Tebow coming back to Florida

Superman is coming back to college next year. Not a huge surprise. His draft stock isn't really all that high. Might as well work on his arm, come back next year, and hope that he can somehow play himself into a 2nd round pick or something like that. There's no reason the Gators won't be preseason #1 next year.

Has anyone looked at their defense by the way??

DE - Jermaine Cunningham - Junior
DT - Terron Sanders - Sophomore
DT - Lawrence Marsh - Sophomore
DE - Carlos Dunlap - Sophomore
LB - Dustin Doe - Sophomore
LB - Brandon Spikes - Junior
LB - AJ Jones - Junior
CB - Janoris Jenkins - Freshman
FS - Major Wright - Sophomore
SS - Ahmad Black - Sophomore
CB - Joe Haden - Sophomore

My god, there isn't one senior on their entire defense. I know Brandon Spikes might leave, but that defense is loaded. And their schedule is surprisingly soft for an SEC team (although adding in the SEC title game would obviously add another tough game). No Bama or Ole Miss next year unless they meet in the SEC title game, and their nonconference is a joke other than Florida State. Who are they losing to on this schedule??

9/5 Charleston Southern
9/12 Troy
9/19 Tennessee
9/26 at Kentucky
10/10 at LSU
10/17 Arkansas (Homecoming)
10/24 at Mississippi State
10/31 vs. Georgia (Jacksonville FL)
11/7 Vanderbilt
11/14 at South Carolina
11/21 Florida International
11/28 Florida State (Senior Day)
12/5 SEC Championship Game (Atlanta GA)

Can we just set up the USC-Florida game for next January in Pasadena in the National Title game?? I'm all for it. Just set it up now, and I'll start gearing up for that game. It would be great to see how they match up.

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.

SEC Championship Game

Color me fired up for this SEC championship game.

Call me crazy, but I think Alabama is going to shock the world and win this game. Feels a little like the New England-New York Giants game. Just seems like a lot of these predicted "one sided" matchups always end up being a lot tighter.

If Bama was some paper tiger like Ohio State, I would expect them to get exposed. But they went 12-0 in the SEC!! They went to some tough venues and won. It just seems like they are getting no respect, and they might just come out with a chip on their shoulder. NO ONE seems to be giving Bama a shot, but their lines are big and physical. And Nick Saban is on that sideline!!! He is going to have them ready to go. Their defense is the most physical defense in the country.

I know Florida is a different team than they were early in the year, but I watched that Florida-Ole Miss game. Ole Miss's d-line DOMINATED Florida, and that's a big reason why they won. If you get physical with them, they might not respond well.

I think Florida is incredible, but you never know in a one game situation. If Bama's d-line is getting pressure on Tebow, I think they can win it. I obviously wouldn't be surprised if Florida won 31-6, but I'm hoping for a great game.

Don't get me wrong, I love Urban Meyer and Tebow and Harvin and all those guys, but I'm pulling for the Tide this week. Alabama has had some hard times as a football program. I'd love to see them win this game and go on to win the national title. Roll Tide!

Bama 24 Florida 21

Verne and Gary live from Atlanta....ONLY ON CBS SPORTS!

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.

Around the Nation - State of ND football

Some completely random and rambling thoughts about the state of Irish football as we head into the BC game. Many of them are in direct conflict with one another, but I think that’s ND football in 2008. Confusing.

12. Scary thought. What would our record be this year if our schedule was a typical ND schedule?? If we had opened up with someone like Georgia Tech instead of San Diego State and Michigan still had a typical Michigan team with Lloyd Carr and Mallett, would we be 3-5 right now?? And what if Washington had canned Ty after last year and brought in a really good coach?? And what if we had played a good SEC team or Big 12 team at home in November instead of Syracuse? I'd like to think we'd win a couple of those games, but I'm not all that sure of it.

Can't even imagine what our score with Texas Tech or Florida would look like. They would make us look like Washington.

11. The blueprint is obviously out on how to beat this Notre Dame team. Get physical with us, pound the ball and pound the ball on the ground, and bring pressure on Clausen until we fold up front on both lines. We can only win games if Clausen is connecting with Floyd and Tate, but those plays aren’t there in the second half when the other team has made adjustments, our line is out of gas, and Clausen doesn’t have time to make those throws.

Speaking of running out of gas, what are your thoughts on the second half collapses?? Is it a lack of halftime adjustments?? Is it a conditioning issue? Do we lose our mental edge and relax?? Are we just a soft finesse team that gets worn down if teams get physical with us??

It is concerning when our offensive and defensive lines look completely worn out and out of gas in the second half. Not sure if that is a practice issue or what the deal is.

I thought we played really well in the first half. We were inspired on defense, the running game was working, and we were hitting plays through the air. Did we just fall asleep in the second half or is it something larger than that?? It would be nice to put together 60 minutes of great football against BC.

10. Were we really all that more talented than Pitt?? Before we address any coaching issues, I wanted to discuss this whole idea of how much more talented we are than the teams we are playing and losing to right now. While I agree to an extent that we have more overall talent than a team like Pitt, the talent gap might not be as wide as the recruiting rankings indicate. If you watched that game knowing nothing about either team, would you have really concluded that ND was significantly more talented than Pitt?? Perhaps it is a coaching issue that our raw talent is not being developed, but it might just be that our talent level combined with a lack of experience was somewhat similar to Pitt.

I’ll be honest, I watched the game on Saturday, and the teams on the field looked evenly matched from a talent standpoint. We had a huge edge in QB and WR and TE talent and maybe an edge in the secondary, but Pitt had an equally large edge on the defensive line and running back. Both teams had strengths and talent deficiencies. I think that’s why I came away from the game on Saturday feeling disappointed and down but also feeling like we played our butts off and left everything on the field.

I don't want to make excuses, but the youth thing is still an issue for this team. When all these young players are juniors and seniors, they may begin to look much more talented than Pitt's players. As of right now, they look about the same.

I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but Pitt is really not a bad team. They are a better team than Boston College, and they presented more matchup problems for us than BC will. BC is a solid football team, but they are less dangerous than Pitt. Their strengths are not our weaknesses if that makes any sense. BC has an average running game and an average passing game, and their defense is built around stopping the run. We can make plays on them through the air, and they probably won't run right through us like Pitt did.

9. The Texas Tech of the North?? – With the success of Texas Tech this year, there’s been some talk among ND fans (me included) of scrapping the pro-style scheme and just going all out with the spread Texas Tech offense behind Jimmy Clausen. As much as I'd be intrigued by that type of offense with our receivers and QB, I'm not sure if we could make that our bread and butter offense.

First of all, we play on a grass field with constant bad footing. It's awfully hard to run that type of offense when guys are slipping and sliding all over the place. Grass fields in northern climates are not conducive to spread and shred em type offenses. Saturday, we actually had some moments where guys caught the ball in space and slipped or got slowed down by bad footing. Meanwhile, on turf last week against Washington, we were catching balls in space and running wild.

Penn State is a northern team that runs this Spread HD offense, but they still have a power scheme in many ways. If you watch Penn State, they look to pound the run with Evan Royster and mix it up with their passing game. They aren’t exactly running the Texas Tech type offense. If we decided to convert to the Texas Tech offense, it might be wise to dump the British Open rough that we are calling a field and put in a field turf setup.

Second, if you want to run that type of offense, you better have quick, athletic type lineman. Our line is HUGE and SLOW. We've spent the last 3-4 years recruiting 300+ pound lineman fit for a prostyle offense. If we were going to implement a spread, we probably need/needed to get smaller, quicker linemen.

Weis came to ND planning to run a pro style scheme and recruited that way. While our skill position talent appears more suited to a spread, it's really not as easy of a switch as we all think it might be. Weis has tried to grab bag to implement this half-spread thing that we're running now, but the foundation for that type of offense probably should have been laid 3-4 years ago. Of course, Weis didn't have any idea what type of system he was going to build when he first arrived at ND because he's never coached in college before.

Weis is learning on the job in coaching AND recruiting. He's recruited guys like James Aldridge and Robert Hughes (who are both talented backs), but those guys aren't really good fits with the spread offense that we appear to favor. So we're left with a small guy like Armando Allen (who gets banged up a lot) as our only fit in this offense, and he's not exactly an All-American. To me, it just goes back to a program that hasn't found its identity.

The Texas Tech offense is intriguing, but we’d have to make a lot of changes in our program to fully convert to it. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t consider it, but it’s not as easy of a conversion as some may envision.

8. In many ways, Weis is symbolic of what ND football has become in the last 15 years. Grab-bagging. Lose a game?? Let's get a new o-line coach or a new DBs coach. Lose a game?? Let's grab bag for recruits and build up our recruiting rankings instead of targeting players for a specific scheme. Lose a game? Let's go to the Texas Tech offense and see how that works out. Lose a game? We need to try running the ball more next week. Lose a game?? Let's dumb down our schedule and try to schedule ourselves into bowl games. Lose a game?? Let's change the pep rallies and the announcers. That HAS to be the problem.

Our program has no identity and hasn't had an identity. Grab-bag, grab bag, grab bag. It happened with Davie, it happened with Willingham, and now it is happening with Weis. Think about how many different things Weis has run through in the last 4 years.....we were a pro style team, we were a 4-3 defense, then we were a 3-4 defense, then we tried to go to a WVU spread, then we talked about "pounding the ball", then we went to the spread. No identity, no overriding philosophy on what ND football is all about. It's just one grab bag after another. Don’t players need some level of continuity? And it has affected recruiting in the sense that we have been trying to recruits players for all those different schemes. Demetrius Jones to be a spread QB, 4-3 d-linemen to be linebackers, 300+ pound linemen for a spread, etc.

Meanwhile, look at Nick Saban or Urban Meyer. Urban Meyer has had ONE PHILOSOPHY since he came to Florida. Spread offense, tough, physical defense and an emphasis on playing with speed and aggressiveness. They have worked on those principles since DAY ONE. That's probably all they practice. One of the reasons that I wanted ND to go all out for Urban Meyer when he was at Utah was that I knew that he was going to bring a philosophy to ND on how to win football games. The guy is a winner. Yes, he has great talent, but he has won everywhere. He won at BG, he won at Utah, and now he's winning at Florida. He has a vision for how to build a program. It's not just "we need to recruit" or "we are going to scheme." It's a philosophy and an attitude that they have instilled in everything they do from recruiting to style of play to motivation.

Nick Saban. Same thing. He came to Alabama and immediately went to work on making his team the toughest and most physical team in the country. That's all they work on in practice and in the weight room in the offseason. TOUGHNESS, TOUGHNESS, TOUGHNESS, PHYSICAL, PHYSICAL, PHYSICAL. If you watch those segments where Saban is mic'ed up in practice, that's all he tooks about. Beating up your man across the line of scrimmage from you and wearing teams down. That is Alabama football under Nick Saban, and that has been his mantra since the very first day he got there. Why is that?? Because Nick Saban has a set of principles that he has relied on as a head coach for 15+ years. He didn't need to flirt with 10 different schemes and 10 different philosophies to try to figure out what worked best.

Not blaming Weis for that. He has never been a college head coach. As crazy as it sounds, he probably won't have a set of principles for another few years at least.

7. Is Weis the best we can do for a head coach at Notre Dame?? Does anyone think that Paul Johnson could come in here and probably have this team flying around and playing crisp football?? We don't know of course, but I think it’s a strong possibility.

Is Charlie Weis one of the 50 best college football coaches in America?? I’m asking because I really don’t know the answer to that question. I looked at the various conference standings and just started running through names. A lot of coaches on that list that I would currently put ahead of Charlie Weis.

Can ND do better?

6. Hypothetical question. Instead of ending up at ND, what if Charlie Weis had started his head coaching career at a random school like Iowa or Virginia or Oregon State?? Would he win there??

5. The funny thing is that I'm still sort of optimistic about Weis in a weird way, and I've been ripping the guy consistently since early 2006. I think his biggest problem is that he was never a college head coach and didn't have a set philosophy on how to build a program when he came to ND. Since he doesn't have any philosophy, he has to grab bag with different ideas and schemes seemingly on a weekly basis (even during the game). It even goes into recruiting since we have all sorts of different players fit for different schemes. Weis is still in the process of figuring out how to be a head coach (what type of recruits he needs, what type of system he wants, what type of defense he wants to run). He may never figure it out, but we don't know that yet.

Weis is not a great coach right now in 2008. In fact, he has proven to be very mediocre and probably has been worse than Bob Davie so far. But he has upside. That upside keeps me hopeful. I hope that he becomes one of those coaches who puts it together over time. Gary Pinkel was the epitome of mediocre for six years at Missouri and suddenly has figured it out the last couple years. Nick Saban didn't really get it going as a head coach until around his 5th year at Michigan State. Weis has only been a head coach for four years in his life, so maybe he'll start to figure it out over the next few years.

And Weis CARES. A lot. The guy is busting his butt to try to turn this thing around. That alone earns him my support.

The other thing going for Weis in my eyes is that the team is still playing hard for him. It's not like they've packed it in like they did under Willingham. This isn't a Bill Callahan situation where we are getting plowed and a change is needed to revive the program. The team still is preparing to win and going all out to win for Weis, but it just isn't happening right now.

4. Incredibly, I still feel good about this program. The talent is noticeable. We have more talent than at any time since I arrived at ND in 1998. We have a qb. We have playmakers. We have some talented and young defensive players. We have young freshmen linemen like Trevor Robinson and Ethan Johnson who are much better than the upperclassmen on the team. We are going to be a good team in 2009 and 2010.

I think Weis absolutely should be here to see through what he has built. He has done a very good job in the program management area (recruiting, building depth, establishing ND as a desirable place again for Qbs, Wrs, and TEs), and now he needs to figure out a way to mold the program into a football team. The 2008 recruiting class was the #1 class in the country, and I think he should have an opportunity to coach those guys all the way through and show us what he can do with that team. Weis has proven that he understands ND and knows how to recruit to South Bend. Now we just need him to start building some good football teams.

I think he deserves more time to show us one way or the other what he is capable of doing as a head coach. If he fails, he fails. But he may turn the corner and end up becoming a very good head coach.

3. One of the things that I noticed on NDNation after the game was a lot of people placing blame on Jimmy Clausen for the loss. GIVE ME A BREAK. The kid is a sophomore and one of the best young QBs in the country. He has been carrying this team this year. Why does everything have to all be on Clausen’s shoulders?? The fact that we require an All-American level performance out of our quarterback to beat a team like Pitt at home is the fault of the coaching staff for not building up any other strong areas on this team. We should be able to occasionally win games through other components (defense, special teams, running game), but all those units are average or even below average. You shouldn't have rely on your quarterback to carry you to squeak out a win over Pitt.

Why didn’t Weis produce a better defense in the offseason that could occasionally win a game for us?? Why didn’t Weis produce a gamebreaking special teams unit that could swing the momentum for us?? Why don’t we have a running game that could grind out wins when we are up 17-3 at halftime?

Those are the questions that should be getting the attention from Saturday. Not Clausen missing a couple passes in the end zone.

Good teams don’t need their quarterbacks to carry them every week. I watched a good chunk of the Florida-Georgia game on Saturday, and it was really eye-opening for me how little Tebow meant to their win. Tebow really hasn’t been that great this year, but it doesn’t even matter. They still won 49-10. Florida is RELENTLESS. They attack, attack, attack on offense, defense, and special teams. Florida is not just fast. They play fast as well. Everything they do is at 100 mph. Tebow is an important player for Florida, but he is hardly the key to their success in a big game. Tebow really isn’t running the ball that well this year, and he throws so many ducks it’s not even funny. And yet they destroyed Georgia on Saturday.

2. Finally, if you have thrown in the towel on Weis, I can’t really blame you and won’t question your decision. But let me ask you this question.

Do you really trust the ND administration/athletic department to make a better hire if we fire Weis after this year or next year? I sure as heck don’t. The people running ND have proven that they don’t know football. They have absolutely no idea how to identify a great football coach, so I don’t have any faith that they will be able to evaluate candidates and find a good one. Do you really think the ND administration has any idea whether someone like Brian Kelly or Will Muschamp or whoever would be a great head coach at ND?? No, they don’t have any clue, and I’d trust anyone reading this blog over the people at ND who would be making that decision.

There is a 0.0% chance that ND would be able to identify a diamond in the rough like Oklahoma did with Bob Stoops. And that’s probably the only direction ND would be able to go with a head coaching search in the next couple years. We aren’t getting Saban or Urban Meyer or Stoops or whoever to leave their job for ND. We would need to find a hidden gem or take a chance on someone like Paul Johnson.

I don't want any part of another coaching search. I'd rather just keep Weis and take my chances on him.

1. My WEISND week 10 power poll:

6) Penn State
5) Texas
4) Texas Tech
3) Alabama
2) USC
1) Florida

While there is all this talk about “BCS controversy” and all that, I really think the “best team in America” debate has never been clearer. I think Florida is the best team in America, and I’m taking the USC Trojans as the second best team in America. When those two teams are “on,” they are the best teams in the country. I will never doubt Nicholas Saban and wouldn’t be stunned if they beat Florida in the SEC title game, but I’m sticking with the Gators and the Trojans as my top two. I would LOVE to see those teams square off. WOW. Talent everywhere, speed everywhere, great defenses, explosive offenses, and Urban and Carroll pacing the sidelines.

Please give us this game.

1a) Bonus thought - BRADY QUINN! Couldn't be happier for him. The move was long overdue, and I hope this change is permanent. I'm a Bengals fan and always will be, but I am pulling for the Browns to do well in the Brady Quinn era.