Maximum density, continued…We played Washington over the weekend and we got the sense – from the people that cover them every day – that there is a real sensitivity to the Notre Dame meltdown this year, since their current coach (Willingham) was replaced by His Arrogance, Chuck Wagon Weis. As we interviewed the wits and pundits from Dawgman.com, the pre-eminent Washington site, we got the “411” from Derek Johnson, who writes a column there. He made the point that when Tyrone Willingham was fired three years ago as Notre Dame Coach, and immediately replaced by offensive mastermind Charlie Weis, the two men seemed destined for comparison evermore.
Said Derek: “The cry of racism immediately sounded across the country, considering that Weis (a white man) would be raking in $2 million a year, which was far more lucrative than Willingham (a black man) had been earning for the same job. But those protests were drowned out by an even more vocal contingent — gleeful Notre Dame fans. There would be no more alienating behavior and crappy football from Tyrone Willingham. Finally, their savior had arrived! Weis would soon be ushering Notre Dame to countless 12-win seasons and a bevy of national championships. The glory was back.”
There was about ten minutes of forced humility, according to Johnson. And then? “At the press conference introducing him as Notre Dame’s new coach, Charlie Weis was not at a loss for words. Flanked by his family, Weis was talkative and cracking wise. He informed the horde of media that they sometimes wouldn’t like him, because of his proclivity to be gruff. Then after praising Tyrone Willingham, Weis proceeded to address the entire Notre Dame community, and in the process delivered an insult to Willingham.
"You are what you are, folks, and right now you're a 6-5 football team,” said Weis. “And guess what, that's just not good enough. That's not good enough for you, and it's certainly not going to be good enough for me. So, if you think they hired me here to go .500, you've got the wrong guy. You are going to have a hard-working, intelligent, nasty football team that goes on the field because the attitude of the head coach will be permeated through the players. And I hate to include the nasty, but that is part of being a winning football team." Notre Dame fans ate that up. They also became bellicose when Weis publicly decried how pathetically out-of-shape the Irish players had been under Willingham”
[Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! “Pathetically out of shape?”]
“The following September, the Irish Nation reveled in kicking the crap out of the Huskies in Husky Stadium, 36-17. That win validated many people’s opinions that Notre Dame made the right decision in dumping Willingham. When the Irish subsequently took #1 USC down to the wire in an October epic, Notre Dame couldn’t scramble for their checkbook fast enough to lock Weis up for ten years and $30-40 million.”
“Three years later, the college football community sits in disbelief. There was Notre Dame last Saturday, replete with three years’ worth of Charlie Weis recruiting classes. Three consecutive losses by an average of 30 points? ABC’s Craig James predicting that the Irish would lose their first eight games? Ouff. Things were never that bad under Tyrone Willingham.”
In retrospect, Weis isn’t to be compared to Willingham, as much as he should be contrasted to former UW coach Rick Neuheisel. It was Neuheisel who once proclaimed Washington to be the “Florida State of the West.” It was Neuheisel who stated that in the Pac-10 there were “haves” and “have-nots,” and that Washington would forever be a “have.” Two years after that comment, following his firing, the Huskies suffered through 1-10 and 2-9 campaigns.
The comparison between Weis and Neuheisel boils down to an expression former Seattle Seahawk Coach Chuck Knox used to say: “What you do speaks so well, there's no need to hear what you say." By forsaking humility and setting himself up for glory, Weis is soon to sustain a public relations backlash fueled by the frustration of angry fans. Of course, that comes with the turf as a football coach—to a degree. But it is made all the worse from building oneself up and creating unrealistic expectations.
* * * *
Chunky Charlie is “knute” a Rockne…After his second season at the helm of Notre Dame, Charlie Weis believed that he should be in the pantheon inhabited by the likes of Knute Rockne, Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian, Dan Devine and Lou Holtz. Believe it or not, each of those coaches won a national title in their third season at Notre Dame! In that third year, their combined records were 50-2-1.
In his third year, Charlie is 0-3 and is last in almost every offensive category – in the nation.
Despite his picture along with the Mount Rushmore of Notre Dame coaches in this year’s media guide, the only ND coach he is matching at his present rate is Bob Davie, who is the only other Irish coach to ever open a season at 0-3. As an AP article pointed out, Davie was then fired at season end “with time remaining on a long-term contract extension”.
Other Irish and Weis footnotes:
*The Irish offense still hasn't scored a touchdown. It has minus-5 yards rushing, in three complete games. It's last in the nation in rushing offense, total offense, and sacks allowed.
* Not to be outdone, the Irish defense is 111th out of 119 teams in the country.:chuckles:
* In none of their previous 0-2 starts did the Irish ever lose by a combined 51 points, as they have to Penn State and Georgia Tech (33-3). The previous worst start was in 2001 under Bob Davie, when the Irish lost 27-10 to Nebraska and 17-10 to Michigan State. That was the only time in school history the Irish lost their first three, losing 24-3 in the third game to Texas A&M. They out-did that game by collapsing to Michigan 38-0
* In Weis' 18 games as Notre Dame coach, the Irish have given up 30 or more points 11 times.
