Notre Dame should just cut their losses and buy out the rest of Charlie Weis’s contract. Sure it might cost $18 million but it’s not like they don’t have the money. With a 33 – 30 loss to Connecticut, the nails started being hammered in the coffin that held Weis’s career. And this is with 6 years left on his present contract.
Tyrone Willingham, Notre Dames first black head football coach, was given 3 years before they decided to get rid of him. But after 4 years, Weis’s winning percentage is no better than Willinghams. Why wasn’t Tyrone Willingham given 4 years to turn Notre Dame around? Sure it smells fishy to me but it’s probably because I’m biased. For full disclosure I am related to Willingham on my mother’s side of the family.
Also for full disclosure – I root for every team that Notre Dame plays against. My two favorite college teams are Oklahoma and any team that plays Notre Dame. So yes, I am what you would call a hater. But family loyalty gives me a legitimate reason for not showing the Irish love. The reality of the situation is that Notre Dame thinks they are the Notre Dame of old. The Alumni and Boosters have this unrealistic fantasy of 10 – 2 seasons and BCS Bowls. The parity in college football now has made those goals extremely difficult. And other schools with loose academic expectations for their players don’t help either. The Notre Dame allure is not what it used to be. Footballers aren’t beating the road up to get to South Bend. Don’t get me wrong because they still are getting athletes. Just not the type that they use to or the type they need. But on the plus side their players are graduating and they have minimal on/off campus drama.
Notre Dame doesn’t have the speed of a Florida Team. They don’t have the toughness of a Nebraska Team. They don’t even have the heart of a Texas Christian Team. Their schedule this year was supposed to help kick start their resurgence. But instead their schedule exposed their delusional thinking. If the University of Alabama had the same schedule, the coach, athletic director and mascot would have been fired. The Notre Dame schedule this year was weak as wet toilet paper.
Before Notre Dame is competitive again they are going to have to make some tough choices. The times have changed and Lou Holtz isn’t waiting around the corner. They need to decide on who they want to be and then learn to live with their decision. But first they need to do some house cleaning. Giving a 10 year contract to a first time college coach was extremely foolish. Weis has been their entirely too long by Notre Dame’s standards. How long is too long? 4 years too long.
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