Should Coach Weis Stay or Should He Go? I Say "Stay"
One more year for Charlie Weis is the advice I would give the University of Notre Dame, even after one of the worst losses in school history fell upon the program this afternoon against dreadful Syracuse.
The Irish are now 6-5, with no real good wins and two simply embarrassing losses in the 2008 regular season: today's game and the 17-0 meltdown against Boston College two weeks ago. Losses to UNC, Pitt, and Michigan State are not as bad as they appeared at first blush, since those three teams are going bowling.
No, I would give Coach Weis at least one more year. Notre Dame already has the reputation of a coaches graveyard after destroying the once promising careers of Bob Davie and Tyrone Willingham (who is now out at Washington).
Firing a once well thought of NFL type who led the school to Bowl Championship Series Bowls his first two seasons would complete a type of trifecta: the assistant promoted to the head man's job (Davie), the winning coach at a lower tier BCS school (Willingham), and the NFL genius (Weis), all of whom would have failed in the most pressure packed of all college head coaching assignments.
Should Coach Weis not win seven or eight games next year given the caliber of high school talent he had admittedly been able to recruit to South Bend then I would feel better about letting him go and beginning the search anew. But not before then.
Given the Irish relatively weak 2009 schedule, seven wins appears a reasonable threshold to meet for the once golden Charlie Weis. And the fact that other school's will be able to use Weis tenuous hold on the Notre Dame job against the Irish in recruiting should not be a major factor in that they already have a good deal of highly ranked athletes at the school. That will not be an excuse next season.
Good luck to what appears to be a good man caught in a tough situation. Coach Weis has never been in the head man's job before. Is he a failure? Is he learning on the job and will soon prove to be a prescient choice by the ND administration? Only time will tell.
The Irish are now 6-5, with no real good wins and two simply embarrassing losses in the 2008 regular season: today's game and the 17-0 meltdown against Boston College two weeks ago. Losses to UNC, Pitt, and Michigan State are not as bad as they appeared at first blush, since those three teams are going bowling.
No, I would give Coach Weis at least one more year. Notre Dame already has the reputation of a coaches graveyard after destroying the once promising careers of Bob Davie and Tyrone Willingham (who is now out at Washington).
Firing a once well thought of NFL type who led the school to Bowl Championship Series Bowls his first two seasons would complete a type of trifecta: the assistant promoted to the head man's job (Davie), the winning coach at a lower tier BCS school (Willingham), and the NFL genius (Weis), all of whom would have failed in the most pressure packed of all college head coaching assignments.
Should Coach Weis not win seven or eight games next year given the caliber of high school talent he had admittedly been able to recruit to South Bend then I would feel better about letting him go and beginning the search anew. But not before then.
Given the Irish relatively weak 2009 schedule, seven wins appears a reasonable threshold to meet for the once golden Charlie Weis. And the fact that other school's will be able to use Weis tenuous hold on the Notre Dame job against the Irish in recruiting should not be a major factor in that they already have a good deal of highly ranked athletes at the school. That will not be an excuse next season.
Good luck to what appears to be a good man caught in a tough situation. Coach Weis has never been in the head man's job before. Is he a failure? Is he learning on the job and will soon prove to be a prescient choice by the ND administration? Only time will tell.
posted by joe sweeney at 11:24 PM
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