Fire Weis?

While I was perusing ESPN.com when I was supposed to be listening to a lecture on Microsoft Access, I came across an interesting Gene Wojciechowski article about Charlie Weis and Notre Dame. The article wasn't interesting because it addressed the age old Weis - Willingham comparison, but because it talked about fans turning their backs on the coach:

"Notre Dame alums and fans feel empowered by the precedent set when Willingham was dismissed. [. . .] Some of them want a new coach."

Over the last week, Charlie undoubtedly took some heat (even from the Nasties crew) for (among other decisions) not kicking the field goal against Navy, but I have yet to hear any students on campus challenging his job position. The ND blog roll also appears to be responding the same way, by criticizing the coaching, but not necessarily the coach.

"Weis is going to have to live with the "Fire Charlie" chatter"

Even though this season is breaking all sorts of bad records (only two other Irish teams have lost 8 games in a season), I feel that our fan base has been smart enough to tough out this season knowing, not hoping, that things will get better quickly. The reason ND locked up Weis with a big contract so early is that when he is given the talent to work with, the results have been two BCS bowl bids, and once this current Irish squad develops in terms of skill and experience, fans expect nothing less than a perennial championship contender.

Wojciechowski also was critical of Weis' recruiting, basically saying that even though his classes have been ranked very highly, it doesn't matter because high school player rankings can be so wildly inaccurate. On this point, I'd like to refer this professional ESPN writer to the research done over at the Blue-Gray Sky, where over the summer, the boys reviewed the high school rankings of the current college seniors and compared them to their on field performance, and here are some of the conclusions they found:

• 30% of the top 50 seemed capable of playing in the NFL after only 3 years of school
• Only 10% of the top 50 were considered true "busts"
• Purdue's top 50 players seem to bust more than others (just a fun fact)

Also interesting was that the BGS team found that the hardest positions to evaluate were the offensive line and cornerback positions, so I guess that the ranking of the upcoming class could be somewhat skewed given that it contains 7 o-linemen and DBs, but the point is that a top ranking seems to be a decent predictor of college success. Oh, and by the way, the #1 ranked player of the 2008 class just set a single game rushing record in the NFL. I think his name's Peterson or something like that.

Up to this point, I haven't been sucked into comparing Weis and Willingham at all. Actually, I think this might be the first time I wrote the word "Willingham" in a post. But given that I am criticising an article that discusses him, I think I should at least say something on the issue. Well, I'm not going to, but I will point our loyal readers to a Huskie blog (link courtesy of Her Loyal Sons) so they can see how they are doing with our former head coach.

The ESPN article also includes a very good video of Mark May and Lou Holtz breaking down Notre Dame. Lou talked about how Notre Dame needs to get back to the fundamentals of toughness and good technique; Weis seems to have had some difficulty with this in the 07 season, and my only rational for it is that he is used to coaching experienced players, but not yet used to developing inexperienced players. One of May's criticisms was that Charlie has been unable to translate the recruiting rankings onto the field, so hopefully Chuck can prove him wrong as he learns how to better deal with youngsters.

Commenting on the loss to Navy, Lou referred to the 1987 team that lost in the Sugar Bowl, saying that that loss was able to fuel the team over the offseason and allowed them to go after the championship the next year. I personally believe that ND has faced enough "adversity" between getting walloped in its last two bowl games, getting hammered by USC in four out of the last five contests, and losing a record eight games this season, but if snapping the 43 year old winning streak against Navy ends up being the catalyst that leads to future success, I'll take it for now. This leaves us with the quote of the week:

"[losing to Navy] could be the best thing that happens to [Notre Dame]" - Lou Holtz

When life gives you lemons... Beat Falcons!