Tuesday, December 01, 2009

The Black Eye of Notre Dame continues



NOTRE DAME'S BLACK EYE

Here's the quandary Notre Dame finds itself in as far as the football program. The decision is not about bringing in another football coach to turn around the football fortunes.

According to current Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick

“it is critical to this program and to its place in this University and college football that we compete at the highest level, that we compete for National Championships.”


However, the elite academic standards and the image of Notre Dame as one of the last bastions of the "true" student-athlete formula in collegiate athletics is one of the albatrosses around any Notre Dame football coach's neck.

Charlie Weis succeeded in spades in one of those key areas but failed in another.

Swarbrick has lauded Weis for his love of the University and his players as well as his ability to bring in elite student athletes. He has acknowledged that Weis did win a national championship at Notre Dame because the Irish finished first in graduation success rate this year.


So which objective is most important Notre Dame? Actions speak louder than words.

I'm not sure they can continue to cling tightly to both objectives and succeed at both in the current environment. My fear is that they will end up like Indiana post-Bobby Knight. That program clung to its "we run a clean program, our basketball players go to class, graduate and don't embarrass the program". And that was fine as long as Knight was competing for national championships as well. Once the Hoosiers were no longer a Top 25 team, other issues arose and the emphasis was placed on winning. This begat Kelvin Sampson and the rest as they say is history. The Hoosiers no longer have their "clean program" mantra to cling to anymore.


The list of desirable potential candidates to replace Charlie Weis gets smaller every day. I'm not sure that this is one of the most "coveted" jobs in college football anymore. It is losing luster, just as the Indiana basketball job did recently.

The list of candidates:

John Gruden - he would rather stay in the booth, thanks.
Urban Meyer - no thanks, Florida works for me.
Bob Stoops - why would he leave Okalahoma?
TCU coach Gary Patterson - just signed an extension, thanks.
Boise State's Chris Peterson - seems very comfortable on the smurf turf, maybe he sees what happened to his predecessors leap for the greener pastures.

All the other NFL long shots including Tony Dungy, Bill Cowher and Brian Billick have given the golden domers the cold shoulder.

That leaves Cincinnati's Brian Kelly, UNC's Butch Davis and Stanford's Jim Harbaugh as the remaining names deemed worthy enough to take over. But are any of these guys better coaches than Weis or Willingham or even Bob Davie for that matter?

Certainly one of these guys could be playing coy publicly and footsie privately, no doubt. But given the recent history of the last three coaches at Notre Dame spanning the last twelve years, I'm not sure what we are seeing is more the exodus you see coming from a burning building than effective contract negotiations.

Let's review:

Ty Willingham came in to save the program after the George O'Leary debacle with credentials forged at Stanford. It was thought that he could succeed under ND's academic environment because he succeeded at Stanford. After a fast start, he faded to a 5-7 and 6-5 record and was ousted. Did he get a quick hook? Absolutely. Was it about race? Doubtful, more likely about color. The color of money. They were concerned about falling ratings and the loss of their exclusive contract. By the way, Willingham has not exactly been a rousing success at Washington (a combined 11-37 in four years since leaving Notre Dame with an 0-12 2008 record).

Ty was 21-15 at Notre Dame, a .583 winning percentage. About the same as his predecessor Bob Davie (35-25 for the same .583 percentage)

The Notre Dame wanderlust for a big name like Urban Meyer and then Charlie Weis may have had as much to do with Willingham's quick hook as anything. Meyer is the guy they have been salivating over since he burst onto the national scene at Utah. Once he settled at Florida instead of coming to Notre Dame, the administration was caught with a coach twisting in the wind in Willingham.

It's interesting to note that Weis combined record of 35-27, a .565 winning percentage is comparable to both Willingham and Davie. This indicates to me that unfortunately for both Notre Dame and maybe college football as well, the obvious conclusion is "you are what your record says you are."

This is over a decade of results from the Davie era through Weis and the chase to be #1 in the polls continues. Three different coaches, all successful coaches prior to coming to Notre Dame, and the results are about the same. How does that definition of insanity go...doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

I'm not sure why any high profile candidate would want to risk the damage to his resume that a stint at Notre Dame might bring.

It's romantic to cling to the projected Notre Dame image as being a place where winning on the field is no more important than the integrity off it. But the administration has spent lots of time talking that image talk, they need to demonstrate that they can walk the walk.

Which quality will Notre Dame cling to and which will be set aside -- FAME or INTEGRITY?

The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out. - Proverbs 10:9 INTEGRITY




Maybe Touchdown Jesus can save them.

Hi, Beemer. ~;::::::;( )">

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