No, the disagreement seems to be this:
LOUNE: ND can’t be a perennial top-5 or top-10 powerhouse.
Munch: I agree. Our expectations should be that they should be in position to do so, but not expect them to accomplish it every year.
LOUNE: I disagree - ND can’t be a perennial top-5 or top-10 powerhouse.
:smack:
People have been saying that since Ara was the coach. Yes - it shuts them out of prospects, but not so many as to make competitive recruiting a pipedream.
Before I get started, I must emphasize that I have enormous respect for both Jim Harbaugh and Pat Fitzgerald, and for the jobs they’ve done at Stanford and Northwestern. If Notre Dame were to offer the job to either man, and if either were to take it, I’d have no objection at all.
The problem is… what, exactly, have Harbaugh and Fitzgerald proven? That they can build national championship caliber programs? Not at all. They’ve proven only that they can go 8-4 despite tough academic requirements.
Humor me a second. SUPPOSE that Stanford and Northwestern each lose their bowl games. And SUPPOSE that Notre Dame goes to a lower-tier bowl game and wins it (neither of those is a preposterous scenario, is it). In that case, Stanford and Northwestern would end up 8-5, while Notre Dame ends up 7-6. Not a significant difference, really. And yet, fans in Evanston and Palo Alto will be deliriously happy, while everyone in South Bend will be morose.
If Harbaugh or Fitzgerald comes to Notre Dame and does EXACTLY the kind of job he did in 2009, Notre Dame will go 8-4 and earn a trip to, oh, the Gator Bowl. Only fans and reporters won’t hail him for doing so- they’ll call him an overpaid loser. It won’t matter that it would reflect a marked improvement over the Weis era.
If Harbaugh and Fitzgerald are willing to work with stringent academic, and to settle for good-but-not-great teams in second-tier bowls, they should negotiate the best possible contracts, and stay where they are. If they’d like to be national championship contenders, they should hold out for better jobs (Michigan and Colorado, among others, will have openings soon, and both look MUCH more promising)…
Heh. Then in that case, Notre Dame definitely can’t be expected to be a perennial top 5 or 10 powerhouse.
Nah. I think it pretty much shuts them out. There’s so much talent out there going to so many places.
Fitzgerald is under contract through 2015 and I don’t see him going anywhere else at the moment. He’s young and at his alma mater, and Northwestern is patient with coaches. I’m not sure about Harbaugh’s contract, but I think he gets more talk as a potential NFL head coach.
Except that Notre Dame recruits as well as any other school in the country, and Stanford and Northwestern do not. I already provided the numbers (a couple pages back). Notre Dame is still, inexplicably, a huge draw.
This is Harbaugh’s 3rd year at Stanford, here’s the progress:
4-8
5-7
8-4
With the added pull that Notre Dame has (which it clearly still does based on the recruiting stats), seems like he would have a pretty good chance of doing better than 8-4.
Since the new head coach hasn’t been announced yet, my guess is now Brian Kelly.
ETA…FTR, Notre Dame has said that it will not go to a bowl game this year.
I’m going to toss out my Meyer prediction and go with East Carolina’s Skip Holtz, assuming he beats Houston in the C-USA championship game today.
Of course, that means Meyer will take the job.
Kelly agreed to talk to them.
Apparently the head coach position is going to be tough for them to fill. They just got turned down for the job.
Christ Turns Down 3-Year, Multimillion Dollar Deal To Coach Notre Dame
WTF? Notre Dame may not hire Kelly because of his abortion views? He’s a football coach, not a priest.
Of course, this may be all smoke and mirrors as well.
I guess more rumor than truth.
This is an interesting article regarding how some random person can plant a rumor and watch it ultimately be reported on ESPN and NBC. Anatomy of a Rumor
Interestingly even if it was a random idiot making something up, It could actually become something. If Kelly is forced into saying he is, then some Money Alumni might have a problem with it.
Yeah, but it happened before with Majerus when Notre Dame was about to hire him for the basketball job.
If they brought them a National Championship, they would allow him to perform an abortion during the Orange Bowl half time show.
And assisted by a topless nun.
I’m not liking Brian Kelly’s reaction to the media this weekend. He kinda got snippy when reporters started asking questions about the ND job, and he wanted to focus on his big win and heading to a BCS bowl. Mike & Mike this morning were inflating it a bit, but it’s still not a great sign he’ll be able to deal with an exponentially greater media spotlight.
The quote of his they’re inflating is “how can I be a primary source?”. Link. I don’t think that Kelly doesn’t know he’s a major source in these stories, I think he’s simply saying, “how could I be a source when I haven’t provided you any information?”
I’ve seen stories suggesting that Brian Kelly is an outspoken supporter of abortion rights, and that MAY make Notre Dame look elsewhere for a coach.
Let’s assume both things are true.
Some here are saying, “Who cares what he thinks of abortion, his only job is to win football games!” I suspect those people are either a tad dishonest, or aren’t thinking this all the way through. I’m pretty sure those same people would be outraged if their favorite school were to hire a football coach who took the “wrong” position on another subject.
Don’t believe me? Suppose that Cal-Berkeley needed a new football coach, and it turned out the leading contender was a born-again, fundamentalist Christian who’d given speeches saying gays were all going to Hell. Would you still be saying, “Who cares about that, he’s just a football coach”? I suspect not.
Others here are saying “Notre Dame doesn’t care about standards or morality, all they care about is winning football games. They’ll hire ANYBODY as long as he gets them to a BCS bowl.” Really? They’re phonies who have no real standards? Then why haven’t they watered down the academic requirements that make it so hard to bring in elite athletes? That would be the fastest and easiest way to put their football team back in contention. If they haven’t done that, why do you assume they’ll chuck all their other standards?
If they have maintained scholastic standards ,I would suggest it is not due to input of the sports departments, but the intransigence of the educational departments. They still have advantages since they are the biggest Catholic high quality sports program in the country.
Forget the marching band, THAT is a halftime show I would watch! 