise me at this point. Hawaii is a thugged out team playing at home, and I will not be surprised at all if they are in Clausen’s face all night long. They are going to be fired up to play ND, so we better be prepared to match their intensity or it could be a long night.

Kirk Herbstreit said it best last night on the ESPN bowl selection show. Guys like Jimmy Clausen and Tate and company are now juniors. I know they are technically sophomores in class, but it is time for them to start thinking like they are juniors and the leaders of this program. The clock is ticking, and the window is closing up ever so slightly on their careers as hard as it is to believe. If Clausen and company want to be remembered as champions, they need to start with this game in Hawaii. They have reached the crossroads of their ND careers. If they are going to treat Hawaii as vacation to hang out on the beach and drinks mai tais, that’s how they’ll be remembered as ND. But if they go out there and run the Rainbows off the field, they could use it as an opportunity to get focused for 2009 and 2010.

As for the complaining from fans saying that ND should have gone to a different bowl like the Texas Bowl that more fans could have attended, give me a freaking break. The Texas Bowl?? What fans were going to attend the Texas Bowl?? Heck, I have been to 3 road ND games this year and swore that I would go to whatever bowl game the Irish played in, and even I lost all interest in going to the bowl game to see this team after we lost to Syracuse. Fans were not going to be signing up for the Texas Bowl or the Independence Bowl or any bowl that we ended up in. At this point, the bowl game is about the players and the coaches. The players voted to go to Hawaii, and I don’t blame them. If they wanted to go to Hawaii, then that’s cool with me.

Anyway, that’s my take on the Irish bowl game. If people don’t watch to watch, I don’t blame them. If we win 24-21 or something and look lousy, I doubt it will soothe the pain of the god awful season and surely will not clear up the controversy swirling around Charlie Weis. But maybe just maybe the Irish will show up ready to play on Christmas Eve and bring home a big win.

--- As for the Irish hoops team, tough loss on Saturday, but I’m not too stressed out about it. We are what we are. We have an experienced and talented team, but we also aren’t exactly trotting out a roster loaded with five star recruits. We are capable of beating anyone, but we also have enough weaknesses that a good team can beat us on any given day. Ohio State is a good team with a lot of talented young players (every guy on that team is a 4 or 5 star recruit other than the JUCO point guard and there are 3 future NBA players on the roster) and a good coach, they were “up” for the game, we didn’t play well, and they beat us. It happens in college hoops. If we played that game next week, it could be an entirely different story. While we didn’t play well at all, we battled back and showed a lot of heart to make it close.

Some thoughts on some players:

Harangody – Good to see Harangody back in business; hard to complain about 25 points out of him

McAlarney – Ohio State admittedly had a great game plan for us in this game by extending out on our shooters and going all out to shut down Kyle McAlarney. They were blanketing KMac the entire game. Credit to Thad for coming up with that game plan. While I agree that this strategy is a blueprint for beating ND, there are very few teams that are disciplined enough and have the athleticism to execute that strategy. Most teams do not have the discipline to get out on our shooters like OSU did, and KMac will burn those teams. I'm willing to tip my hat to Matta and say that he had a great game plan that his team executed. It happens. There have been plenty of games where Brey had a great game plan against an opposing coach (Rick Barnes, Bill Self, Boeheim, Calhoun, Pitino, etc) and put us in position to win big games. You can't win them all in college basketball, but I'll take my chances with Coach Brey in most games.

As for KMac, he probably needs to find some other ways to contribute and score for this team when the other team is taking away the three. And I’d like to see Brey work on getting McAlarney better looks even when teams are keying on him.

Ayers – Not to bang on Ayers, but we need to get more production out of him in 34 minutes when the other team is concentrating on KMac. 3 boards and 1 assist in 34 minutes to go with 3 3s when he was basically being ignored for most of the game?? Ayers is a senior. We probably need him to be more assertive.

I actually think Ayers is better off coming off the bench. He was better last year off the bench. He’s a little bit like David Graves in that respect.

Speaking of David Graves, they showed a montage of the last ND-OSU game on the scoreboard at the game, and then introduced Graves to the crowd. What a moment! He has packed on some pounds. Graves was always one of my favorite players at ND.

Zeller – As we have seen so many times in the past, Luke Zeller is a bit of a tease on the court. No knock on Zeller (who seems like a great guy from a great family), but he’s not capable of being a major contributor on a big time team. The guy is 6’11” but seems to be incapable of getting inside and banging for rebounds. If he’s not rebounding, he can’t get minutes in big games.

We need some people to step up to fill the void of Rob Kurz on the boards. OSU is not even a good rebounding team, and yet they got way too many second chance opportunities. If Zeller isn't going to give us an inside presence, then Nash needs to play more minutes. Nash should be on a mission to grab defensive rebounds. If I was Brey, I would be pounding that into his head. If we grabbed a few more boards yesterday, we would have won the game.

Bench - Did anyone even score off the bench?? I don't recall Peoples or Nash scoring at all. If a team is going to try to take out McAlarney as a strategy, we need guys like Nash and Zeller and Peoples to step up.

I know Kurz is a loss for this team, but it’s not like he’s Troy Murphy or something. He is replaceable. We have talented young guys who can come up and replace his minutes. Guys like Nash and Hillesland and Ayers need to step it up.

Tough loss on Saturday, but I think we’ll be fine. If we can regroup and get off to a good start in the Big East, we can put this loss behind us.

Notre Dame-Ohio State at the Luke

Man, there are some great sporting events this weekend. I couldn't be more excited about the college football and basketball that we'll have at our disposal on Saturday. I'm headed to Indy for the Lucas Oil doubleheader. Should be an outstanding event.

Some quick thoughts on the ND-Ohio State game.

1) No Harangody - How will we respond to playing without our best player on Saturday?? With the announcement that Harangody is not playing on Saturday, it seems like people are starting to worry about the game against the Buckeyes.

Guess I'm just not that worried about how we'll play without Harangody. Luke is obviously a very important part of our team, but Mike Brey coached teams have never shied away from lighting it up on the perimeter. Until Harangody arrived on campus, we were a perimeter-oriented team. As long as guys like McAlarney and Ayers are knocking down shots from the outside, we'll find ways to score plenty of points. Ohio State relies on a zone defense this year, so KMAC and Ayers will get plenty of looks from three point land. Harangody will be missed, but I expect that we'll use a Harangody-by-committee to make up for him.

Harangody is not exactly a premier defender, so we won't suffer much if at all defensively. I am a little worried about our rebounding, but Ohio State is even shakier on the boards than us. I've watched every Buckeye game this year, and they are not a good rebounding team at all. They are starting a 6'4" power forward (David Lighty) who is not exactly a power rebounder. BJ Mullens and Dallas Lauderdale are their other big men, and both those guys are very raw and still learning how to play college basketball.

2) Tory Jackson - Tory is always a key player for the Irish, and he has a great matchup on Saturday. Ohio State is currently starting a junior college transfer, Jeremie Simmons, at the point, and their backup point guard is a highly-touted freshman, Anthony "Noopy" Crater. Simmons is a pretty good shooter, but he's still getting into the flow of the Buckeye offense. He doesn't appear to be a guy who can get to the bucket and distribute. Crater looks like he has some potential, but he hasn't played that many minutes so far.

Either way, Tory Jackson is an experienced, All Big East caliber junior. Big mismatch in favor of the Irish.

3) ND supporting cast - With no Harangody, we are going to need the Zellers and Hilleslands and Nashes to step it up.

Just a hunch, but I have a feeling that Hillesland might have a nice day on Saturday. With his size and skill set, he has a potential mismatch on Lighty if he takes advantage of it.

4) Experience - KEY factor in this game. Ohio State is a VERY young team. Ridiculously young. They start 3 true sophomores, 1 junior, and a JUCO transfer at point guard. Their bench is basically all freshmen. I think they will be much better at the end of the year, but they are going to have some struggles until guys discover their roles on this team.

From what I have seen about Ohio State, they are very streaky. When they get a little confidence, they can get into a rhythm offensively. But on the whole, they have problems scoring. In that Miami game, they could not do anything offensively in the first half, and they had a lot of games like that last year. It just seems like they are going to need some time until they start to gel as a team. In college basketball, you need defined roles, and you need to know who can rely on game in and game out. While I think Ohio State has some big time talent, they've had issues last year and this year with guys being on the same page.

On the other hand, this Notre Dame team seems like it has been together for 10 years. Ayers, Jackson, KMac, Hillesland, and Zeller have been playing together for 3 years. They have experienced just about every situation in every environment. There are very few teams in the country as experienced as this Notre Dame team. The Maui trip was a great way to get our team ready for the season right out of the chute, so we should be in midseason form heading into Saturday.

5) Buckeyes young guns -

I've watched most of the Buckeyes' games so far, so here's my quick rundown on their key players.

Evan Turner - sophomore shooting guard; probably the best all-around player on the team, but he is still very inconsistent. Case in point, he picks up two charges in the first five minutes of the Miami game, sits out for about 18 minutes, and then dominates the last 15 minutes of the game. He's going to be a star if he stays all four years at Ohio State, but he's not ready to be the go-to guy just yet. He's a slasher with a good mid-range game, but probably needs to work on his shot. Turner is a good defender, good passer and playmaker, but he's not quite ready to carr the team at this point.

Jon Diebler - Probably the most controversial player on the Buckeyes team; highly-touted, all time leading scorer in Ohio high school hoops history, but he was turrrrrrible last year. He just didn't seem to be ready physically for D-I hoops, but he has looked much better this year as a sophomore. Very streaky shooter who can absolutely light it up when he's hot. Should be an interesting matchup with Ryan Ayers.

BJ Mullens - Mullens came to Ohio State as a five star recruit and likely NBA lottery pick, but I haven't seen it with this guy yet. He's a legit 7 footer, but I haven't been as impressed with him athletically as I thought I would be. He's still pretty raw, and sort of lumbering. I don't know, maybe he's just not comfortable in D-I hoops yet, but Mullens is a long way from being a big time player. At the moment, he's not even starting for the Buckeyes. His biggest strength at the moment is rebounding, but he's pretty soft defensively and hasn't shown much offensively yet.

Dallas Lauderdale - Yet another sophomore. This dude is a physical freak with a big time body and a 7'3" winspan. Looks like he should be playing tight end for the Buckeyes. He's still very raw though and has limited offensive skills. He's been starting at the center spot, but he's basically splitting time with Mullens. Lauderdale has a bright future if he keeps working on his game.

William Buford - Five star freshman recruit who has not played a whole lot so far. I'll say this about Buford. He might be the most talented player on the team. Honest to god, he has a Lebron type body, and he can jump and shoot. But he also looks like a typical freshman who doesn't know what he's doing. I don't expect to see him much in the game against ND though.

The Buckeyes have some serious talent in the freshman and sophomore classes, but these guys are all really inconsistent. If Thad can actually hang onto some of them, they could be a real good team down the road.

6) Michael Montgomery Brey vs. Thaddeus Montgomery Matta!! -- Two of my favorite coaches in all of sports and two of the classiest guys you will ever see. Should be fun to see those two pacing the sidelines on Saturday. Hopefully Brey will be sporting his trademark mock turtleneck, and hopefully Thad will be chomping on that bubble gum.

Quick Thad update: It seems like his foot still hasn't healed. His limp has been even worse this year. Sounds like the nerve damage in his foot may not ever be fixed, so the talk is that his condition may become permanent. He's been using a cane at times this year. Very sad stuff. I hope for the best for Coach Matt.

Pick: ND 75 Ohio State 65

ND has too much experience for the Buckeyes in this game. We obviously need some people to step up without Harangody, but I feel confident about this game. The Buckeyes could be formidable down the road, but they are still growing up as a team. ND has already grown up, and guys like Tory and KMac have been playing in these types of games for years. We are battled tested, and will be ready to go.

Coach Stays

Some thoughts on the latest news from ND football:

7) While I personally would have preferred to part ways with Weis after this season, I can’t say that I am surprised at all that a decision was made to bring Weis back next year. What indication did Swarbrick give at any point that he planned to make a coaching change?? He publicly defended Weis during the Navy game after that horrific performance at Boston College, and he said heading into the USC game that he intended to sit down with Weis after the season. And yet somehow internet message board posters interpreted that to mean that the “silence is deafening” and a bunch of other nonsense. The people on NDNation seemed to believe that Swarbrick was conducting some sort of super secret coaching search prior to his scheduled meeting with Weis. Other than blind hope, where do people come up with this stuff?? If anything, the silence from Swarbrick immediately after the season was a strong indication that Weis was coming back next year. If he was going to get fired, why not announce it the day after the USC game?? What school has ever waited two weeks before announcing that their coach is fired??

Swarbrick has been the AD at Notre Dame for 5 months. When he got hired to be the AD at ND, he most likely assumed that his biggest tasks would be to oversee the renovation of the JACC, be the lead negotiator on the BCS deal and a possible new Notre Dame tv network, and figuring out ways to raise cash for the school. He's not a football guy at all. What credentials does Swarbrick have to identify a football coach?? He has zero football background. I would bet that everyone reading this blog knows more football than Swarbrick. He wasn't in any position to make a critical evaluation of the head football coach. ND could have gone out and found an AD who knows sports and has experience in making these types of coaching evaluations, but they went in a different direction and hired a guy who specializes in contract law and business negotiations. If there was ever any doubt about where the priorities of the priests running ND are, that is your answer.

6) This decision may also be a timing thing. Perhaps Swarbrick just thought that a change this year was bad timing, and he wanted to wait a year to see if some things fall into our lap. That actually makes sense to me. We've had bad luck on timing in past coaching searches, so maybe Swarbrick just needs another year to see how the team plays and to see if any big coaching moves open up a path for a big name to come to ND. What if Urban Meyer goes to the NFL or something, fails, and wants to come back to college?? Plus, maybe Brian Kelly goes 11-1 next year and wins a BCS bowl over a big time team and becomes an obvious "tier 1" candidate. A lot can change in the next year. Let's be honest, half the ND fanbase would have freaked out if we had announced Chris Peterson as the new ND head coach next week.

At the end of the day, one more year to see what Weis can do isn't going to kill the program. He's still recruiting well. If he stinks again, he's probably done. By then, we’ll have another whole year of data to judge the young coaches and see if any of the big names get restless. Guys like Brian Kelly and Chris Peterson will still be around next year for us to look at. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to see if Brian Kelly can continue to win at UC. If he wins big again next year, ND fans might feel like he is a safer bet than he is right now.

And if Weis is great next year, then it was worth it to keep him around.

5) Since it appears that the buyout was a prohibitive factor for firing Weis this year, isn’t the buyout going to be a potential problem again next year if we have another disappointing season?? If the buyout is $20 million this year, isn’t it still going to be $17 or so million next year?? At some point, we are going to be in the unfortunate position of ponying up some serious cash to dump Weis.

This buyout thing is remarkable to me. We handed Weis a GUARANTEED $30 million with no out clause after a half season of football. How is that even possible?? I swear, ND burns through money like no one else.

4) What is the over/under going to be on wins next year now that Weis is coming back?? I’d probably put it in the 7.5-8 range.

S05 NEVADA
S12 @ Michigan
S19 MICHIGAN ST.
S26 @ Purdue
O03 WASHINGTON
O17 SOUTHERN CAL
O24 BOSTON COLLEGE
O31 Washington St. (SA)
N07 NAVY
N14 @ Pittsburgh
N21 CONNECTICUT
N28 @ Stanford

On paper, that schedule looks easy, but is there a lock win on there other than Navy and maybe Wazzou considering how poorly we played down the stretch??

Nevada – They were 7-5 this year, but they put up over 500 yards of offense a game. Sounds like most of their team will be back next year. Could be a scary game in the opener

Michigan – Tough to really say what they will look like next year, but I would hazard a guess that they will be better. Perhaps much better. Still have the QB issues going into next year, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a true freshmen QB (either Forcier or Beaver) is starting against us. Rich Rodriguez is a good coach though, so I expect them to be better. Nothing is ever easy in the Big House.

Michigan State – No Javon Ringer next year, but Dantonio is a good coach who has created a winning environment in East Lansing.

Purdue – No Painter or Sheets or Orton plus a new coach. Purdue will be one of the 2-3 worst teams in the Big 10 next year.

Washington – Another school that will be tough to get a read on. How long will it take for them to recover from the malaise of the Willingham era?? We’ll probably have to keep an eye on who they bring as a head coach for next year. If they hire a Mike Leach type coach, they could become a dangerous team overnight.

USC – I know it’s a home game, but we are light years away from USC as a football program. USC playing Notre Dame is not that much different than USC going to play teams like Arizona and Stanford these days.

BC – This game is coming after the USC game, BC is always fired up to play ND, and they have spanked us the last two years. Not a whole lot else that needs to be said. I’m counting BC as a likely loss until proven otherwise.

Washington St – This team will be the Syracuse of 2009. An atrocious team that we have no business losing to.

Navy – Gimme game

Pitt – Sounds like LeSean McCoy is coming back, which instantly makes them a pretty tough team. We also probably will not have the luxury of playing them without Bill Stoll next year. Most of their team is back next year, so I expect them to be ranked when we play them.

Connecticut – There is absolutely no reason we should lose to UConn at home, but they will probably treat this game like the Super Bowl. We better be ready to go.

Stanford – Harbaugh has not turned the corner with this program yet, but I get the impression that they are close. I’m predicting 8 wins for the Cardinal next year.

It’s certainly not a tough schedule, but there is one heavyweight (USC), 4-5 toss ups (Michigan, MSU, BC, Pitt), 4-5 potentially feisty underdogs (Nevada, Washington, Connecticut, Stanford), and 3 likely gimmes (Purdue, Washington St, Navy). I could see ND surging to 10 wins, but I could very easily see 8 wins or even 6 again.

3) What type of record are ND fans looking for?? 9 wins? 10? BCS game?? If Weis goes 8-4 next year, is ND going to fire him?? I can’t see it. I honestly don’t think he’s in any real danger of getting fired even after next year unless he goes 6-6 again. ND has committed $30 million to this guy. He is likely going to be around longer than next year as long as he shows improvement.

I will likely go to a bunch of games next year and talk myself into the Irish being better next year, but I have to say that I am very apathetic about this program at the moment. It's hard to get excited about Charlie Weis now that we have seen what his teams have done the last two years. ND is the most underachieving program in the country at the moment, and it's obvious to anyone who watches this team on a regular basis. That fact is incredibly frustrating.

Stay tuned to WEISND throughout the offseason for more thoughts on the upcoming season and what Charlie Weis needs to do to get this program back on track.

2) Speaking of coaching changes, I am a fan of what Tennessee did with the Lane Kiffin hire. There’s some risk of course considering his age and lack of head coaching experience, but look at his pedigree. He was the offensive coordinator at USC at the age of 30, he’s got football in his bloodlines, learned under Pete Carroll how to run a program, and he actually did some nice things with the Raiders in spite of the complete incompetence of that organization. It appears that he has hired a good staff with Ed Orgeron likely coming on board and possibly Kiffin’s dad, Monte Kiffin.

Phil Fulmer had a successful career at UT, but the guy was running the program into the ground the last few years. Tennessee needed to find a Bruce Pearl type figure who could get out there and sell the program nationally. Kiffin has the energy and connections to do that. I’d rather take a chance on a Lane Kiffin than hire some retread coach. He may be a bust, but he may end up becoming the next Bob Stoops. At least he has a high ceiling. Might as well roll the dice.

As great as the SEC has been the last few years, things are always cyclical in college football. Florida and Bama appear to be poised to dominate that conference as long as their coaches are there, but there is a lot of room to move in the rest of that conference. LSU may have already peaked as a program (more on that later), Auburn is declining, Spurrier might be retiring from South Carolina, and Georgia had a disappointing year. If Kiffin can put some life into that Tennessee offense over the next few years, he could quickly move them up towards the top of the SEC. And if Urban Meyer jumps ship at some point, the SEC East could be wide open.

Tennessee might be down now, but they have a brand name and tradition. It is going to take a lot of work for Kiffin to recruit and rebuild that program, but it can be done. Good hire.

1) Finally, I know I mentioned it last week, but I cannot believe that Oklahoma is getting a free pass to the title game in spite of their history of choking in big bowl games. I watched a good chunk of the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game last weekend, and I just don’t see it with this Oklahoma team. No one is playing any defense in the Big 12!!! Bradford goes back to pass and has 3 wide open receivers to choose from. Does anyone really think he’d be able to do that against Florida or USC?? Those teams would punch OU in the mouth right out of the chute, and they would fold just like they have in other big bowl games. I would bet any amount of money that USC would beat Oklahoma on a neutral field. How are the Trojans any less qualified to play in the title game than OU?? They both have lost one game. OU might have a better loss this year, but USC has always proven that they are the best big game program in the country. That should count for something.

I don’t know what is going on in the Big 12 these days, but the defenses in that league are atrocious. Bad tackling, very soft, and completely overmatched by the offensive firepower. Maybe these Big 12 teams just put their best athletes on offense or something.

I cannot wait to bet against Oklahoma in the title game. I think they are a good team, but I have a feeling that they are about to get exposed.

Around the Nation: Get Off Charlie's Back

Some thoughts from the weekend.

13. Before we get to any of the other major college football stories out there, I wanted to address the reaction to the final minutes of the ND-Navy. After scanning the ND message boards, I have to say that I am stunned at the meltdown from ND fans to this game. People are acting like the Navy game was the final straw for them as supporters of Charlie Weis. Really???

I'll be the first to say that there are good reasons to question Charlie Weis and whether he is the right fit to lead this program back to an elite level. If you are tired of seeing a kick return unit that can't get past the 20 yard line, I can understand why you would question Charlie Weis. If you are wondering why our running game only comes alive when we are playing teams like Navy and Purdue and the 2008 version of Washington, I get that. If you are worried that USC is going to shove us around for 60 minutes and make us look like schoolgirls even though Weis has had four offseasons to develop a physically tough football team, I'm right there with you.

But if you came to some sort of major conclusion about Weis because of some fluky things that happened in the last couple minutes of a game that the Irish were winning handily, I think that's an unfair evaluation. Give Charlie a break on that stuff. I was as frazzled as anyone about the last couple minutes of the game, but it doesn't take away from the fact that we completely dominated Navy for most of the game, that our defense played disciplined and pretty much shut down Navy's attack, and that we imposed our will in the running game. Charlie had our team ready to play, and we had a good gameplan on offense and defense. He deserves credit for putting us in position to win that game.

The stuff at the end of the game was a complete wildcard. It was the equivalent of a college basketball team down by 20 with 3 minutes to go hitting a bunch of threes to make the game interesting. It happens. Navy had several miraculous plays and some major help from the referees to make the game interesting, but it still doesn't take away from the fact that the Irish played well on Saturday.

Personally, I didn't have a problem with the decision to put in the backups when the monsoon rolled in. Our players had been dropping like flies, and Charlie made the call to get the backups in there to protect the starters and to get the backups some playing time. I have no beef with that decision at all. The only adjustment I would like to see in that scenario is that we keep running our normal offense with the backups. Do what we were doing in the fourth quarter. If we score some extra touchdowns, fine by me. You don't need to feel bad about running up the score if you have your backups in. Let the guys go out and do their thing. It is good for team morale. I think Charlie will learn from this game and make some adjustments. No reason to get all bent out of shape about it.

In the big picture, a win over Navy, no matter what the final score is, is meaningless for making a call on the Charlie Weis era. Beating a team with zero major college players on the roster is not a game that we can take much away from in terms of how good of a football team we are. However, Charlie should not be getting this much heat for the result of the Navy game. He put us in position to win, and that's all that I expect out of him on a week to week basis. I don't really care what happened in the final few minutes. We played well for 58 minutes, and that's all that matters to me.

Get off Charlie's back about this game. He has a great chance to keep it going with the running game next week against Syracuse, and then we'll really find out about this team when we head to the LA Colisseum. I have my doubts about how competitive we can be at USC, but I'm not going to get all hot and bothered about Charlie because of the Navy game. He did what he needed to do. I hope the team builds on this and continues to get better.

12. Of all the troubled programs in college football, the one that stands out for me as the worst of the worst is the Florida State Seminoles. I am not normally one to pass judgment on other programs for being "renegades" since all NCAA programs are at least somewhat corrupt (and I have very little high ground as a UC hoops fan and Bob Huggins supporter), but the FSU program is completely out of control. What a bunch of nugs. They look like a freaking prison team out there. Constant suspensions and player misconduct, no discipline, players getting injured celebrating, fights breaking out left and right, and then a postgame meltdown from Parker Posey that was one of the worst displays of sportsmanship I've ever seen in a game. FSU's program has become an abomination. I honestly would be embarrassed to be an FSU fan these days. They are the most classless and undisciplined team in the country.

I think the NCAA needs to step in and deliver some sanctions to FSU or threaten to shut down their program for awhile. There is absolutely no place for their antics in college football. If FSU doesn't get their act together, I really think it's time for them for them to banned from the sport for a year or two.

11. Here is a name I don't want to see on any future Notre Dame coaching searches:

Jeff Tedford

Why is everyone so in love with this guy?? Here is his record year by year at Cal:

2002: 7-5 (4-4)
2003: 8-6 (5-3)
2004: 10-2 (7-1)
2005: 8-4 (4-4)
2006: 10-3 (7-2)
2007: 7-6 (3-6)
2008: 6-3 (4-2)
Overall: 55-29 (33-21)

That's a pretty nice record, but people talk about this guy like he's some sort of miracle worker. He's coaching at Cal. It's a state school in one of the three best talent states in the country. I've watched Cal. They have talent. Marshawn Lynch went there. Desean Jackson was a top 5 recruit. Tedford has done a nice job recruiting, but it's not like he's selecting from a pool of Ivy Leaguers or something. He's winning about 8 games a year with pretty good talent and has a good reputation for developing quarterbacks. Sound familiar?? How is that any different than Charlie Weis?? Don't we already have that same guy on our sideline right now?? If I had a choice between Tedford or an alum like Weis who is familiar with ND and has built recruting ties around the country, I'll take Weis all day.

Plus, I don't want any coaches from the Pac 10 next time around. The next head coach at ND should be from the Midwest, preferably with some ties to Indiana/Illinois/Ohio. Think about all the coaches who have ties to Ohio. Urban Meyer is from Ohio and coached under Earle Bruce at Ohio Staet. Bob Stoops is a product of Cardinal Mooney High School in Youngstown, Ohio (the home of the McCarthy brothers). Pete Carroll was an assistant at Ohio State. Nick Saban grew up in Ohio and was the head coach at Toledo. Dantonio is from Ohio. Tressel is from Ohio. Bo Pelini is from Ohio. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

And if you go back at look at ND's history with coaches, two of our greatest coaches ever were Midwestern guys with significant Ohio ties. Lou Holtz - played college ball at Kent State and grew up at the knee of Woody Hayes at Ohio State. And Ara Parseghian grew up in Ohio, went to Miami(Ohio) under Woody, and later had a great tenure as the head coach at Miami.

I know there are some good coaches from the South (Bowden, Mack Brown, Richt, Butch Davis) and that there are coaching trees that have stemmed from places besides the Midwest, but I still think we are better off with a Midwestern guy. ND is in the Midwest. I want the next coach of Notre Dame to be a guy who learned football in this area.

10. Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuke. Watch out America. The Luke Harangody train has picked up even more steam from last year. Can we settle on a nickname for him besides Gody?? The "Mongoose" moniker has been floating out there for awhile. I'm all for it.

Too early to get excited about Luke Zeller?? I feel like he teases us in the nonconference every year. I'd like to see that type of production in conference play.

Gotta love Carl Scott. He is going to be a very good player for us someday.

I am salivating for an ND-UNC final in Maui with Harangody and Hansborough squaring off against each other.

9. This "Sabathia to the Yankees" thing is too good to be true. I like CC and no doubt think he's a great pitcher in his prime, but I would be scared to death to throw $140 million at him. With the mileage on his arm and the stretch drive from last year in Milwaukee, there is substantial risk to signing him. Plus, CC doesn't strike me as a New York guy, and he may decide to put on 50 pounds after signing a long term deal. It may work out for a couple years, but are the Yankees really going to be anywhere close to competing in the next couple years??

Look at that roster. It suddenly got really weak in a very short period of time. Who are the stars in that lineup other than ARod and Jeter (who is declining)?? And their rotation can't carry them either. CC would be a legit ace for them and Joba can be great if healthy, but they aren't beating the Red Sox or the Rays in the next couple years with that team. I don't see CC taking them to the next level, and there is a lot of potential downside to that signing.

I really think the Yankees are headed for a late 80s/early 90s type malaise. For all the fuss about Brian Cashman, how many great young players has he produced since he has been with the Yankees?? Joba, maybe Cano. I can't think of too many other guys. I have never understood why Cashman gets as much hype as he does. Their farm system is nothing special and hasn't been for many years. The quickest way for the Yankees to become great again is to start producing elite young players who can either come up to the big leagues or be traded for young stars (ie- Red Sox trading Hanley for Beckett).

8. The only thing I really could definitively tell from the ND-Navy game is that Armando Allen should be getting the large bulk of the carries. While Robert Hughes came on in the second half when Navy was out of gas, he was lousy in the first half and took us out of a drive with a poor run on a sweep. I like Allen. He fights for yards, he catches the ball, he's got vision, and he hits the hole. It seems like our offense has issues when he's not in the game. If I was Charlie, I would be giving him the ball 75% of the time and then giving the leftovers to Hughes and Aldridge. And it sounds like Cierre Wood is a rich man's Armando Allen. He should be a good fit in our one back offense.

The Floyd and Brian Smith injuries are not going to help for the USC game, so it's time for some other guys to step up. The mark of a quality program is that we have the depth to put in quality players when guys go down. Duval Kamara and Toryan Smith...come on down.

7. Can you imagine how much heat Billy Gillespie must be under in Lexington for losing that game at home to VMI on Friday night?? Yikes. I like Gillespie a lot and think he has the ability to make UK great again based on his history at lesser schools and what he is doing on the recruiting trail, but fans down there are not exactly the most patient folks. If he has another middling year this year and Travis Ford lights a spark into the Oklahoma State Cowboys, there could be quite a bit of clamoring for Travis Ford to come home to Lexington.

6. Now that ND is bowl eligible, where are we going for the bowl game?? It seems like most projections have us in the Gator Bowl, but there is some talk of ND in the Sun Bowl or the Insight Bowl. I would love to get a better read on where we are going because it's getting to be about that time to start making plans for bowl game trips. I am hoping that we end up down in the Gator Bowl. Jacksonville isn't my favorite city, but any chance to get down to Florida during the holiday season to see the Irish is fine by me.

Should be interesting to see who we get matched up against. It is looking more and more likely that Miami (Fl) is going to win the ACC this year. Color me impressed with the Canes this year. I was a doubter, but their defense is really coming alive. The future may actually be bright down in Coral Gables. That upcoming Ohio State-Miami(FL) home and home in 2010-2011 is starting to look VERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRY interesting.

The rest of the ACC pecking order seems to change on a weekly basis. ND would be slated to face the #3 team in the ACC, but I can't get a grip on who that team is likely going to be. FSU?? Maryland? BC? Virginia Tech? North Carolina??

While a win over any of those teams is hardly a foregone conclusion (far from it), I would take my chances with any of them. If the Irish get better during the bowl prep and show up ready to play, we would have a chance to win a bowl game.

5. The WEISND week 12 Heisman poll:

5. Tim Tebow
4. Colt McCoy
3. Graham Harrell
2. Sam Bradford
1. Michael Crabtree

I thought about who the best player in the country is right now, and I kept coming back to Michael Crabtree. The guy has 18 touchdown catches. And he's the best player on a top 5 team. If they beat OU and go undefeated, Harrell or Crabtree has to win this award.

4. The scary part of what Florida is doing is that they are incredibly young. Look at their depth chart.

http://florida.rivals.com/cdepthtext.asp

Every player on their defense is an underclassmen. Now THAT is a young defense. And most of their offensive personnel is young too. It sounds like some of their guys are going to declare early for the NFL draft, but Florida is absolutely loaded and probably only going to get better as long as Urban Meyer is there. They are a scary football program right now.

Speaking of Florida, how could Tim Tebow even entertain the idea of leaving early to go to the pros?? What position is he planning to play?? Quarterback?? Please. He's not playing quarterback in the NFL. He MIGHT have a shot at safety or fullback or something like that, but he isn't going to be an NFL qb. He certainly isn't going to be drafted as a qb in the early rounds if he goes pro after this year. I expect to see him back in Gainesville next year much to the chagrin of Archie Griffin. He will be right there again for the Heisman trophy.

3. I'll say this about President-elect Barack Obama. Whether or not you agree with his policies, I do agree with him on one thing. As a college football fan, I was thrilled to see him taking a stance on the college football playoff. I couldn't agree more with him. Much like George Bush, Obama is a legit sports fan. That's a good thing for the country, especially when we've had past candidates...cough cough...John Kerry....declaring their love for baseball and then proclaiming a favorite player to be "Manny Ortiz" followed by one of the most pathetic first pitches I've ever seen in my life.

2. Of all the things that have been said about Notre Dame football in the last few years, I think Kirk Herbstreit may have had the most salient point during College Gameday on Saturday. In essence, he stated the truth of where we are as a program. We have AVERAGED 7 wins a year since 1994. That's a 15 year time frame. A very sobering reality of where we stand in the college football world. We have been no different than the BCs, MSUs, and Pitts of the world for a decade and a half. Herbstreit nailed it home when he asked "What did you expect?"

Have our expectations gotten ahead of themselves?? While it's easy to get hot and bothered about Charlie underachieving, the reality is that our program has been mediocre for a long time. The notion that Charlie would be able to produce consistently excellent teams by year four after that long malaise may have been a reach.

What are your expectations for Notre Dame football in the next decade?? Is it national championships?? Do you have the expectation that we should be right there with teams like Florida and Oklahoma?? I've always said that I did have those expectations, but Herbstreit's commentary made me think about it for a bit. Maybe the definition of a successful Notre Dame program has changed. Maybe my standards have become out of line with the reality of where our program is. Maybe a successful Notre Dame program is one that can regularly beat the other regional teams like Michigan/MSU/Purdue/Pitt/BC but doesn't rise to the level of the true "heavyweights" in the South.

Then again, people said these same things about programs like Alabama and Oklahoma once upon a time. Questions like "What did you expect?" when Alabama fans were grumbling about Mike Shula. Bama went through an equally long malaise as Notre Dame has gone through. Oklahoma was down for a long time. The right hire changed those programs almost overnight, and now you don't hear people saying things like "Mike Shula deserved more time."

It's a tough call. I will say that I would be interested to see where our program would be with a guy like Urban Meyer running our program.

1. WEISND power poll -

6. Oklahoma
5. USC
4. Texas
3. Texas Tech
2. Alabama
1. Florida

If the pollsters had any guts, they would vote Florida #1 this week. They are the best team in the country. Period. If the SEC Championship game was next week, Florida would probably be around an 8.5 point favorite or something like that. If they are favored by over a touchdown over the #1 team in the country, why is Florida not #1??

The good news for SEC fans is that the winner of that Florida-Bama game is in, so the polls don't matter at this point.

The real intrigue is going to be between the Big 12. This whole "BCS standings will determine the conference champion" just sounds like an absolute disaster.

What about USC?? Does anyone really think they couldn't beat the other top teams?? With that defense and Pete Carroll and their overall talent, they can beat anyone. Where do they fit in?

Brian Kelly..... clap.....clap........clapclapclap

Some thoughts from yet another devastating ND loss.

12. While I am with Matt in that I am not going to jump up and down over and over demanding that Charlie Weis is fired after this year, I do think it’s time for ND to seriously start contemplating the possibility of replacing Charlie Weis and also start evaluating/contemplating some names as possible replacements. Charlie Weis is an ND alum who has tried to rebuild this program, but he’s not getting it done. His teams are getting steadily worse, and now we are looking at a second straight season without even one half-decent win to hang our hat on. A sign of a well-coached team is that the team continues to get better as the season goes along, but the reality for Charlie Weis is that we’ve been blown out by Air Force and Boston College in back to back seasons in November. A blowout loss to a mediocre BC team can't happen. It just can't. It wasn't acceptable when Ty lost at home to BC in 2004, and the same applies now.

I don’t think keeping Charlie for 2009 causes great damage to the ND program (like it would have if we had brought Ty Willingham back in 2005), but I do think that there are many other coaches who would do a better job with this roster in 2009 than Charlie Weis. I can certainly understand why there are ND fans who want to give him a 5th year to have one last chance to win with his guys, but I personally think we’ve seen enough to know what to expect in 2009 out of a Charlie Weis-coached team. Inconsistent line play, a soft mentality, no identity on offense other than the “Chaos Mode” when our backs are against the wall, mediocre defense and special teams, and a tendency to come out flat at the worst possible times. A good head coach with a reputation for rebuilding programs could come in here, toughen us up, and build a core identity that fits with our young talent.

I really wanted to see Charlie succeed at ND, but Saturday was a death blow to his credibility as the leader of this program. I’m assuming that he will probably be back in 2009, but I think I’ve reached the point where I’d rather pull the plug.

11. Whether or not you think Charlie Weis is the man for the ND job, the “we need to fire all of the assistants” is a bunch of nonsense. Cmon, does anyone really think that the assistants are the primary problem with this program?? In football, everything starts from the top down. The head coach sets the tone for the program and his philosophy for how he wants to play football and win games. If the head coach is determined to have a physical team, those orders are going to feed down to the o-line coach. O-line coaches are just taking orders from up top. The reason Alabama’s o-line is so good this year isn’t because of their o-line coach. It’s because of Nick Saban’s philosophy for how to build your team up front.

This notion that we can fire Latina and bring in some o-line guru to right the ship is laughable. Latina is just taking orders from Weis. We will never have a good offensive line if Charlie Weis spends his 20 hours a week of practice working on installing 14 new offenses and packages. Our lineman should be spending that time pounding each other into the ground.

Plus, what does it say about Weis when he PICKED those guys to be on his staff?? If Latina and Powlus and Haywood are so incompetent, then why have those guys been on the staff the last few years in the first place??

Finally, does anyone really believe that the top assistants out there (special teams, o-line, d-line, Rbs, etc) are going to be clamoring to sign up for the sinking ship of Notre Dame football that is the Charlie Weis era?? Why would the Alabama o-line coach leave Bama to take the ND job when Charlie might not even be around in a year?? Unless Charlie Weis is planning to go completely hands-off and turn over his offense to a coach who knows how to develop a physical team, why would any great offensive coach sign up for this job knowing that they will probably be a lackey for Weis??

Blaming the assistants is bush league. The problems with ND start and end with Charlie Weis. Weis has already started throwing his assistants under the bus with this stunt to take over playcalling for Navy. Wow, bold move. Taking over the playcalling for Navy. That’s gutsy.

Mike Haywood is just as much of an ND alum as Charlie Weis. He deserves better than this nonsense. He never even had a chance to create an offense in his vision. Everything we do is still the Charlie Weis offense.

10. Now that there is some talk of a new coach at ND, the first thing I wanted to address was this absolutely hilarious notion that our coaching search should start with the following names.

1) Nick Saban
2) Bob Stoops
3) Jon Gruden
4) Mark Richt

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever read. Are we really doing this again?? Does anyone really believe that any of those guys are realistic candidates for the ND job?? Seriously? Did ND fans not learn ANYTHING from the 2001 and 2004 coaching searches?

Why would Bob Stoops leave Oklahoma?? Oklahoma is already a better job than the ND job. He makes a ton of money, he has lifetime job security, he has already reached the pinnacle, and he knows he can win 10+ games every year at OU and have a realistic chance to win a national title.

Nick Saban is not leaving Alabama for god sakes. The only reason he left LSU is because he got the itch for the NFL. It took him less than two years to realize that the NFL wasn’t for him. Now that he has landed back on his feet at one of the elite jobs in college football, I think he’ll be there for the rest of his career. Why would he leave?? He is making $4 million a year at Alabama and is just getting started there. Going to ND would be a step down for him.

Do ND fans realize that those guys are rumored for EVERY college job that opens and yet there is a 0.0% chance that any of them are leaving?? Bob Stoops is a freaking pipe dream. He’s not leaving, and every minute that we daydream about him is a minute wasted as we try to identify the best candidate for the ND job. Spending all our time pining for Bob Stoops is how you end up with Tyrone Willingham and Charlie Weis as your head coach.

We shouldn’t be looking for Bob Stoops or Nick Saban or Mark Richt. We should be looking for the NEXT Bob Stoops and Nick Saban and Mark Richt. Bob Stoops was an assistant at Florida before taking that OU job. Mark Richt was an assistant at Florida State before taking the Georgia job. Nick Saban was the head coach at Toledo before moving up the ladder to Michigan State. The athletic directors at those schools discovered those guys before they became big name coaches, did their homework, evaluated them properly, and came to the conclusion that they would be great head coaches. That is what ND should be doing. Going around and getting rejected by Bob Stoops and Nick Saban is not conducting a head coaching search. Those guys are not candidates for the job, and they never will be.

9. So who should we looking at??

As far as I’m concerned, the guy who should be at the top of the list is one name and one name only:

BRIAN KELLY.

Maybe there are other potentially great coaches out there and I would want ND to look into everyone, but my list would start with Brian Kelly. We should be researching him, interviewing everyone he coached at Grand Valley State, Central Michigan, and Cincinnati, interviewing all his assistants to find out about him, watching film of his teams, and learning everything there is to know about him.

What I can promise to you ND fans that we will find out is that Brian Kelly is one of the very best head coaches in all of college football. The elite of the elite. I’ll start with his record. Kelly started as the head coach of Grand Valley State at the age of 30 and won 6 conference titles and 2 Division II national championships in thirteen years. Then he lands at Central Michigan where CMU had posted the following records in the 5 years before:

3-9
4-8
3-8
3-9
4-7

Three years into the job, Brian Kelly wins the MAC. Not surprisingly, he gets some interest from larger schools and ends up at Cincinnati. I am telling you from firsthand knowledge that Brian Kelly has done an absolutely remarkable job at UC. He literally went EVERYWHERE in that first offseason to drum up interest in the program – radio shows, tv interviews, pep rallies, local events. He hadn’t even coached a game, and he was already a borderline legend at UC. The guy is enthusiastic, he’s intense, he’s passionate, and players absolutely love playing for him. And the results on the field have been even better than anyone could have anticipated. 10-3 in his first year, and now he has UC in position to win the Big East in his second year. And he’s doing it with a 4th string quarterback and a roster put together by bubble gum and shoestring.

The thought of UC football in a BCS bowl was completely unfathomable to me until this year. This is a UC program that would be lucky to draw 15,000 fans to a game and regularly lost to MAC teams. They are LUCKY to get 2 star recruits. The goal for UC football for most of the last 20 years was to eventually become as good as Miami (Ohio). Now they are going to places like West Virginia and winning.

While Mark Dantonio deserves credit for stabilizing the UC program after the Rick Minter era, Brian Kelly has taken the program to an entirely different level. I like Mark Dantonio a lot. He is doing a great job at MSU and I’ve been a fan of his going all the way back to his days as the Ohio State defensive coordinator under Tressel when they won the national title. I was in law school at UC when Dantonio was there, and he did a nice job building a foundation. Dantonio is a good coach no doubt about it, and he’d be an upgrade over Charlie Weis. But if you go and ask ANY UC fan to make a comparison between Dantonio and Brian Kelly, I can guarantee what answer you are getting. Dantonio was good, but Kelly is spectacular. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve heard a caller on a Cincy sports radio show asking for Brian Kelly to take the Bengals job. The same goes for UC players. There were a ton of quotes in Kelly’s first season from players on the team directly comparing Dantonio and Kelly, and every one of them basically went on the record and said UC was better-coached under Kelly.

Maybe I’ll be completely wrong about Brian Kelly and he’ll fall flat on his face at Tennessee or Clemson or wherever he ends up. But I personally think he has an Urban Meyer type ceiling, and his track record for building programs and taking them to heights not previously experienced is very Meyer-esque. Kelly’s teams play in one speed: FAST. Everyone is flying to the ball, they are going hard for 60 minutes, and they are always attacking. His offenses are exciting, and his defenses really get after it. It is a blast to watch, and I think he would do incredible things if he had an offseason to work with Clausen and Floyd and all our young talent. Brian Kelly would win with this ND roster. BIG. Mark that down.

And trust me when I say that ND fans will absolutely LOVE Brian Kelly. I know ND fans, and ND would love this guy. He’s fiery, but he’s also very positive. He’s a Catholic who would probably crawl through glass to take the ND job. And it would be a nice change to get a classy guy as head coach instead of the arrogant, “I'm going to motivate through my press conferences” crap that we’ve had with Weis.

People talk about Kelly being inexperienced, which is complete nonsense. He’s been a head coach for like 18 years. Yes, most of that was at GVSU, but it’s not like other D-IAA coaches haven’t had success. He’s still only 47 years old, but he’s not inexperienced as a head coach at all. The inexperience card is a complete myth that needed to be debunked.

If ND wants to keep Weis, that’s their call. But I think they should at least be doing their homework on prospective head coaches who have the potential to be great. And I think Brian Kelly could be that guy. If we putz around and decide to make a move in a year or two, Brian Kelly might already be doing big things at Clemson or somewhere. By then, it will be too late to get him to South Bend.

8. The other guy who I have to say I am intrigued by is Will Muschamp. I know this thought might cause ND fans to temporarily pass out before shouting me down with the “ND better not hire a head coach who has no head coaching experience” mantra that you see on the message boards, but I don’t agree with that policy as a hard rule. What if Oklahoma had that same policy when they were looking for a replacement for John Blake?? What if Georgia had not bothered to interview Mark Richt to replace Jim Donnan because he had never been a head coach before?? Is it really a smart policy to rule out promising head coaches?? How do we know Will Muschamp isn’t going to be a phenomenal head coach?? The guy learned at the knee of Nicholas Saban. He is widely considered to be the best young d-coordinator in the game. He’s young, intense, passionate about the game, and players love playing for him. And that’s a guy that we don’t want to interview?? Seriously?? Just because we happened to make two bad hires in Charlie Weis and Bob Davie, two guys who wouldn’t have succeeded as head coaches at any major college school??

I’m of the belief that you either have it or you don’t. Experience is overrated. Hiring a guy because he’s experienced is how you end up with Ty Willingham as your head coach. If a guy learned at the knee of a great coach and has the qualities that make a great coach (leadership ability, philosophy for how he wants to build teams and a program, and ability to motivate college players), he can be successful. While I would prefer a coach who has been a head coach SOMEWHERE even if it’s a MAC school or Mountain West or whatever, I’m more interested in his personal qualities than his experience level. Urban Meyer isn’t winning big at Florida because of his experience at Bowling Green and Utah. He’s winning at Florida because he’s Urban freaking Meyer. He knows how to motivate players and get his teams to play with relentless football, and he’s had those abilities since he was an assistant under Lou Holtz at Notre Dame.

Maybe ND would make a determination that Muschamp wasn't a good fit or that he wasn't going to be a great head coach, but I think we should at least we be talking to him and finding out what he's all about. If he ends up at Clemson and wins, he'll be the Mark Richt type guy who will be turning us down in five years.

7. One idea that has been thrown out there that I actually think might be a decent idea is to hire Lou Holtz as an interim coach for the month of December and the bowl game while we sort through coaches and try to identify the best candidate. I actually love that idea, and I think Lou would be a great transition person for ND to right the ship and create a tougher mentality with this team. You’re telling me that Lou wouldn’t have this team running for 200 yards a game and getting the most out of the talent on this roster?? Of course he would. Lou Holtz knows tough football, and that is what this team needs. He could come in here and light a fire under some guys until the next coach was in place. And if Swarbrick isn’t ready for a coaching search, then a year of Lou Holtz would be just fine with me. He’s 71 years old, but Lou Holtz knows football. He would put his heart and soul into that one year of ND football, and ND’s team and program would be better for it.

6. One of the interesting things that Mike pointed out that I completely agree with is that Weis has proven that top recruits are still interested in playing at ND. While I think Weis has had a lot to do with it, I think his role in the process of getting these kids to ND is a bit exaggerated. I’ll be the first to admit that the Willingham era made me question whether ND could still recruit great talent, but it’s easy to forget that Bob Davie was regularly bringing in top 10 classes to ND before Willingham. ND is still ND. We don’t have quite the overwhelming edge that we used to in recruiting, but we still have a lot of advantages. National tv, national exposure, a promise that you will get a degree from a good school, and a chance to play in big games and big bowl games. If ND comes calling, people will listen. Heck, even Ty was able to get good players when he actually put out the effort. Recruiting to ND is not as hard as it has been made out to be.

Believe me, I am grateful that Weis has restored ND’s recruiting reputation, but I think there are a lot of coaches out there who could recruit to ND. Recruiting alone is not the only requirement for this job. Great coaches can recruit and win.

The quote from Jeff Jagodzinski about his pregame speech to his players and not one of them raised their hands when he asked them if they had been recruited by ND was absolutely SHOCKING to me. I did not know that, but it isn’t surprising. ND has significant talent advantages over schools like BC.

5. Speaking of BC, I wanted to chime in with a few thoughts about my trip to BC for the game on Saturday. While the trip overall to Boston was a great time (Boston has to be right up there among the best cities to visit in the country), I don’t really have a whole lot of great things to say about the Boston College game experience. The campus itself is very nice in a really nice part of Boston, but the football scene is an abomination. The tailgating scene is comically bad with the time restrictions and police hassling you everywhere you go. We had a great time at the tailgate we were at, but BC goes out of their way to put a damper on the potential fun before a great football Saturday.

The stadium itself and the stadium atmosphere is the bigger problem though. Everything about Alumni Stadium screams mid-major. It’s tiny, it has no character or interesting features, and it’s probably the least intimidating stadium structure I’ve ever been in. There are better high school football stadiums in Ohio than Alumni Stadium. Not all small stadiums are a joke either. Nippert Stadium on Cincinnati’s campus is about the same size but is a great place to watch a game. While there isn’t a bad seat in the house at Alumni Stadium, the house itself is so third rate that it really takes away from the experience. The place is absolutely lifeless.

The other problem is the stadium atmosphere is just awful. The student section gets into the game, but the rest of the stadium was practically silent. Very little noise outside of the student section. As an ND fan, it’s hard to get into a game on the road when the home crowd isn’t even into the game. And to make matters worse, the band is piped in through the loudspeakers the entire game. Why are they piping in their band’s music through the speakers?? What is the point of that?? To make the stadium more loud?? If anything, it makes the atmosphere worse because the band drowns everyone out. It’s hard to get into the game when the speakers are blaring BC’s rendition of “He Hate Me” right into your ear the entire game. Not good.

And I don’t want this post to come off as sour grapes. It doesn’t have anything to do with the result of the game or our losing streak to BC. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the venues at Michigan State and UNC this year even though the Irish lost, so the loss has nothing to do with it. I respect BC’s program, and I wish we had half the heart and discipline that they do. They’ve beaten us 6 times in a row, and they currently have a better football program than we do. I just think their atmosphere is small time, and that made Saturday’s loss even worse.

Will I go back to an ND-BC game at BC?? Absolutely. Any chance to hang out in Boston and see the Irish play that same weekend is a great trip if you ask me, but it’s certainly not because I want to get back inside that stadium again.

4. As we have noted multiple times on this blog, the biggest problem with a potential coaching search is that we have an athletic director and an administration that don’t know what they are doing. None of these guys have the first clue how to identify a great football coach, and it has been proven at this point. The people in charge of the last few coaching searches have gotten caught up in “magic” and “he gets it” and image, even though none of those things have anything to do with football.

I want the next coaching search to be about one thing and one thing only: FOOTBALL. The questions I want the people in charge to be asking include the following:

Is the guy a leader?
Do his players love playing for him?
Is he a motivator?
What is his philosophy for how to build a championship football team?
Does he want to win championships or just coach football?
Does he hate losing to the point of obsession (something that would have eliminated Ty Willingham immediately)?

I would start with those and then start looking at his record and references and all that. The next coach at ND better be a football leader. Weis is not a leader. He knows football without a doubt, but he’s not a leader. Weis talks to the media like he’s a leader, but that act has worn thin and players are tuning him out. Willingham’s problem was that he didn’t care. Davie’s problem was poor leadership and that he didn’t have a philosophy or a plan of action to make ND into a consistent top notch team. He could never figure out an offense or get his players to buy into what he wanted to do, and players didn't buy into his act.

In many ways, the ND situation reminds me of the Bengals’ front office. The administration may want to win, but they want to do it on their terms and remain in control of the big decisions instead of turning it over to professionals. Priests and academic types can’t be selecting the next head football coach at Notre Dame. They don’t know football. They don’t know the coaches and football people who can tell them the real info that they need to make a hire. By all accounts, Swarbrick is just a lackey who is going to follow along with whatever the top dogs in the administration want him to do. If ND was really committed to build a championship football program, they would be bringing in a big time AD who knows sports up and down and has the contacts and knowledge to make the next great hire. Somebody like the AD at Oklahoma or even the AD at a school like Xavier. We don’t have that type of AD in place right now.

ND should start researching the top young coaches in the country NOW and make a decision on who the best coach would be at ND. I don’t care who it is. Tedford, Kelly, whoever. We need to find that guy and go after him. Forget Saban and Stoops. Go get the NEXT Stoops and the NEXT Saban. Those guys started from nowhere too.

3. I don’t want this post to be construed as me giving up all hope for Notre Dame football even if Charlie Weis comes back and serves out his contract. I want nothing more than for Charlie to win the next two games decisively, play tough at USC, and win a bowl game. If we do that and finish 8-5 and he comes back for 2009, I’ll gladly put aside my differences with how he’s running this program and hope that he has a great year in 2009. I don’t see it happening, but I still want to see Charlie turn it around and make this program great. He has worked hard to bring some stability to the program, and I am appreciative of that. I don’t think it does any damage to the program if he comes back for another year, so I’m not going to be devastated if he is back next year. I will still go to as many games (including bowl games) as I can and cheer like crazy and hope that the Irish pull through and become great again under Charlie Weis. However, I think ND deserves a top 10 coach, and there is no way Charlie Weis is one of the 10 best coaches in America. I don’t even think he’s one of the top 50 coaches in the country.

And if the Irish lose to Navy next week (and although unlikely, I don’t think it can be ruled out at this point), I’d like to hear the following out of the ND student section when we take the field against Syracuse:

Brian Kelly.........clap clap clapclapclap.........Brian Kelly..........clap clap clapclapclap

2. Finally, this post would be remiss if I didn't mention the man who orchestrated this entire mess: Kevin White. In retrospect, I can't even get over that we actually did this. We gave a 10 year extension with a $14 million buyout to a guy who had coached half of one season in college football. Absolutely incredible. Was Kevin White just so caught up in the hype that he couldn't control himself?? Where is the leadership??? Where is the common sense to take a step back and evalute the potential consequences of what he was proposing??? He just handed Weis a lottery ticket with no strings attached. I don't even know what to say. Of all of White's disastrous moves at ND (and the list is too long to go through at this point), this one might actually take the cake.

Now, even if we actually wanted to get rid of Weis, it has become so financially punitive that it's almost impossible to do. We have no leverage with Weis. He's in year two of a 10 year deal. We'd be paying him off for a decade if we fired him now.

1. WEISND week 11 poll

6. Oklahoma
5. USC
4. Texas
3. Texas Tech
2. Alabama
1. Florida

Can’t believe I’m saying this, but the BCS is actually working this year. We are poised to have a championship game with the SEC champion and the Big 12 champion squaring off. The two strongest conferences in football. Never thought it would work out that way, but Penn State’s elimination has set up a path for a great championship game. The Florida-Alabama winner is a lock, and the Big 12 is a little messy. Obviously Texas Tech is in if they go undefeated. But if OU beats Texas Tech, we’d have a bit of a log jam. How would I resolve that?? Give me Texas out of the Big 12. They barely lost to Texas Tech on the road but decisively beat OU on a neutral field. Assuming that Texas Tech loses, I’d go with Texas as my Big 12 representative for being the best and most consistent team.