Charley Weis
 

i happen to think that Ty Wllingham is a pretty decent coach but as i recall he was basically fired at ND because there was a feeling that he was not recruiting very well. Now I am not a real ND watcher so i won't stake my life on that issue but i seem to recall that lack of solid recruiting was the issue. I don't know if Weis is a great coach but he did get off to a great start. My point would be that if Willingham was fired due to a lack of solid recruiting that Weis has now inherited that lack of recruiting. Weis has done very well recruiting the past couple of years but if Willingham was lacking in that department Weis is still coaching 2-3 classes that are deficient in talent.

ND based on the past couple of recruiting classes should be a good team in 2008 and beyond but if not then i think it would be fair to say that is is not much better than Wilingham. But let's give Weisthe oppurtunity to coach the players he recruited. Now i know that there will be comments that say why didn't ND give willingham that chance. Sometimes tho a coach catches the imagination of the school he is coaching at and I think that Weis has done that altho it will be tainted after this season.

What i saw of Willingham at Stanford was that while he did a great job he was not the type of guy that made a lot of friends in the positions of importance- kind of like Tommy Tuberville who was almost unjustly fired at Auburn.

I happen to be a Cal fan and can attest to the fact that Tedford is the absolute darling of everyone at the University and would have to have alot of bad years(which he won't) before the word "fired" would ever come up.

I think that there is a lot that goes on in a sports program that the fans don" see. sometimes it works to the advantage of the coach and sometimes it does not. Weis is a ND grad and that (possibly besides his personality) will work to his advantage.

When a school hires a black coach they discuss very seriously the possibility of having to fire that coach. I believe that ND saw the defiencies of Willingham and decided they were serious enough to fire him knowing the firestorm that it would bring on.

The bottom line is that i think Willingham is a better fit at Washington and Weis is a better fit at ND.

W-e-i-s-s

The only place Weis is a better fit is at the Big & Tall store...


OHHHH!!!! Take that Charlie! You just been smoked, son!

Agreed. Charlie Weis is a better fight in South Bend. The junior and Senior classes are very suspect, and the reason why Notre Dame had trouble competing the 1st two weeks. By the 2nd half of the season, the competion will be easier, the younger guys will be more experienced, and you will see some better performances. Jimmy Clausen, Duvall Kamara, Armando Allen, Sam Young...these kids have all shown me something so far. The potential is pretty high. I am looking forward to watching them grow.

Incorrect, but thanks for playing! You will be receiving a copy of our home game!

Ok, sorry:

C-h-a-r-l-i-e

I knew it was wrong, somehow. :p

Who more dangerous at buffet, Weis or Crennel?

But Weiss got all the acclaim and attention (plus an insane contract) by winning with Willingham's recruits. So it works both ways. And Ty seems to have recruited well in Washington.

I got your back st.c!

This year is shaping up to be Charlie's really big class, if none of them are scared away by a potential 3-8 or 4-7 season. Not that impressed with either of the previous two classes, although there are bright spots (Allen, Kamara) Late decommits absolutely killed last years class (Trattou, Greg Little and a couple of others IIRC)

Interesting you bring up Sam Young. He has looked like absolute crap the first couple of games this year - we were having a big discussion on a USC messageboard about this very subject. Sure he's still a true soph, but he was the number 2 tackle in the nation coming out of high school. IMO he should be showing a lot more. On one drive last weekend, he was called for a false start, a holding penalty and let a defensive back run straight around him to blindside Clausen.

By the way it's pretty clear that Weis's staff IS doing a better job recruiting than Willingham. Rivals has their class ranks as:

2002 - 24
2003 - 12
2004 - 32
2005 - 40
2006 - 9
2007 - 8
2008 - 1

There may be other things that will keep Weis from succeeding, but that's a pretty impressive jump.

I don't think that was the case. IIRC, the athletic director at the time said, "Willingham was getting it done Sunday through Friday, but he wasn't on Saturdays." I take that to mean he was fired because of his game results. If that is the case, then Weis hasn't done much better.

no i think that Weis won with the recruits prior to willingham but won't swear to that. willingham has recruited no better than the middle of the pack at UW. I am pretty sure the top 4 recruiting programs in the Pac-10 over the last 3 years have been USC,Cal. UCLA and Oregon. However Locker looks like he might be a very special recruit and certainly when Willngham won at Stanford he was not recruiting the top athletes in the Pac-10. Willingham has won with less than the top athletes which attests to his ability,

There was something about willingham that ND made a decision on. But I think it was more of the fact that he was an outsider and ND has a tendancy to go with an average Terry Brennan and a poor Joe Kucharik and a very poor Gerry Faust rather than what might have been an above average Willingham. What bothers me is that articles i read tend to think that Willingham was let go because he was Black and I believe it was more that he was a ND outsider and that had a great deal to do with his early firing. Without knowing the inside story I think he should have been given another year or two but i do think that inevitably ND will go with their guys. If you have coached at a Catholic or Private school you would know what I mean. By the way I have.

Willingham was fired because he was black and nothing will ever change my mind from that. In addition, ND thought they were going to land Urban Meyer, saw the chance to try, and opened up the doors for him. Did everything to try and get him and when he said no, ND looked like idiots.

At this point, Crennel looks like a joke in Cleveland and unless something changes very soon, Weiss is the same in ND.

Damn, #1 class for next season? Let's just fast forward through 2007...

:D :D :D

10-3
5-7
6-6 plus his worst recruiting class

I think it was more results than race.

Tyrone Willingham (21-15) Fired
Bob Davie (21-16) Two more years
Gerry Faust (18-15-1) Two more years

I'm not saying he was fired because of race but when you have the first black football coach in your school's entire history and he gets less of an opportunity than two of your recent mediocre white coaches, it looks pretty bad, particularly when your next coach gets a huge extension in his first season.

It is pretty rare for a coach to be fired after 3 seasons -- as his first recruiting class becomes seniors -- but that is what happened here. It is pretty clear that the ND honchos and alums weren't comfortable with Willingham, and I agree with Rowech in that I believe that much of that discomfort was based on Willingham being black.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Willingham's record at ND improved each year he was there. If ND continues to struggle this season, Weis's record will have declined each season. Wouldn't it be interesting to see what ND does at the end of the season if the two coaches W-L records end up being pretty close after 3 seasons?

I'd also say that recruiting rankings seem like a silly reason to fire a coach. I mean, I'm a Hurricanes fan and we're a mess right now. Here are our recruiting rankings.

2002: 4
2003: 6
2004: 3
2005: 12
2006: 14

That 2002-04 class certainly didn't do us much good.

There were a lot of ND people who never liked Willingham to begin with. Plus, from what I understand Willingham was never the rah-rah guy that ND people love. There were two things that got him fired, Urban Meyer became available, and he had a couple of bad seasons. The other issue was that he stopped recruiting his last couple of years.

Notre Dame is 0-2... The game has passed Charlie by...

Does anyone find this as humorous as I do that a Michigan fan (forgive me, that's what I get from your nick) is talking about a team being 0-2 means the game has passed them by? :)

rkmsuf can attest to the fact that charlie weis is a whigger

To me, Notre Dame feel to a bad cycle. Bob Davie was the crap coach IMO. When Ty took over, the program was a mess but he started off recruiting really good. Unfortunately for him, the "foundation" Bob Davis left was a mess. So the enthusiasm that Bob Davie originally had gave Ty a good foundation to start with. I think Ty would have been successful at Notre Dame, but he was fired for basically not being able to win with two poor recruiting classes. And then when he was fired, Weiss was had a lot of success with the good classes that Ty brought in. Well in Ty's lean years, this current crop of Notre Dame upperclassmen were average at best so now Weiss is struggling. If they can Weiss here soon, the new coach will win early and then tank because Weiss isn't going to recruit well anymore. At least not like his early years.

The same thing happened at North Carolina with Guthridge, Doherty, and Williams. Williams is just that good of a coach that he corrected the cycle. Guthridge was the problem in that cycle, Doherty was just an average coach and couldn't stop the bleeding

guy beatboxes, yo

That's what Kevin White said, but then, the decision to fire Willingham was (fortunately) made over Kevin White's head.

The reason Willingham was fired was because he was doing a terrible job as a gameday coach AND he was doing a terrible job recruiting — not only in quality, but also in quantity. His only good season on the field, he was winning games with Bob Davie's defense.

Weis is off to a bad start this year, but unlike Willingham, he's still bringing in good recruiting classes — so there's still reason to expect that he'll get it turned around once he works through the absense of players (there are TWO recruited offensive linemen in the junior class, both signed by Weis, and NONE in the senior class).

Bullshit. Pure and utter bullshit.

ND's offensive and defensive coordinators now are both black. Neither was under Willingham. I think ND has more african-americans on its staff now than it did in the Willingham error.

Ty willingham is a whigger.

I'd disagree with that. Davie was in over his head as a head coach, but he was still a decent recruiter. Willingham was left with a talented team, and he also was able to bring in a good recruiting class when the next season got off to a good start.

He would have had to do it with players that he hadn't succeeded with and the worst two recruiting classes in ND history.

Ty did not bring in good classes. Ty brought in one good class.

Ty barely coached the current upperclassmen. None of them played more than a year for him, although the redshirt players (the remnants of the one good class) did spend an extra year getting coached.

This makes no sense whatsoever. If they were to can Weis after this season, the incoming coach would still have three great recruiting classes of talent to work with, plus Weis's demonstration that it's still possible to bring great players to Notre Dame. There's absolutely no evidence that, if they don't can Weis, his recruiting is going to fall off. Quite the contrary, the extant evidence is that talent-wise, he's going to turn the Irish into a juggernaut.

Wrong. His first season was his best, his second season was his worst, and his third season was only a slight improvement.

Also wrong. Weis's record was actually slightly better in season 2, as he went from 9-3 to 10-3.

They still won't be comparable, because unlike Willingham, Weis can and does recruit.

Edit: And ND would have to lose 9 games this season for Weis to match Willingham's loss total...

9 losses might get Weiss fired too

I think ND would be nuts to fire Weis. I think anyone who has a brain realizes that Weis was not going to have the horses this year. Whenever you start 2 true freshman on an OL, you are going to be in trouble. Plus, I think they are going to be loaded next year and I think most fans realize that.

I do. That asshole should shut his mouth before I shut it for him.

were talking about college fans and boosters here

We're not starting two true freshmen on OL. We're starting a 5th-year senior, two true juniors, and two true sophomores (one of which might be a redshirt frosh).

I'm pretty sure ND could go 0-12 this year and Weis would not get fired. He has an absolutely insane contract, iirc.

Charlie Weiss recruits have 1 touchdown since he has been there

Dola .. Recruiting rankings are always out of whack and consider this, a few sites have a history of over blowing certain schools recruits (ala Notre Dame) to make it appear as if they're getting a lot of studs when it's basically just all smoke to hopefully get a few more good kids.

Charlie Weiss is not a good coach. He stumbled into success his first year in South Bend and is now about to going 6-6 this year more then likely. I truly do believe Ty Willingham was fired out of race, and I hate the race card but it makes no sense otherwise. He is a good coach who is already turning around Washington, after turning around Stanford.

And further more, Weiss has been allowed to bring in guys who under WIllingham wouldn't have been able to qualify for the school. They're giving him all the breaks, and it's not because he is Knute 2.0

Aside from his shitty record outside his first year and his complete inability to recruit at ND, you mean? There's a bunch of revisionist history at work here about how he actually wasn't that bad at ND. Yes, he actually was that bad at ND. http://www.ndnation.com/boards/showp...;pid=20;d=this When to add in the horrific recruiting, it's really not unreasonable that the BoT and Jenkins would reach the conclusion that he was on the verge of doing severe (possibly irreparable) damage to the football program and needed to be launched.

Edit: To put Weis into context...
1. He lost three games last season by three touchdowns, all to ranked teams (and leading to sacking the old defensive coordinator, something Willingham was unwilling to do), and he's lost two games by three touchdowns this season in extenuating circumstances.
2. He hasn't been shut out.
3. He's only lost by 30 pts once.
4. Georgia Tech was unranked when we played them, but they were ranked afterwards and we'll see where they land at the end of the year.
5. Weis would need to open this season with eight straight losses to have any shot at ten losses in a 15-game period.
6. I have no idea exactly how many three-TD wins Weis has, but I'm betting it's more than one.
7. Weis has only lost by three touchdowns to Southern Cal, and that only once.
8. One out of 22 for Weis.
9. After starting out 19-6, Weis is now 0-2. Ooooooooh.

I'm not trying to absolve Weis of responsibility for the situation at ND, I'm only reacting to the attempted absolution of Willingham.
Weis bears responsibility for failing to get more out of the players he has to date.
Willingham bears responsibility for leaving behind consecutive awful recruiting classes in both quality and quantity, creating a void of experienced talent and a void of offensive and defensive line depth (with the latter also being partly on Weis as he's struggled at defensive line recruiting before the present class).

How do you figure? George West had one last year, I think David Grimes had one last year, and Darrin Walls has one this year. I'm pretty sure West was a Weis recruit, I'm not sure whether Grimes committed to Weis or to Willingham. Weis's first class is only true juniors right now, and his first non-crippled class is only sophomores, so I don't think you should be expecting them to have a ton of production at this point.

The thing I can't understand is that if Ty Willingham was fired because he was black, how/why on earth was he hired to coach Notre Dame in the first place?

Is it true that Weiss has been able to recruit guys that wouldn't have qualified during Willingham's tenure?

Again, mention recruiting rankings all you want, but unless you're gonna tell me you want #four star QB Kirby Freeman or five star QB Kyle Wright, then I think you've gotta admit that rankings can be wildly inaccurate. We will never know what Ty would have done with the classes he recruited. We won't know because he got fewer years to coach than any Notre Dame coach since 1963, despite having a better or equal record than Joe Kuharich, Gerry Faust, and Bob Davie.

There's a theory that blacks owners/ADs aren't as patient with blacks as they are with whites. At least in the NFL, I'm not sure that argument doesn't have some legs.

I don't think he was fired based on race (although I don't blame those who think otherwise), but I believe different people made the decision to hire and fire him.

But the simple fact is that when you hire the first black head coach in your school's entire history and you give him less time as coach than two previous white coaches that had similar records, you can't expect people to be happy about that.

His first class shouldn't even be considered his really. He didn't sign until after the super bowl so he missed the entire recruiting season.



Willingham failed to develop his recruits and I'd be willing to bet the lack of development from Brady Quinn played a very large part in him getting fired. The team was not getting better and their star recruit hadn't done much of anything in 2 years. I read a few reports that also said Ty wasn't exactly the most likeable guy and had turned off quite a few boosters. If a school's boosters don't like a coach, he won't last long unless there's a good reason to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Recruiting class rankings don't mean a whole lot. Even the best recruiting services mostly go with what they hear about a player and what schools have shown interest.

I don't like this kind of logic. Just because they didn't fire two mediocre white coaches soon enough doesn't mean they should keep the mediocre black coach for too long as well.

It's a similar argument to when the Patriots Defense Force kept bringing up the lax punishment handed out to the Broncos and 49ers for breaking salary cap rules to justify why they should be allowed to cheat with only minor repercussions.

Faust was fired under Hesburgh as president, I'm not sure of the AD. He also wasn't in as far over his head as Willingham.
Davie was fired under Malloy as president, I'm not sure if White was in yet as AD. He wasn't in as far over his head as Willingham, and there were some who thought he was retained too long.
Willingham was fired over the heads of both White and Malloy (both of whom were not particularly subtle about expressing their disagreement with the decision). It was a decision made by the Board of Trustees and possibly incoming president Jenkins.

It's hard to make a direct comparison between the firing of Willingham and his predecessors. He was getting worse results on the field, and much worse results recruiting. On top of that, unlike with both Faust and Davie, he was following after another fired coach, which made it more imperative that the ship be righted.

The ranking of a particular recruit is not definitive as to whether he's going to pan out, but highly-rated recruits pan out at a higher rate than less-highly rated recruits (one of the ND-related blogs, The Blue-Gray Sky, actually looked at this). It's no accident that USC, LSU, and Florida are as talented as they are because their teams are built on a string of highly-rated recruiting classes. At the same time, it takes at least competent coaching to turn good recruits into a good team, witness the transition from Zook to Meyer at Florida.

I'm not sure whether Weis is getting more latitude on player admission than previous coaches. Even if there are concessions, I don't think they're substantial.

See the link above comparing Willingham's record of failure to other coaches. He's in a class by himself. I'm not sure about overall record, but the sheer volume of catastrophic losses is unmatched.