ONE! MORE! YEAR!
Let’s not glaze over this Charlie Weis thing too quickly. Tyrone Willingham had a winning percentage at Notre Dame of .583. Charlie Weis? .571. And not much signs of improvement. Exhibit A being losing AT HOME to Syracuse this year. Syracuse. Ye of the firing-coach-mid-season ilk.
Yet Charlie Weis is given the vote of confidence after being given 4 years to turn it around. Willingham? Given 3 years, after which his contract was immediately bought out.
Who’s running this ship at Notre Dame? Charlie Weis was given a 10-year extension midway through his 1st year as a golden domer. An extension which was apparently written with such blind enthusiasm after 7 WHOLE GAMES that Notre Dame couldn’t afford to buy him out unless the Golden Dome itself was auctioned off.
Look, I don’t have a problem with giving a coach time to make his impression. The thing is, Notre Dame DOES have that problem (see: Ty Willingham). Weis has had 3 strong recruiting classes in a row. And sure, those in his ’06 recruiting class (after one full season on the job) are at most juniors in eligibility right now, depending on redshirts. I wouldn’t expect them to be a top 5 team. But with such talent, albeit young, coursing through the roster, I WOULD expect them not to embarrass themselves at this point. AND if Weis was worth the contract he signed, he could coach up his older, less-talented (but still solid, by most universities’ standards) players in combination with his younger, prized recruits to form a respectable team.
So with the notoriously high expectations at Notre Dame, why is he still around while Willingham was canned unceremoniously after 3 years? Here’s some possible reasons:
1) The contract is indeed SO poorly written that a buyout is just too cost-prohibitive. Hard to believe with the loaded, football-crazed ND alums / athletic department.
2) They don’t want to look like complete dumbasses, throwing a 10 year extension at Weis after 7 games, then canning him after 3 years later. Hard to believe, as giving such a lucrative extension 7 games into a coaching tenure couldn’t be considered anything but dumbassed. Why stop the dumassedness now?
3) Notre Dame actually believes he’s the man for the job. A 9-15 two-year span of football is grounds for beheading and castration typically at Notre Dame, but they think he’s the man for the job and they all of a sudden are taking the patient approach.
4) Dazz Raziss. Weis has had 4 years of being the head coach at Notre Dame, and has compiled a worse winning percentage than Willingham over 3 years. I’m not a proponent of the race card, I think it’s valid at times but most times abused. But in light of the stark contrast between the ND administration’s reaction to Charlie Weis’s crappy 4 years and Willingham’s crappy 3, can you completely discount there being any racial motivation behind Willingham’s firing? I believe that likely was NOT an issue, and his lack of stellar recruiting classes in combination with the on-field performance were the determining factors. But you couldn't immediately discount this theory as completely unreasonable. At best, it certainly doesn't look good on Notre Dame.
5) Notre Dame, alums and administration alike, loves fat people. And who doesn't? They're so jolly and fun. And who doesn't enjoy watching Weis gimp around the sidelines with his britches pulled up to his tits and sporting a man FUPA?
- Steve
