What Used to be Notre Dame Football

Nov

2007

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Agree2Disagree - Sports

Written by Rachman Crable

Image by Gallileos_Ghost via Flickr

One thing you could almost always count on every college football season was a very competitive Notre Dame football team, not so anymore. Notre Dame is currently 1-9 with the humiliating lopsided losses piling up. Whos’s to blame? You could look at the very tough schedule, since they belong to no conference they can play any team they want. What team can afford not to if asked by play Notre Dame it’s a big payday for the school and you get national exposure. You can say the academic standards are holding the team back with restrictions on admittance to the school. This definitely has affected the team but on the other hand Notre Dame has had one of the highest graduation rates in college football over the last 20-25 years, and had successful teams. Another factor is Notre Dame was and still is the only team with a national television contract, but the fact of the matter is that most college teams are on television now. The allure of being the only program that was on television every week is gone. The single most important factor is the head coach Charlie Weis who is in charge of teaching and leading these young men. He has failed miserably not only was he hailed as a savior and breath of fresh air for the program. He having won two Super Bowls as offensive coordinator of the New England Patriots, he was thought to be an ‘offensive genius’ his offense this year is anemic to put it mildly. The productive offenses he has had where with players he did not recruit while at Notre Dame. He has had two top ten recruiting classes in his three years and yet his teams are devoid of speed and athleticism. He then rubs people and his players the wrong way with his arrogance and aloofness. He needs to go period. Notre Dame has set the precedent for firing coaches after three years with Ty Willingham, so there is no excuse for not firing Weis. They have comparable win/loss records, both haven’t won bowl games, but Willingham was loved by his players and widely respected as a coach and person, Weis only as a coach in the NFL. The major problem I have is Weis is trying to run the program how they ran things in New England, that doesn’t work with young men. They need to be built up and a family environment needs to be created, not some type of environmrnt where you have a guy coming off like someone who thinks he knows everything and doesn’t know why players he coaches don’t get it. Notre Dame isn’t without some blame as well they gave Charlie Weis a ten year contract, after two years this is completely unheard of worth around 3-4 million annually. So now Notre Dame is on the hook for his contract, so a buyout is financial insanity, so he won’t be fired but he definitely should be. Remember Notre Dame you did this to yourselves.