Weis to the Irish!

[miami_fan]

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=1943710

ESPN.com news services
Charlie Weis is to become the new Notre Dame football coach, ESPN's Chris Mortensen reports.


Sources close to the university have confirmed that the New England Patriots offensive coordinator has agreed on a six-year contract that will pay him approximately $2 million per year.


Weis will fly to South Bend after Sunday's home game against the Cincinnati Bengals and meet with the Fighting Irish football team that night.


A press conference to introduce Weis will be held on Monday.


It became clear on Saturday that Weis had become the target of Notre Dame's search to replace fired coach Tyrone Willingham, with controversy still swirling over the coach's firing after just three seasons.


Notre Dame, which interviewed Weis this week, also interviewed Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Tom Clements on Thursday night. Notre Dame officials called Clements, a former Fighting Irish quarterback, on Saturday morning and told him he was no longer in the running for the job and negotiations with Weis began.


The report is "nothing that we would comment on," Patriots spokesman Stacey James said.


Weis will be the first Notre Dame alumni to coach the Irish since Hugh Devore was interim coach in 1963. Devore replaced Joe Kuharich, who was from South Bend and a Notre Dame grad. Ara Parseghian, who became coach in 1964, was the first Irish coach in 45 years who had not played for Notre Dame.



Weis didn't play for the Irish either, but he did graduate from the school in 1978 with a degree in communications and education.



He taught and coached high school in New Jersey from 1979-84 before taking an assistant's job at South Carolina for four seasons. He returned to coaching at the high school level for one year before joining the New York Giants pro personnel department in 1989.



Weis was hired by the Giants as defensive assistant and assistant special teams coach in 1990, earning his first Super Bowl ring. When Ray Handley was named coach of the Giants in 1991, he named Weis running backs coach.



Weis worked for the Patriots from 1993-96, coaching tight ends, running backs and wide receivers. In 1997, Weis was hired by New York Jets coach Bill Parcells, who asked former New York Giants offensive coordinator Ron Erhardt to groom Weis as the Jets' offensive coordinator. In 1998, he was named Jets offensive coordinator/wide receivers coach.



He has been the Patriots offensive coordinator the past five seasons, earning two more Super Bowl rings.



He is credited with helping to develop quarterback Tom Brady, tight end Ben Coates, running back Curtis Martin, wide receiver Terry Glenn and former Notre Dame receiver David Givens.


Weis will be the first Notre Dame alumni to coach the Irish since Hugh Devore was interim coach in 1963. Devore replaced Joe Kuharich, who was from South Bend and a Notre Dame grad. Ara Parseghian, who became coach in 1964, was the first Irish coach in 45 years who had not played for Notre Dame.



Weis didn't play for the Irish either, but he did graduate from the school in 1978 with a degree in communications and education.



He taught and coached high school in New Jersey from 1979-84 before taking an assistant's job at South Carolina for four seasons. He returned to coaching at the high school level for one year before joining the New York Giants pro personnel department in 1989.



Weis was hired by the Giants as defensive assistant and assistant special teams coach in 1990, earning his first Super Bowl ring. When Ray Handley was named coach of the Giants in 1991, he named Weis running backs coach.



Weis worked for the Patriots from 1993-96, coaching tight ends, running backs and wide receivers. In 1997, Weis was hired by New York Jets coach Bill Parcells, who asked former New York Giants offensive coordinator Ron Erhardt to groom Weis as the Jets' offensive coordinator. In 1998, he was named Jets offensive coordinator/wide receivers coach.



He has been the Patriots offensive coordinator the past five seasons, earning two more Super Bowl rings.



He is credited with helping to develop quarterback Tom Brady, tight end Ben Coates, running back Curtis Martin, wide receiver Terry Glenn and former Notre Dame receiver David Givens.


Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.


Looks like the Dolphins won't be getting this Offensive minded coach!

[Crapshoot]

meh- $2 million a year for a guy who has never been a head coach ? I think they could have gotten him a lot cheaper than that- the Patriots pay him approximately $500,000..

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Crapshoot

meh- $2 million a year for a guy who has never been a head coach ? I think they could have gotten him a lot cheaper than that- the Patriots pay him approximately $500,000..

Maybe they weren't taking any chances of being outbid?

[WSUCougar]

Verrrrrrry interesting.

[Sharpieman]

I always though Weis would be a good pro coach...we'll see if he can do it in the college ranks.

[Cringer]

Originally Posted by Crapshoot

meh- $2 million a year for a guy who has never been a head coach ? I think they could have gotten him a lot cheaper than that- the Patriots pay him approximately $500,000..

Good chance he was going to be an NFL head coach next season though, so they probably felt they need to make a very good offer.

Anyways, ND is not all that bright anyways are they? They fired a pretty good coach already, IMO.

[DaddyTorgo]

tears in New England tonight. Charlie will be missed. Especially since he's going to the archrival of my alum so now I'll have to root for him to fail.

[Chief Rum]

ND has become one of the most undesirable jobs you can have. You are subject to academic standards that only schools like Stanford and Duke have to meet and you are subject to ridicule and constant attack from a booster group that has long ago lost touch with the reality of what Notre Dame football is now.

To get a guy, even an alumnus, to take that job over the offensive coordinator for the Super Bowl favorites, you're gonna have to pay big.

CR

[gstelmack]

Congrats to Charlie Weiss on finally getting a headcoaching gig (I hope ND learns from its recent miserable failures and does right by him so this ends up being a positive experience) and as a New England fan I'll miss him. But thanks for the 2 (3?) Super Bowl victories!

[Tekneek]

If he succeeds at ND, the sky is the limit. If he is fired in three years, he will be quietly show up on some NFL staff. I'm not sure why anyone would take that job without being overpaid for it.

[EagleFan]

Of course they had to pay him that much. It's not like it's a top program where just coaching there is it's own benefit. It's a mid-major with the pressures of a true major program because of fans living in the past and fooling themselves into believing that ND football is actually of significance.

[Tekneek]

I'm not familiar with the academics at Notre Dame, but I've heard/read many times that they are caught between demanding the best academics and wanting the best football team. My natural speculation is that the best football programs make a lot of compromises on the academics side. If you aren't making any compromises, then your football team won't stack up well against them. For those of you more familiar, is that anywhere close to an accurate representation of the situation?

[duckman]

Originally Posted by EagleFan

Of course they had to pay him that much. It's not like it's a top program where just coaching there is it's own benefit. It's a mid-major with the pressures of a true major program because of fans living in the past and fooling themselves into believing that ND football is actually of significance.

I'm in agreement with you about the perception of ND fans about their program. It's not the glamourous (sp?) job that it once was, and coaches don't want to be part of the program. I expect that they will get impatient with Weiss and will fire him after about 3 seasons.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Tekneek

I'm not familiar with the academics at Notre Dame, but I've heard/read many times that they are caught between demanding the best academics and wanting the best football team. My natural speculation is that the best football programs make a lot of compromises on the academics side. If you aren't making any compromises, then your football team won't stack up well against them. For those of you more familiar, is that anywhere close to an accurate representation of the situation?

Simple version. Many major college programs will admit an athlete who is close to meeting the academic requirements but is not there. From what I understand about ND, you either meet the requirements or you don't.

[ISiddiqui]

ND toughened up its standards in the early 90s, IIRC, because of some scandals in the 80s. Of course the boosters still act like they are operating under the old academic standards.

[BishopMVP]

David Cutcliffe (just fired HC from Ole Miss, former OC at Tennessee) hired as OC, with his O-line coach leaving Spurrier to come to ND with Cutcliffe. Other potential hires are Al Golden (Virginia) as DC/Recruiting Coordinator, along with a couple other members of that staff, and the U Texas recruiting coordinator (ND alum.) By all indications, Weis, who is supposedly highly repected among coaches is assembling an all-star staff. It may take a year or two, but Weis will bring ND back into the Top 10, especially given the solid offensive talent he'll start with. A great hire, and if he doesn't succeed, then every one tearing down ND will be vindicated, but I don't expect that to happen. Look at the success failed NFL coaches (Pete Carroll, Al Groh) have had recently in the college ranks. In Weis' only previous season as a Head Coach, he went undefeated and won a state title, and that was before linking up with Parcells/Belichick and helping coach 3 Super Bowl titles (possibly 4 knock on wood). Ty Willingham is a great guy, and a solid coach, but he is not in Weis' class, and he has also never been a great recruiter.

As for people calling ND a mid-major, are you crazy? While the tradition may not matter to most recruits anymore, and there are the difficulties of the hard schedule, harder academic requirements and unreasonable expectations of alumni/boosters, they are no mid-major. Every home game is nationally broadcast, and most away games, they get $10 million annually from NBC alone, which is probably more than any team in America gets from TV deals (and more than many lesser conferences.) As someone who is a fan, if ND had a decent CB or two they would have beaten Pitt, BC and BYU, kept the Purdue and maybe USC games closer and we'd be talking about a 9-2 team that's either in the BCS (in Pitt's place if that Big East/ND agreement is still in place) or close to being in, and the media would be talking about how Willingham managed to install a west coast offense at ND in 3 years and had modernized the team and restored the tradition. The positives of Notre Dame far outweigh the negatives, and with Weis as coach they will be back.

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

the success failed NFL coaches (Pete Carroll, Al Groh) have had recently in the college ranks.

Al Groh made the playoffs in his only season as NFL head coach. That's a success rate of, umm, let me think, 100%. He left because UVa was his dream job, he had not been fired.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Samdari

Al Groh made the playoffs in his only season as NFL head coach. That's a success rate of, umm, let me think, 100%. He left because UVa was his dream job, he had not been fired.

I thought it had a lot more to do with the inability to get along with the front office? I know he was happy to take the Virginia job, but I was under the impression he was just as happy to get out of the Jets orginization.

[GrantDawg]

David Cutcliffe is a very good cordinator. That is a good hire.

[scooper]

I've also heard that Weis is hiring Rich Bisaccia, the special teams coach from Tampa Bay.

Cutcliffe, Golden, Latina, Bisaccia and Haywood (UT's recruiting coordinator and a ND grad) are the foundation of an all-star staff. Weis seems to be surrounding himself with good people and it looks like the university is opening its rather hefty purse strings a bit.

What's nice to see is some solid recruiters on that list. One knock on Ty's staff was they were very lazy recruiters.

[Klinglerware]

Does anybody know if Weis is going to get the academic exemptions that they weren't going to give Meyer? If not, it's going to be a bit tricky for ND to win year in year out with their schedule...

[scooper]

Originally Posted by Klinglerware

Does anybody know if Weis is going to get the academic exemptions that they weren't going to give Meyer? If not, it's going to be a bit tricky for ND to win year in year out with their schedule...

That's an excuse dreamt up by the likes of Bob Davie and other ESPN blowhards. ND can get talent, they just haven't done it. If you take a look year in and year out, they put out scholarship offers to a lot of top 100 talent. They don't give offers to players who can't get in.

The problem is getting them to come there. Once a player is at ND, they have to be students. For example, ALL freshmen take calculus at ND. There are no basket weaving degrees ala Big State U. This approach scares away some athletes while others embrace it.

One big sticking point in admissions, while we're at it, is the requirement at ND of 16 core classes in HS. NCAA requirement is 14. However, I read somewhere last week that the NCAA may be raising to 16. That would help ND a bit.

Now, to answer your question, ND was going to allow some exemptions to Meyer, just not at the level he wanted. They will offer the same exemptions to Weis. In reality, those exemptions will probably be players who fall below the 16 classes, but still put up decent grades. I've heard 3-4 exemptions a year, but they are taken on a case by case basis and the decision on a particular athlete ultimately comes down to the president.

[Aylmar]

Originally Posted by scooper

The problem is getting them to come there. Once a player is at ND, they have to be students. For example, ALL freshmen take calculus at ND. There are no basket weaving degrees ala Big State U. This approach scares away some athletes while others embrace it.

Actually, not all freshmen have to take Calc.

From the FAQ of the First Year Studies program on Notre Dame's website:

Are all First Year students at Notre Dame required to take calculus?

To complete the requirements of the First Year of Studies, all students are required to take two semesters of mathematics. Programs in the Colleges of Business, Engineering, and Science, and the School of Architecture require calculus. Students intending to continue in those colleges should complete two semesters of calculus during the first year. Students intending a program in the College of Arts and Letters may satisfy the mathematics requirement with non-calculus options, including logic and finite mathematics.

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by scooper

That's an excuse dreamt up by the likes of Bob Davie and other ESPN blowhards. ND can get talent, they just haven't done it. If you take a look year in and year out, they put out scholarship offers to a lot of top 100 talent. They don't give offers to players who can't get in.

The problem is getting them to come there. Once a player is at ND, they have to be students.

Okay, fair enough. So the question remains, why don't the recruits want to come? Notre Dame's trouble competing with other big-time football schools' recruiting with regards to campus atmosphere, academic ease, climate, proximity to urban nightlife, etc, has all been advanced before. It's also possible that for academic-minded recruits also interested in winning football, ND isn't the only game in town anymore. Because of parity engendered by scholarship limitations, schools like Stanford and Northwestern have shown that they have a fighting chance to be successful nowadays and, in the minds of student-athletes, can be a viable alternative to Notre Dame (and they are in more desireble locales than ND, to boot).

Even if the academic standards issue is bogus, this suggests to me that other schools are now competing for the pool of recruits that ND once had to itself. I think that ND wil still need to expand it's talent pool if it still wants to be a national player...

[jetpunk2000]

Originally Posted by Samdari

Al Groh made the playoffs in his only season as NFL head coach. That's a success rate of, umm, let me think, 100%. He left because UVa was his dream job, he had not been fired.

Uh...No he didn't. He was 9-4 needed a win and an Indy loss to clinch and ended up losing 3 in a row, finished 9-7 and skunked out of town a week later. Indy was 7-6, 2 out and ended up winning out. This was a Jets team that started 6-1, so to be honest it wasn't that upsetting to see him go.

[BishopMVP]

Al Golden (UVa) is reportedly in as DC. He's been behind UVA's defensive improvement and led its recruiting the last couple years. Dean Pees from the Pats will reportedly come on as LB's coach.

Originally Posted by Klinglerware

Okay, fair enough. So the question remains, why don't the recruits want to come?

1) They're not winning games 2) They're not in the Top 10/New Year's Bowls 3) They haven't been getting skill position players drafted highly recently. It's that simple. All the other explanations like no urban nightlife, lack of black students on campus, the academic requirements are bogus. The most important thing to the top HS recruits is making it to the NFL. You combine 10 national TV appearances a year with a guy who just coached the best team in the NFL and the recruits will come. Under Bob Davie and Ty Willingham, two guys who struggled to win consistently, they still got a number of talented, but not quite top-tier guys to come. They had 5 players drafted last year, and on the current roster guys like Maurice Stovall, Rhema McKnight, Brady Quinn, Darius Walker, Ryan Harris, Justin Tuck, Derek Curry, Anthony Vernaglia are NFL-level talented, among others. Lorenzo Booker and Reggie Bush both were supposedly leaning ND but switched at the last minute. We just need someone who can put us over the top for recruits like that, and with Weis' NFL experience, he should be able to do that.

As for the points Bob Davie brings up all the time on ESPN (mainly the schedule) they are true to an extent, but there is no excuse for ND not winning at least 9-10 games every year, being a Top 25 team and occasionally challenging for the national title. Listening to Davie talk about the trouble with coaching at ND can be insightful, but it's been 3 years and teams haven't exactly been beating down his door to talk, so maybe part of his trouble was that he wasn't a very good coach. Does anyone doubt that Bob Stoops or Pete Carroll could have ND in the Top 15 year in year out despite the schedule? I think Weis is in their level, now I'll just have to see if he can back it up.