It’s fairly well known that Charlie basically stole Clausen and Manti Te’o straight from Pete Carroll. Crappy recruiters don’t do that. Michael Floyd and Golden Tate are two of the best receivers in college right now. Sam Young is a top OL talent. He’s had a couple elite tight ends (Rudolph, Carlson). QB backup Dane Crist was a 5 star recruit.
You’re seriously the first person I’ve encountered to suggest Weis can’t recruit. Even admitted Notre Dame hater Mark May of ESPN will admit that Weis is an excellent recruiter.
I think Kelly would be the best choice for Notre Dame, but I am not sure (aside from a huge paycheck) why he would leave Cincinnati.
He has a pretty sweet monetary package at UC, which also insures his assistants are taken care of. They have added some incredible facilities there, he has made some serious inroads with local recruiting, and is generally worshipped by the local media. He also has very little competition in the Big East for a BCS bowl shot every year, with Pitt and West Virginia being the only consistent competition.
Now, I am not equating ND’s tradition with UC’s- ND can generally pull players that UC cannot based on rep and potential exposure because of their NBC deal. Succeeding their would also make anyone who takes the job an instant hero (and villain), but beyond that, not much is guaranteed at Notre Dame.
Except Pat has said repeatedly that he has no intention of leaving NU at this point (or at any point, really). And he was assitant under Walker, who once he (Walker) committed to not leaving, saw that commitment through.
Nah. He’s coaching at his alma mater and even took a potshot at Notre Dame a couple of weeks ago:
“Even though we’re similar academically, we’re in a little different boat as Stanford and Notre Dame. We’ve been consistently winning since 1995. They’re still saying they can do it, but we’re doing it."
While I like Pat Fitzgerald very much, factually, he’s certainly wrong about that statement. Notre Dame is 15 games better than NU since 1995. The Wildcats have had 7 losing seasons since '95, while the Irish have 4.
But that’s not because they aren’t great athletes who were heavily recruited by other big-name programs. It’s because Weiss is no good at teaching talented but raw, young, immature, undisciplined high school graduates how to become mature, disciplined young men who can not only make spectacular throws and catches but can reliably perform the workaday roles required to succeed at the upper levels of college football. Or in other words, he’s good at recruiting but he sucks at developing talent. The success of someone like Paterno isn’t due to always having the best athletes, but rather due to the fact that Paterno knows how to teach kids how to play the best football they possibly can. That talent is the single most important talent for a college football coach to have, and it’s one Weiss hasn’t got.
Convincing some high school star to come to your school is trivially easy by comparison.
Weis’ greatest failing to me is not having any good lineman on either side of the ball. I don’t know about recruiting that type of talent or how ND’s linemen were rating coming out of high school, but neither line has been any good for a long time. As said above, Weis has done fine recruiting so-called skilled position players, but the guys who are supposed to block and tackle haven’t blocked or tackled very well.
That’s true. There’s never been a football coach to say things like that and then make the change of heart later.
I am sure he likes coaching at Northwestern. But with the amount of money ND can through at him, as well as the chance of coaching a team on national TV every week, that is given a back door opportunity into major bowl games, I think it would be hard for him to turn down.
I might be wrong as to whether he would take it, but my guess is ND will go after him hard.
Kelly makes under $1.5 million/year. That’d be a starting point at Notre Dame. And every head coach hire in the country gets to name his assistants. If his assistants are that good, he’d be giving one of them a very strong chance to succeed him.
All of these would be enhanced in South Bend. Starting coaches are given ridiculous amounts of latitude at ND.
Meh. It’ll take a few straight seasons of going undefeated before being considered for the National Championship. Any year ND goes undefeated puts them at the top of the discussion every single year. I’m not saying Kelly can’t do it, but I am saying it’d be a hell of a lot easier at ND.
I will point out that a top 8 finish guarantees the Irish a BCS bid each year. So there is that.
Why call it a meme? God I hate that word. Their standards are higher. For instance they require incoming students to have three years of math. They don’t redshirt. Any top coach would be foolish to take the job and not have free rein to recruit. ND will not be at the top level again unless they relax their standards. Let the dummies play!
It’s not an official redshirt. Players staying a fifth year have to pick up extra courses, many decide to take grad classes or a second major. It’s a pretty bogus distinction, I’ll agree.
