Indiana hired Oklahoma offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson a couple of days ago.
I think I read that Notre Dame’s facilities like weight room , practice areas are not very good compared to other big name schools like Texas, USC, Florida, etc. Those things help a lot with recruits. The main thing they have going now is tradition but even that is getting a bit faded now.
In an 18 year old Freshman’s lifetime, Notre Dame is 3-9 in bowl games, 1-9 since 1995, and has never once won a National Championship. I’d doubt Notre Dame’s history is even a factor anymore. Maybe the alumni support and TV coverage though.
Their history must be a factor because they still pull in good talent . USC was down for a good while before Pete Carroll brought them back to the top. If your coach is subpar then history and talent probably can’t help much. A top notch coach could bring ND back up. The problem is can they get a top notch coach now?
Also , Florida just hired the DC from Texas. Could be a big gamble.
http://jacksonville.com/sports/college/florida-gators/2010-12-11/story/gators-name-muschamp-coach
Muschamp is a very good defensive coordinator, and probably a good hire.
He HAD been promised the head coaching job at Texas, whenever Mack Brown retired, but an oral commitment like that “isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on,” so he COULDN’T turn down a job offer like Florida.
USC offers more than a big name to a high-school boy. Sun, babes, big-city attractions, babes, sun, LA, and did I mention babes? In South Bend, everything’s covered by snow, the girls are all covered by parkas, and it’s South Bend. And no high schooler has any memory of Notre Dame being anything special, or even a consistent bowl contender.
USC can be on top of the game whenever it wants to be, and doesn’t get caught. But what can ND do? What does it offer a kid anymore?
This is a perennial argument, and very silly. You could say the same things about Tuscaloosa, Alabama (minus the snow) that you could say about South Bend, but the fact is that lots of 4 and 5 star players make their way to Tuscaloosa anyway. Why? Because they are football players, they play some hellacious football in Tuscaloosa, and they have a long-standing tradition of playing good football in Tuscaloosa.
History does matter. Tradition does matter. Not long ago, people were saying the same things about Alabama football: that the Bear is dead, that Alabama would never win another national title, that Bama’s glory years are over forever. What kid would ever want to go to Tuscaloosa when L.A., Miami, Gainesville, or whatever is so much more exciting and wonderful and attractive to an 18-year-old?
Hmmm…ask Julio Jones. Ask Trent Richardson.
I’m firmly convinced that the passion of Bama fans, the belief in the tradition of Bama football, and the unwavering commitment, no matter what anybody else said, to return Alabama to football glory are what eventually turned the corner for the program.
It will eventually be the same for Notre Dame. All it will take is a particularly good hire and a few good seasons.
Actually, one thing Alabama has that Notre Dame doesn’t is a willingness to accept recruits that might need a little extra help academically. ND has several times utterly refused to relax their admission standards in any way for football recruits. Now, you can applaud this as a principled stand for the student-athlete, but you can’t deny that it has an effect on their recruiting.
Gus Malzahn (Auburn OC) has been hired by Vanderbilt.
Do you have a reliable source for that? Local reports say Vandy has yet to confirm a Washington Post story to that effect.
Miami has offered the job to Al Golden from Temple. According to ESPN, they say he’s also accepted. While the Vanderbilt hire looks promising, I haven’t seen any confirmed reports yet. So I’ll wait a little longer and the new list looks like:
Open positions:
Ball State
Kent State
Northern Illinois
Pittsburgh
Temple
Vanderbilt
Filled:
Arkansas State - Hugh Freeze
Colorado - Jon Embree
Florida - Will Muschamp
Indiana - Kevin Wilson
Louisiana-Lafayette - Mark Hudspeth
Miami - Al Golden
Minnesota - Jerry Kill
North Texas - Dan McCarney
Any others I’m missing?
Here’s the best I could locate on the Vandy situation: http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=ap-vanderbilt-coach
At the time of this post that report is 39 minutes old.
Vanderbilt is the ultimate doormat. They probably should leave the SEC for the Sun Belt but I guess the money from the SEC is now so good they probably don’t mind being a punching bag in FB since they can probably run the rest of their sports off FB cash.
Another odd thing about Notre Dame is they have no booster club that raises money. They get all their money from tickets, TV ,etc. They do charge for the rights to get some season tickets.
Then there must be some other non-silly reason ND is no longer a top-level program, and hasn’t been for some time.
The “perennial argument” you’re dismissing includes the key point that ND no longer plays “hellacious football”, and their long-standing tradition was broken long enough ago that it no longer matters. Those pictures from their glory years might as well be in black and white, for all the effect they have on recruits anymore.
There are other, shall we say, “recruiting inducements” available to a school willing to use them. 'Bama came damn close to the NCAA death penalty as a result, if you’ll recall. But they did get the players, and even if they didn’t they still would have had the SEC’s tradition etc. to support the program. ND has only some old movies anymore.
Touching, really.
It’s official for Al Golden to Miami. I’m pretty happy with this hire. Miami needs a guy who’s organized, will have the team play disciplined and inspired football, and do more with less (or hopefully lots more with a lot) rather than less with more. Coming out flat against FSU can’t stand, and I don’t think it will with Golden. Getting in pillowfights with Duke, Wake Forest, and USF should become a thing of the past. I have hope now that the game against OSU next year will be even match on the sidelines for once.
Yeah, head coaches and staffs that couldn’t get the job done.
Horseshit. One good HC hire and some hungry 3-stars, and every analyst on ESPN will be slobbering on ND’s knob.
If you’re making some sort of indictment of Bama’s current recruiting practices, I’d simply ask you for a cite. However, I was specifically talking about the most recent period of Alabama football, after we came off NCAA sanctions. Hell, most of our 2009 national championship team were in diapers the last time we won it all. To them, Bama’s glory years were nothing but old movies.
Glad you liked it. Every word of it is true.
Wisconsin Defensive Coordinator Dave Doeren has accepted the Northern Illinois job.
They’ve gone through quite a few coaching hires, all of whom looked great at the time, even to the fans. So after all that, don’t you have to wonder if the hires are the problem, or the institution?
Their *very recent *practices are well documented. It would be a real stretch to think the environment there became sweetness and light just by dumping a couple of scapegoats, wouldn’t it?
I dunno. Would it? Got a cite?