*Charlie Weis lives to fight another day. I have to admit to being somewhat surprised because of the apathy that I feel will take hold in and around the program. What will pique the interest of fans in the next several months before and after the bowl game?
If Notre Dame racks up a few more good recruits in the next few weeks and is proclaimed to have another top-five finish in the national recruiting rankings, will the reaction be, “So what?”
If the Irish go through the spring and reports surface that the offense looks good and the defense is more promising, will it also be, “So what?”
Weis has recruited very well from the objective measures. The running game has looked good in the spring against the number one defense in the past, and all that has meant is that teams can count on running up the gut against the Irish. Nothing has translated into wins.
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Weis will live to fight another day, at least into the 2009 season.
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What can fans latch onto between now and the fall to give them any hope? I believe the answer is nothing tangible, but rather can be found in the one thing upon which the University was founded, faith.
*Jack Swarbrick really walked into a brutal situation. He is a man with a ton of experience in the athletics venue and is a successful lawyer. Generally, successful lawyers gather every possible fact and try to diagnose every possible consequence of a given action. Knee-jerk actions/reactions are not in their wheelhouses. Less than 100 days into his tenure, the loss to Syracuse rocked his world. Were the Irish 7-5 and heading to the Gator Bowl, the Irish fans would not be happy, but Weis keeping his job would be a foregone conclusion and no press conference to announce him as the “still” head coach would be necessary.
As it is, Swarbrick has a chance to walk away a fool or a king. He will look like the fool if the Irish finish next year 7-5 or worse against a weak schedule because with all the evidence in front of him now, this time next year it will look like he signed up for such a record. He will be a king if Weis makes enough personal and personnel changes to win nine or 10 games next year. If he does, Weis will be the first coach since Holtz to show up for a sixth year.
*The smartest person I know could only help but laugh at the suggestion that Weis needs to win 10 games next year to keep his job. He made the analogy that it would be like if somebody told him (the guy, not Weis) that he needs to be able to dunk a basketball by this time next year. No amount of desire and “want to” is going to make that happen, since he went dunk-less in his teens, 20’s and 30’s.
That is tough to argue, but I do see a few glimmers of hope that 2009 can be a successful year:
First, the fact that Weis led the team to two straight BCS games in his first two years can’t be ignored, just as the fact that he set a record for total losses in a two-year span the past two seasons. When he has an experienced and relatively talented team, he beats the teams he should beat. Next year, there are 11 teams that meet that criterion.
Second, the talent base is much deeper and more experienced than when he first arrived on campus, so he should be able to run sophisticated schemes without worrying too much about the learning curve of the players.
Third, he has the opportunity to re-invent himself and end up right back where he started. Notre Dame’s struggles during the first two years of his tenure truly do look like the “good old days.” Never during those times were his teams as inept as they have been the past two years.
Fourth, the leaders on the team for this coming year will be members of classes that have talent around them. Clausen is obviously going to among the leaders of this team by definition (or position) and he will be old enough and hopefully mature enough to make a few tweaks in his on-field persona to approach being the type of leader the Irish enjoyed in Brady Quinn. Raeshon McNeil is another member of that class with leadership capabilities. Golden will lead by example.
Fifth, there are several x-factors in the form of freshmen who were withheld this season and the incoming freshmen, three of whom will be enrolled in January. I am interested to see if Braxston Cave or a Kapron Lewis-Moore can make an impact along the line of scrimmage. A true game-breaker can lead to a few more wins each year, and perhaps one exists in the incoming class among Cierre Wood, Nyshier Oliver and Theo Riddick. You never know when you can catch lightning in a bottle, or perhaps even a bottled rocket (worst Raghib Ismail reference of all-time!).
Sixth, Weis has his back against the wall as much as it is possible to have it, and that is when true champions find a way. The “way” isn’t often clear but the great ones just find it. If he is as good as he thinks he is and tells everybody he is, he will use his creative genius to once again out-scheme everybody. Revisionist history has taken all credit away from Weis when ND had its most prolific offense a few years back, but it is in him.
Finally, he has an opportunity through a very negative occurrence. Weis will be away from the football for a good three-week stretch when he has his leg fixed. It might provide the perfect time to come back with a slightly new approach that his players might not see through.
The odds are indeed long, but I will now return to my non-elected position of leading the Weis bandwagon and hoping for all kinds of success. He has learned about as many lessons as any head coach can learn while training on the job. Now, ND football needs to yield the fruit of its labor during this long, strange ride. Here is to hoping for glorious results of a misspent youth!
*Not rain on anybody’s parade, but Charlie Weis’ legacy is tied directly to Jimmy Clausen and vice-versa. Dayne Crist might see a few series here or there, but no way is Weis going into a fight for his job with a QB who has yet to see a single snap in college. The problem is that if I know it, so does Clausen, so he will not be pushed by competition. Thankfully, I think that he has enough of a desire to win whereby he will push himself to get better.
*The women’s soccer team has to be the slight favorite to win the whole enchilada this weekend, but with all four number one seeds getting to the final four, the task will not be easy. It begins with a Friday contest against Stanford at 4:30 that can be seen on the ESPN’s.
*Jeff Jackson. What else is there to say or write? The guy is just an amazing coach and congratulations to him and his team for reaching the No. 1 ranking in America for the second time in his tenure. To think of the success he is having already, opposing coaches must cringe at the idea that he is bringing in what he terms the “most talented class ever to sign with Notre Dame” next season.
*The Irish now have four teams in the national top-10, with both basketball programs currently ranked among the ten best, joining women’s soccer and hockey, who are both at the very top.
*Finally, I wish a speedy recovery to Luke Harangody, the men’s basketball standout who is battling pneumonia.
