Re: College Football - Week of 11/29

[NewUserName]

I have a question for the ND guys. Is Weis really the problem? I have never been a fan of his and really thought ND was stupid to give him the big extension. However he is still playing with an extremely young team that has improved over last years team. He obviously is not a top tier coach, but is he really so bad that they may fire him and buy out his huge contract? By doing something like that they would only be giving more credit to those who think ND is not a top of the line job anymore.

[jersey cubs fan]

I have a question for the ND guys. Is Weis really the problem? I have never been a fan of his and really thought ND was stupid to give him the big extension. However he is still playing with an extremely young team that has improved over last years team. He obviously is not a top tier coach, but is he really so bad that they may fire him and buy out his huge contract? By doing something like that they would only be giving more credit to those who think ND is not a top of the line job anymore.

 

How so?

 

 

I don't see how an "extremely" young team can be an excuse anymore. If Weis was any good he should have had a quality team out there this year, but they aren't good.

[shnsajax]

"If you can't move us in front of Texas because they beat us, then you have to keep Texas Tech in front of Texas," Sooners coach Bob Stoops told reporters after the Texas Tech win. "If it's logical for one, then it's logical for the other."

 

:roll: . Not really the best arguement I think he could have chosen.

[NewUserName]

I have a question for the ND guys. Is Weis really the problem? I have never been a fan of his and really thought ND was stupid to give him the big extension. However he is still playing with an extremely young team that has improved over last years team. He obviously is not a top tier coach, but is he really so bad that they may fire him and buy out his huge contract? By doing something like that they would only be giving more credit to those who think ND is not a top of the line job anymore.

 

How so?

 

 

I don't see how an "extremely" young team can be an excuse anymore. If Weis was any good he should have had a quality team out there this year, but they aren't good.

 

By firing a coach every 3 or 4 years. Perspective coaches have to think that they have a very short leash to obtain unreasonable results. Weis has 2 BCS appearances and an improving team this year after the talent bottomed out from previous coaches recruiting. If I was a top level coaching candidate I would prefer going with Tenn or Clemson.

[Exile on Waveland]

"If you can't move us in front of Texas because they beat us, then you have to keep Texas Tech in front of Texas," Sooners coach Bob Stoops told reporters after the Texas Tech win. "If it's logical for one, then it's logical for the other."

 

:roll: . Not really the best arguement I think he could have chosen.

 

There isn't anything wrong with that argument. Head-to-head is near irrelevant in a three-way tie in which all parties are 1-1 against each other.

[jersey cubs fan]

I have a question for the ND guys. Is Weis really the problem? I have never been a fan of his and really thought ND was stupid to give him the big extension. However he is still playing with an extremely young team that has improved over last years team. He obviously is not a top tier coach, but is he really so bad that they may fire him and buy out his huge contract? By doing something like that they would only be giving more credit to those who think ND is not a top of the line job anymore.

 

How so?

 

 

I don't see how an "extremely" young team can be an excuse anymore. If Weis was any good he should have had a quality team out there this year, but they aren't good.

 

By firing a coach every 3 or 4 years. Perspective coaches have to think that they have a very short leash to obtain unreasonable results. Weis has 2 BCS appearances and an improving team this year after the talent bottomed out from previous coaches recruiting. If I was a top level coaching candidate I would prefer going with Tenn or Clemson.

 

Improving? He's been there for 4 seasons and they have been worse the last two than his first two, when he had other players. This entire team is his. If it's too young then it's his fault for failing to put together a better team earlier. Firing a bad coach is a decision you make regardless of whether others will worry that you fire a coach every 3-4 years. What's to be gained with sticking by a guy who is plainly overmatched just for the sake of consistency? So let him coach next year and now you can say you only fire coaches every 5 years?

 

He's either the right guy or he's not. USC struggled through a few coaching changes before finding Pete Carroll. Alabama went through coaches much quicker and that hasn't hurt them now that they've found a good one. Sure, ideally you don't change coaches every 3-4 years. But ideally you don't lose to crap teams like Syracuse when you were supposed to be a legit team. They've had three coaches since 1996. I don't see how that's all that high of a rate of turnover.

[SpongeWorthy]

Whatever "schematic advantage" Weis promised has obviously been proven to be a complete sham. Weis gets recruits but he can't develop talent. Then the problem is compounded by putting his players in a position to fail. They make egregious blunders in basic execution and fundamentals (blocking, tackling, route running, etc.) so they don't do any of the little things to help them stay competitive with teams that have superior talent.

 

I think Clausen and his receivers have a lot of ability but it seems from my perspective that he's given a lot of NFL type throws (and he CAN impressively stick 15 yard outs and other NFL throws) to make when he would operate better in a quick hitting, up tempo scheme ala Oklahoma or Texas Tech.

 

I do recognize the team is young but the requisite improvement hasn't been there. Yes, if your measuring stick is set at last year, then they have improved. But, talent wise, they should be better than almost every team on their schedule besides USC. So they've gone from abysmally bad last year to a situation this year where I think they've regressed quite a bit as the season has gone on.

 

He needs to go, IMO.

[Andy]

Weis's little schematic advantage comment ignored that he has no idea how to handle young men. He can't motivate. This doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot but I've never seen ND play with a lot of emotion. The only exceptions were our comeback wins in 2006, the UCLA game in 2007, and to some extent the USC game in 2005. The Irish trotted out of the tunnel last Saturday with all the intensity of a team whose season was over, and that was supposed to be Syracuse's job. If you can't get your team up for a senior day game, with a possible New Year's Day bowl bid on the line, you can't get the job done. He has yet to show any ability to develop freshmen - Jimmy Clausen has gotten worse since mid-October, Golden Tate still has not gotten a chance to do anything other than run go routes, and Michael Floyd is only incredible because he's damn near already a finished product.

 

Weis did a fantastic job developing Brady Quinn, Samardzija, Walker, etc. because they were already hardened from not only two years of competition but the Willingham soap opera as well. I'm not sure he can do the same with this current group. There's no reason Notre Dame shouldn't have won 9 games this year with their schedule, and yet they are lucky to have won six. If not for David Bruton's miraculous forced fumble at the goal line against San Diego State in the opener, this is probably another 2007.

[CubinNY]

Weis's main problem is that he's not motivated himself. He looks lazy and his teams play that way.

[Andy]

Weis's main problem is that he's not motivated himself. He looks lazy and his teams play that way.

Charlie Weis starts every day before 5 am and has recruited three straight great classes to Notre Dame. But yeah, he's lazy.

[CubinNY]

Weis's main problem is that he's not motivated himself. He looks lazy and his teams play that way.

Charlie Weis starts every day before 5 am and has recruited three straight great classes to Notre Dame. But yeah, he's lazy.

I'll just assume you have some inside info, but what does getting up at 5am have to do with anything?

 

The results speak for themselves. With all the supposed talent he can't win.

[da bears]

I am not a fan of Bob Stoops. He always seems to be running his mouth at this time of year.

[Soul]

Weis's main problem is that he's not motivated himself. He looks lazy and his teams play that way.

Charlie Weis starts every day before 5 am and has recruited three straight great classes to Notre Dame. But yeah, he's lazy.

I'll just assume you have some inside info, but what does getting up at 5am have to do with anything?

 

The results speak for themselves. With all the supposed talent he can't win.

 

I guess he'll have next year to turn it around. Then the alumni will come with torches & pitchforks.

[Butterscup1679666578]

I am not a fan of Bob Stoops. He always seems to be running his mouth at this time of year.

 

I'm really not looking forward to losing to them again.

[dew1679666265]

Weis's main problem is that he's not motivated himself. He looks lazy and his teams play that way.

 

This argument is similar to what I heard around Knoxville the past few years that Fulmer has done a worse coaching job recently because he's gotten a little fatter.

 

No offense, but it's rather silly. Just because the man is fat and looks a little lazy doesn't mean he's not motivated to win - he just doesn't show intensity on the outside and he's not in great shape.

 

Interestingly, I've never heard anybody say Mike Leach is unmotivated, yet he's fat and doesn't appear to be extremely intense.

[CubinNY]

Weis's main problem is that he's not motivated himself. He looks lazy and his teams play that way.

 

This argument is similar to what I heard around Knoxville the past few years that Fulmer has done a worse coaching job recently because he's gotten a little fatter.

 

No offense, but it's rather silly. Just because the man is fat and looks a little lazy doesn't mean he's not motivated to win - he just doesn't show intensity on the outside and he's not in great shape.

Interestingly, I've never heard anybody say Mike Leach is unmotivated, yet he's fat and doesn't appear to be extremely intense.

my comment has nothing to do with his girth.

[dew1679666265]

I say Weiss ought to have one more year. His starting quarterback (Little Jimmy), running back (Armando Allen) and two wide receivers (Golden Tate and Michael Floyd) are all sophomores and juniors.

 

The offensive line was flat out bad last year and there's a new defensive scheme (I believe) with the addition of Jon Tenuta to the staff. It's not that easy to turn a 3-9 team into a 9-3 team, if for no other reason than confidence issues with the players. Put him on the hot seat and see how he can do next year when the skill players are mostly juniors.

 

EDIT: I wouldn't shed a tear if he were fired, though, because that would put Jon Tenuta on the open market. I'd love for whoever the next UT coach is to hire Tenuta (since it's so unlikely he'll bring back John Chavis).

Edited November 25, 2008 by dew

[dew1679666265]

Weis's main problem is that he's not motivated himself. He looks lazy and his teams play that way.

 

This argument is similar to what I heard around Knoxville the past few years that Fulmer has done a worse coaching job recently because he's gotten a little fatter.

 

No offense, but it's rather silly. Just because the man is fat and looks a little lazy doesn't mean he's not motivated to win - he just doesn't show intensity on the outside and he's not in great shape.

Interestingly, I've never heard anybody say Mike Leach is unmotivated, yet he's fat and doesn't appear to be extremely intense.

my comment has nothing to do with his girth.

 

It is about basing your opinion on his nature by looking at his personality. A person can be very motivated and not look it.

 

You saying he looks lazy therefore he is lazy is akin to saying Phil Fulmer is fat so therefore he's lazy and that translates to his team.

[Andy]

Weis's main problem is that he's not motivated himself. He looks lazy and his teams play that way.

Charlie Weis starts every day before 5 am and has recruited three straight great classes to Notre Dame. But yeah, he's lazy.

I'll just assume you have some inside info, but what does getting up at 5am have to do with anything?

 

The results speak for themselves. With all the supposed talent he can't win.

My "inside information" is the 60 Minutes profile on Weis that they did during the 2006 season. The man works his ass off, but for some reason it's not clicking with him.

[SouthSideRyan]

Weis's main problem is that he's not motivated himself. He looks lazy and his teams play that way.

 

This is ridiculous. Because he's morbidly obese his team plays lazy?

[SouthSideRyan]

Weis's main problem is that he's not motivated himself. He looks lazy and his teams play that way.

 

This argument is similar to what I heard around Knoxville the past few years that Fulmer has done a worse coaching job recently because he's gotten a little fatter.

 

No offense, but it's rather silly. Just because the man is fat and looks a little lazy doesn't mean he's not motivated to win - he just doesn't show intensity on the outside and he's not in great shape.

Interestingly, I've never heard anybody say Mike Leach is unmotivated, yet he's fat and doesn't appear to be extremely intense.

my comment has nothing to do with his girth.

 

Then what the hell did it have to do with? How he lays on a couch during games??

[Andy]

SIU and UNI's first-round playoff games have been added.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I read something online that extrapolated a bit on Herbstreit's "defense" of Notre Dame when he said "that's just who they are". Essentially, this year shouldn't be viewed as some cataclysmic disaster, but rather the low end of lowered expectations from a decade and a half of being an average program.

 

Here's the actual quote itself from Dr. Saturday on Yahoo.

 

This reminds me of two things: a) Brian Cook's snarky "Returning to Glory Since 1993" t-shirts, and b) Kirk Herbstreit's more or less backhanded defense of Weis a couple weeks ago, which went along the lines of "this is who Notre Dame is." Both point to the fact that Weis' record, 28-19, is basically identical to Tyrone Willingham and Bob Davie. Unlike Irish fans, though, they see this not as a problem, but as a simple reality of life at Notre Dame in the 21st Century: After identical results from three different head coaches (four, if you count the last few years of Lou Holtz's tenure), maybe the problem isn't so much the coach as it is the program.

 

Notre Dame hasn't been in any serious mythical championship discussion (zero top-10 finishes) since 1993, and only averages about seven wins over the last 15 years; it has as many seasons with six or fewer wins as it does with at least seven. ND's winning percentage since 1994 ranks 36th in the country, between Boston College and Clemson. There's the famous bowl losing streak and pathetic record against ranked and winning teams.

 

Over 15 years, a pattern is reality, even if the only pattern is one of inconsistency. Based on Notre Dame's last 15 years, the reasonable expectation on an annual basis is somewhere between six and eight wins. Assuming it's still willing to accept a bottom-barrel bowl invitation with a chance at finishing 7-6, the current team is coming right down a track laid long before Weis became the conductor.

 

So it's no surprise that the only opinion that dares suggest "the program's development is right on schedule" comes from the outside looking in on disgusted natives who for some reason can't find anyone able to meet the standards of 15-20 years ago. Before it asks another coach to turn in his whistle/rosary, the Irish might want to take a long, updated look at the criteria.

[CubInOK]

People's descriptions of White Sox fans remind me of Oklahoma State fans.

[Mephistopheles]

theyre miles better than sooner fans though. not even close.