Fire Charlie Weis - Notre Dame Football is NOT an example of fairness or equality

I wrote this one year ago... on my myspace page

the original article:

after 3 seasons coaching Notre Dame football Tyrone Willingham was fired. After winning his first eight games with the Irish, including big wins over Michigan and Florida State, Willingham finished his Notre Dame career with a 21-15 record. The new adminstration thought nothing but to fire Willingham and start fresh. 

 

Enters Charlie Weis and he turns the program around. He started out fine, upsetting #3 Michigan, but then failling to defeat the very next week against Michigan State. A few weeks later the Irish almost beat USC but USC got lucky. Then continuing in the Willingham tradition they lost their bowl game, (Notre Dame had lost) eight straight bowl games, before, during and after Willingham.Weis was 9-3 in his first year as the Notre Dame coach. not bad. The next year, they were dominated by the Michigan Wolverines, as well as by USC with a terrible defeat at the hands of LSU in the Sugar Bowl. Now, this current season they have lost their first two games in the season with very little positives going for them.

 

I am not a sports critic or an analyst but i do not think they will more games than games they have lost this year. Most likely they will lose to Michigan, Michigan State, Boston College, UCLA, USC and heck maybe Stanford. Heck even if if i give them Stanford, they will end the season with a record of 5-7. If i am right, which i think i am then Charlie Weis record in his first three seasons will be 24-13, just a couple of games off of Willingham. if they lose to Stanford than his Weis' career record at Notre Dame will be 23 -14. Not that much different than Willingham. 

 

I am not saying that Willingham was an amazing coach or that he should not have been fired or that Notre Dame is a bad football school. I am just saying that something is odd is going on. Notre Dame is one of a few universities with over 800 victories in college football. they have 8 national championships and 7 Heisman trophy winners. Their is a more traddition at Notre Dame (arguably) than at any other school across the country. Willingham could not cut it, his record was not what the school demands, especially since in his three years coaching the fighting Irish he had suffered 5 losses of more than 30 points. In the previous 30 seasons, Notre Dame had only four losses of over 30 points. 

 

Weis has not suffered a defeat of over 30 points, but he is 1 -4 against teams ranked in the top 10. he has failed to win a bowl game and is in danger of not making a bowl game this year. Willingham was constantly being hounded for his failure to run the team. He was blamed for the teams failures and run out of town. His third year was a make or brake year and by the end it, all was broken. Charlie Weis comes in, uses Willingham's recruits and wins immediately, a lot like Wiillingham had done before him. Now in his third year, Weis has nothing to worry about, he has a contract extension and many consider his job to be safe and secure. Why? Am i talking hypocrisy ? or a double standard? maybe. 

 

in case you didn't know or catch the double standard, Tyrone Willingham is african american/black and Charlie Weis is white. Weis is a Notre Dame allumni, while Willingham attended their rival Michigan State - oh my. Maybe he was never liked at Notre Dame because of his spartan traditions. Sure Willingham was not Notre Dame's first choice, George O'Leary was but come on, O'Leary lied on his resume and quit before he was fired. But am i the only one that thinks this is just a little off, why was Willingham always in fear of losing his job? Notre Dame is in the beginning of their worst start in football history, with little or no hope for improvement this year and many experts think that charlie weis has nothing to worry about and does that seem fair? maybe the experts have no idea what they are talking about but, maybe notre dame football is not the model for fairness or equality. 

end original article

a year has passed and my analysis of Notre Dame's 2007 was a little off. i had predicted that they would go 5-7 when in actuality they went 3-9. i had expected victories over Navy and defeats by the hands of Stanford and UCLA and in each of those instances I was wrong. I don't work for ESPN but maybe I should

their 2008 record is a little better at 6-6 but they are still mediocre. In the past four years, against top ten ranked teams they have an overall record of 1-6. Notre Dame, with Weis as head coach has failed to beat rival USC. Willingham was fired three days after an embarrassing loss to USC. Weis just finished his fourth season as head coach with 38-3 loss to USC in which his team only had 4 first downs and 9 offensive yards in the first half. 

Now there is something to be said about a football program or any sports program, professional or collegiate that sticks to their guns and believes that steady is the course over irrational and emotional decision making. But should we praise Notre Dame now for their patience when that quality was lacking four years ago? I think not. 

Notre Dame football... shame on you.