Re: College Footbal 2009: Anybody want to be in the Top 5?
You can argue that Willingham had more legit wins in his first year with ND than Weis has ever had.
He did that with Davie's recruits.
I won't go back and check but didn't ND win those games and only score something like 8 offensive TD's in 8 games or something like that? It was one of the strangest runs I've ever seen. It certainly didn't represent great coaching.
Here is what I'll say about the whole thing. Perhaps Ty did win more games etc. but his recruiting was going south, his 'act' was wearing out with the players, school and alumni and he backed that up with his performance at Washington...he may be a fine person but he cannot recruit, which is a huge requirement. Weis can recruit, he just isn't a good enough head coach.
Ironically, it is what made his successful that also makes him fail. He rode up the coaching elevator with some great head coaches, they didn't need him to be a head coach, just an effective OC. At some point somebody should have said to him "hey Charlie, you should go be the head coach at a low level D1 school for a few years to figure out if you have what it takes...if you stay with me sooner or later you'll be too expensive to get one of those HC jobs but will worry everybody at a bigger school/NFL with your lack of HC experience".
He got he ND job in a weird circumstance where they needed somebody quick...if he wasn't an alum he wouldn't have gotten a look given his lack of HC experience.
Some guys fail at that first HC job and come back in the future with success...maybe they are smarter, maybe they benefit from the chance to clear the slate and start over with new assistants, maybe they get lucky...it is hard to refit the ship while it is sailing full speed and taking enemy fire though, which is why schools fire the guy and bring in somebody else.
Weis gets a lot of slack because he can recruit, he is a ND guy etc. the cupboard won't be bare so there is no need for the school to have a quick trigger...if anything helps him now it will be that his firing will almost certainly cause Clausen, Tate and possible 5th years to leave for the NFL and may cause other top talent to transfer. Their next QB is out for 6 months, anything to 'make' Clausen leave is a mistake. He might leave anyway but I wouldn't hasten that on the assumption that the next guy will do a better job coaching and recruiting at ND. This is even more true if they bring in a guy that runs a completely different offense and defense (look what RR did for continuity at UM). ND fans look at like "bring in Kelly, we'll go 12-0 & win the NC next year with all of this talent"...I think that is very short-sighted.
Now all of that supposes that the best path isn't to take the risk, stay close to the strong HC, rise to the top of th OC ranks, get the HC job, get fired and keep the money while you interview for another job figuring people have short memories and you needed to try for the brass ring...the money is so much that even if you fail you have multiples of money more than you would have had if you'd gone to be the HC at Toledo.
Besides draining the treasury.
