At the end of Notre Dame’s 3-9 football season in 2007, Charlie Weis’ third year as the Irish head coach, I wrote a column entitled “A Mulligan Or a Harbinger?” I concluded the article by stating the following:” Years from now, the 2007 campaign will be either laughed off as Weis’ mulligan for his required growth as a coach, or the harbinger of more disappointment.”
It is now November 2009, and regretfully, the latter appears truer than the former.
About 20 years ago, after reading “Notre Dame: From Rockne to Parseghian”, authored in 1966 by esteemed historian Francis Wallace, I was intrigued by his seven rules for judging a coach. The more research I did in college and pros while applying his principles, the more sense they made — and the more clairvoyant they proved to be.
How do these seven apply to Weis?
1. A football squad over a reasonable length of time, usually three years, invariably reflects the personality of its head coach.
The personality we assumed Notre Dame would have under Weis, based on his introductory press conference in December 2004, was “nasty,” as in showing no mercy on the field, and asserting control with physical dominance.
Weis has failed to harness and build on a 9-3 season to start his career in 2005.
The evidence is overwhelmingly contrary. The offensive personality of the team is an entertaining finesse-oriented passing game, but not physical along the trenches. Defensively, with three different coordinators in five years, there has been a proclivity for laying eggs against the marquee opponents — and even the lesser ones. Special teams have had their moments but they’ve been inconsistent overall.
At its most basic core, football is blocking and tackling, and the Irish have come up woefully short in these two areas. Short-yardage and red-zone proficiency the last two years have ranked among the worst in the country, from finishing 111th last year in red-zone offense (particularly faltering in losses to North Carolina, Pitt and Syracuse) to the 2 of 6 result in the red zone against a much smaller Navy team.
The identity of this program is not about fundamentals but attempting to out-scheme the opposition. In the NFL, the talent is much more evenly spread and it is assumed fundamentals are a given, so schematics take precedence. In college football, that isn’t as much the case. Even so, a frustrated nose tackle Ian Williams asserted after this year’s Navy loss that not only were the Irish “out-schemed” but Navy flat out wanted it more. That too is a reflection on the staff.
There have been pretty consistent references over the years that the opposition “wants it more”, including offensive tackle Sam Young and wideout Golden Tate saying the same about the Syracuse debacle last year. Boston College seldom ranks in the top 40 in recruiting, but the popular opinion is they usually look like the game is more important to them than Notre Dame.
After the 38-0 loss at Michigan in 2007, Weis said the team had to “return to basics.” The basics should be an indigenous part of a football program, not a reaction to problems incurred. Because so much of the spring and August was placed on schematics and not the basics, the 2007 season was like joining an algebra class on Oct. 15 for the first time while everyone else began on Sept. 1. Unless you have the original fundamentals in place, it’s almost impossible to catch up that semester.
Stanford head coach Jim Harbaugh took over a wasteland program in 2007 and vowed that it would veer away from its finesse reputation and become a tough-minded blue-collar team. In Year 3, it has come to fruition. Notre Dame is always “a year away” from catching up with USC, while Stanford has beaten the Trojans twice in three years, rushing for 325 yards in a 55-21 rout last Saturday. The Irish have rushed for 48, 50 and 82 yards the last three seasons against USC. That’s not asserting nasty, physical control.
If that nasty demeanor hasn’t taken hold by the third year (more on that later), it won’t.
2. A new coach should not be judged severely on the results of his first season, be they good or bad; he is working with a squad that has been coached by his predecessor and it may still reflect the predecessor’s personality and coaching ability.
It’s always favorable and even fun for a coach to inherit a program that’s been down. If he wins his first year, he’s a savior. If he loses, blame can be put on the losing attitude or poor recruiting that was prevalent prior to his arrival. He is given a pass in year one, and sometimes even year two.
Tyrone Willingham’s 8-0 start at Notre Dame in 2002 was the perfect blend of a new voice and hungry, talented players eager to atone for past failures — the exact same situation under Weis in 2005.
Weis’ second year was not as gratifying because suddenly most people had the Irish prematurely ranked No. 1 or No. 2.
Poor recruiting classes in 2004 and 2005, made a precipitous drop in 2007 likely inevitable, but by 2008 and 2009, the squad was expected to be hungry to return to glory, and the schedules were more favorable than in recent years.
Although the talent level has been upgraded with some fine recruiting by Weis and Co., the on-field results still bear evidence that the team has a history of playing up or down to its level of competition.
3. Usually a coach will begin to forecast the future in his second season. He can safely be judged by the results of his third year.
There are exceptions to most every rule.
I can give dozens of examples of coaches who took over horrid college programs or NFL franchises and turned it around in three years (as I did with Harbaugh earlier). However, over the past 25 years, I can also cite three examples of coaches who went from the lowest valley in Year 3 to eventually nearing or reaching the summit.
• Colorado’s Bill McCartney was 1-10 in his third season (1984) following two previous losing seasons. He changed his offense, as well as other items within the operation, and saved his job with a 7-5 finish the following year. By 1989, he had an 11-0 regular season finish, and in 1990 he shared the national title.
• Butch Davis inherited a probation-infested mess at Miami in 1995, but it wasn’t going to show up until Year 3 in 1997 (similar to Weis). That year the Hurricanes were 5-6 and lost 47-0 to FSU. A year later they would lose 66-14 at Syracuse.
By 2000, Miami was No. 2, and Davis left Larry Coker with an embarrassment of riches en route to the 2001 national title and 2002 runner-up status.
• Believe it or not, Frank Beamer was 24-40-1 in his first six seasons at Virginia Tech – including 2-8-1 in Year 6, or two times Year 3. But that program also was digging out from probation status, and patience was essential.
The recruiting in 2004 and 2005 left the Irish in self-imposed probation in 2007, but the season still should not have been as dubiously poor as it was.
Weis joined Hunk Anderson (3-5-1), Terry Brennan (2-8), Joe Kuharich (5-5), Gerry Faust (7-5), Bob Davie (5-7) and Willingham (6-5) as the seventh Irish head coach to lose at least five games in Year 3. None lasted past a fifth season, so history was against Weis.
However, because of what he inherited, I was willing to make 2009 Weis’ true “Year 3.” Year one (2007) would be rebuilding, year two (2008) would be an eight-win regular season and a Gator Bowl bid, and year three would be bona fide top-10, maybe even top 5 contention. Regretfully, that has not come to fruition.
4. A great coach can win with ordinary assistants, but the more ordinary the coach, the higher quality assistants he will need. A great coach backed up by superior, seasoned assistants spell consistent success.
Because of his obligations as New England Patriots’ offensive coordinator during a Super Bowl run, Weis’ first staff was assembled rather haphazardly, and he didn’t even meet many of them until they arrived together on campus.
Originally, Weis had three former head coaches on his staff in Bill Lewis, Rick Minter and David Cutcliffe. He said he hired them because 1) he didn’t want yes-men on his staff and 2) he felt they would provide a strong resource on what it takes to be a college coach.
But major heart surgery for Cutcliffe led him to never coach at Notre Dame. He’s now doing a pretty good job as Duke’s head coach, and I sometimes wonder if his previous five-year working relationship with former Irish offensive line coach John Latina (2005-08) could have prevented some of the problems that were constantly evident with the offensive line. Peter Vaas, another veteran, was hired in Cutcliffe’s place, but was unceremoniously axed. Minter also was relieved of his duties, and a health ailment forced Lewis to retire from coaching.
A lot of assistants hired thereafter were not seasoned at their positions. It was Ron Powlus’ first go-round as quarterbacks coach. It was the first time Brian Polian was in charge of the inside linebackers, before handling only special teams. It was the first time Corwin Brown coordinated a defense, or coached outside linebackers.
Then again, Barry Alvarez never coordinated a college defense before Lou Holtz hired him to do it in 1988, and Joe Yonto came from the high school ranks to instruct Ara Parseghian and Dan Devine’s dominant defensive linemen from 1964-80. But those were Hall-of-Fame mentors who truly “coached the coaches” and were leaders of men.
Weis' offenses have stood out at times, though he's never had a defense finish higher than No. 39 in the nation.
Weis temporarily gave Mike Haywood, now the head coach at Miami (Ohio), the keys to run the offense in 2008, but that never seemed to be a comfort zone and changed by November. Did his assistants challenging him enough with issues, philosophies or strategies in the meeting room?
Only Weis and the staff know for sure. But even hiring a proven veteran such as Jon Tenuta to run the defense has led to backward steps, making one question whether staff chemistry is in sync.
5. The success of a head coach is directly related to the current state of his physical, mental and emotional vitality.
No one has ever accused Weis of not putting in the time at his job, either in the office —which he refers to as his bunker — or especially along the recruiting trail. He will never shortchange you in effort.
He wouldn’t be human, though, if he didn’t feel emotional distress and angst over what has transpired the past three seasons. Physically, his knee problems, which included major surgery after his blind-side collision with Irish player John Ryan in the 2008 Michigan game, continue to linger and he has displayed much courage enduring it. Vitality has its limits when you are emotionally and physically beaten down, as Weis has been the past several seasons.
Nevertheless, what ultimately erodes the health of a Notre Dame coach is when a 10-2 season is more of a valley than a peak. He tasted it in his second season, but the real work for an Irish coach doesn’t begin until he’s at the apex.
6. There are born leaders and born followers. Born leaders become head coaches; a follower can have an impressive record as an assistant but fail as a head man.
The coaching profession is littered with hundreds of people who were wonderful lieutenants but ineffective generals. Weis has nothing to prove as far as understanding schemes, situations and breaking down offenses and defenses concisely and to its lowest common denominator in any film study, or assembling a game plan.
But to say Xs and Os are what a head coach is about is like saying the most important quality of a restaurant owner is buying the groceries. There’s also hiring the right employees, marketing, ambiance, public relations, esprit de corps among the workers, adjusting to when the oven blows a gasket, dealing with bad reviews …
Weis was never a head coach, and Notre Dame is maybe the worst place in the world for on-the-job training (Brennan, Faust, Davie). The head coach has to wear so many hats — including a gift to inspire and motivate his troops in the college game — that sometimes his most effective qualities can become diminished by spreading himself too thin.
Weis has proven he can effectively recruit and install a lethal passing attack. For a “head coach,” that’s not necessarily enough.
7. It is natural and usually constructive for a young coach to imitate the philosophy, techniques, even personal mannerisms of a master coach who has been his teacher. But it can be destructive if he tries too hard to assume the essential personality of his teacher.
Weis comes from the Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick coaching tree, and he often refers back to their methods as a potential elixir. After the 2007 meltdown, he consulted with Belichick and Co. to help right the snafus that besieged the Irish. But again, the college and pro games are different.
Some might see it as an appropriate blueprint to emulate, others might perceive it as not cutting the apron strings.
I wanted to come away from the 2007, 2008 and 2009 seasons saying, “No question about it, Weis is The Man!” I can’t honestly declare that is not my sentiment, even though I tried talking myself into believing the circumstances were unique and he needed more time.
In any five seasons, my expectations are two top-10 finishes (one bona fide national title contention), two top 25 teams, and a clunker. The first three years included the top 10 (2005), the top 25 (2006) and a triple-decker clunker (2007). I was then anticipating another top-25 finish in 2008 and a top-10 finish (maybe even national title contention) in 2009 to come full circle.
Regretfully, it has not happened, and 2007 has proven to be more harbinger than mulligan.
Tomorrow: A look at some of the names publicized as Notre Dame coaching candidates.
