I’m a Subway Alumnus who wishes Notre Dame well, but I can’t help thinking Notre Dame fans are living in a dream world.
Not only do very few 17 year olds regard South Bend as an ideal place to play, very few COACHES would regard the head coaching job there as a dream come true.
SOME of the names I’ve heard bandied about are absurd.
Urban Meyer or Bob Stoops? Come on! BOTH guys have proven they can win national championships where they are. Both have the best high school football players in America at their doorstep (Stoops in Texas, Meyer in FLorida). Neither has any academic requirements to worry about. Why would either man even THINK about giving that up to coach at Notre Dame.
Jim Harbaugh or Pat Fitzgerald? Both smart, capable guys, but how would Notre Dame be a step UP for either? They’re ALREADY going 8-4 or 9-3 at schools with tough academic requirements, schools where the alumni are HAPPY to go to minor bowl games. Harbaugh will PROBABLY get a shot at an NFL job or at Michigan before long. Both jobs look more attractive to me than the Notre Dame job. As for Fitzgerald, why would he leave his alma mater, unless it was for a job where he’d have fewer academic restrictions and a real shot at the national title?
Jon Gruden or Tony Dungy? IF either has the itch to coach again, why wouldn’t he go back to the NFL? Dan Snyder would give either a small fortune.
I think a Brian Kelly might be as good a hire as Notre Dame can make. And even if he does a GREAT job, I don’t see the Irish being championship contenders again. Let’s face it, the Irish didn’t turn bad under Charlie Weis. They’ve BEEN bad for a long time. Weis had a mediocre record, Ty Willingham had a mediocre record, Bob Davie had a mediocre record, and in his last few years, Lou Holtz had a mediocre record.
Notre Dame fans MAY have to accept that, given the current academic requirements, even a brilliant coach would be doing very, very well to get the Irish to 9-3 and a trip to the Outback Bowl, from now on.
You’re being silly. And remember that this comes from a ND hater.
While I agree that Stoops and Meyer would be foolish to leave their gigs for ND it’s tough to know what’s in their minds. Remember, they are football lifers who probably still think of Notre Dame the way they did as interns and players back when ND was the end all be all. For as long as they’ve dreamt about being coaches they probably dreamt about coaching Notre Dame, just like all these baby boomer media types who can’t stop talking about ND. They shouldn’t leave on paper, but maybe they are bored coaching where they are and want something new.
Gainesville and Norman aren’t any bigger than South Bend and with both guys born in Ohio that place could be like home, the southern good old boy thing could wear thin on a Ohioan. If either wants to go the other direction and get into a more public position NDs proximity to Chicago outclasses either of their current homes. It’s easy to think up scenarios where those guys are ready to leave their current positions. If they are perfectly happy then obviously they should stay, but who says they are?
Harbaugh and Fitzgerald would probably make the move in a heartbeat, neither guy strikes me as the type to settle for being a big fish in a small pond and that’s what they are. More importantly, Notre Dame pays, big time. If they could get $4M/year it won’t matter what kind of pressure they’ll be under. Remember, it’s usually all about money.
Brian Kelly is the guy who’s going to get the job, it seems almost certain, but if you think he’ll be lucky to be mediocre you don’t know anything about college football. He’s been a hell of a lot better than mediocre at Cincy and you have to admit that ND is a hell of a lot better than that. Kelly’s resume is better than Stoops was before OU and it might be better than Meyers too. The guy is all substance and no flash, perfect for ND and he clearly wants to be there which says something. Gary Patterson is just like Kelly, but less of a natural fit.
Gruden doesn’t want to coach college ball, but Dungy might. He’s a rabid bible thumper and ND would give him the platform he’d relish. He’s all about “building men” and teaching kids how to be leaders and solid people which is exactly what ND is selling. Who knows if he wants to do the day-to-day stuff, but TV isn’t what he wants to do long term but I’m not sure he wants to deal with NFL players daily either. A college with high academics and such a big high brow mentality would suit him perfectly. I don’t know if he’d have the Xs and Os in the college game but I bet he’d recruit like no one else. Parents with religious backgrounds and aspirational black kids who remember Dungy in the NFL would kill to bust ass for him.
They aren’t dead, they are a sleeping giant. A few of these guys would make ND great, a few wouldn’t, but you’re crazy if you think coaches think ND is a dead end.
Florida State is a sleeping giant. Whoever replaces Bobby Bowden can easily turn them back into a title contender in a few years. But Notre Dame looks more like a basket case.
About taking the ND job Dungy was quoted in USA Today and on ESPN as saying is there anything below a 0% chance of that happening? Granted that some coaches have been known to swear they weren’t going to take a job right up until the second they took the job (Saban to 'Bama) but I take Dungy at his word in this case. Plus, that’s a pretty funny line.
ND will be fine. They may have tougher academic standards but they’re the only school that can recruit competitively nationwide. Weis recruited some good players, if the incoming coach is more skilled at developing them it might take a lot less to turn things around than you think.
Just for fun, I’m going to pencil Nick Satan, I mean Saban, in as the next coach. Nick has been in the same place for a few years and that’s about his limit. This would give me some satisfaction as a Michigan State fan to get a chance to have our team play his more frequently. 'Bama is going to play MSU home and home in a few years but more frequent Saban-drubbing would suit me just fine.
Tony Dungy would be the worst coach ever at Notre Dame. The whole “builder of men” thing didn’t work when Willingham was there, and I see Dungy as having even less desire to recruit than Ty. The soft quiet coach works well in the NFL, where players are paid to have respect. College coaches really need to earn it - and that starts on the recruiting couch. And Dungy’s religious background/demeanor is decidedly different than the ND environment - I really feel that he wouldn’t get it.
They didn’t have to compete with USF (and to a lesser extent, UCF) back when they were contending for national championships year in and year out. Neither was even in a conference back then, let alone beating top 25 teams. It was just UF, FSU and Miami… and Miami was on probation for five years in the 90s.
For all the problems FSU may face, I still think they’re a sleeping giant. Very, very few coaches would turn down that job.
ASSUMING it’s actually available. I know all kinds of promises have been made to Jimbo Fisher. But I happen to think FSU is a plum job, and they should look for the best possible coach out there.
I think Brian Kelly would be a great hire for Notre Dame. But if I were him, and the Seminoles came a-courting, I’d take the FSU job over the ND job in a heartbeat.
It’s unrealistic to suggest Notre Dame is never going to be near the top again. The problem is that a lot of the school’s backers seem to believe that, with the right coach, they will be competing for titles every year and winning a couple of championships per decade, every decade, and having a preeminent place in the sport all to themselves. That’s not going to happen, and the belief that it’s possible makes it a really dangerous job for a coach, even if it is still an appealing one in many ways due to the school’s money, drawing power and reputation.
Okay, let me rephrase my qualms: I don’t think Notre Dame can ever be a championship contender under the conditions that now prevail. Right now, Notre Dame would not accept Tony Rice or Chris Zorich, the guys who helped bring them their last national championship. Heck, they didn’t accept Carson Palmer!
Now, I can and do respect a school that maintains high standards for its athletes. And Notre Dame certainly isn’t the only school that does so. Stanford does, too, and is having a great season.
But… does anybody believe Stanford could win the national championship? I sure don’t. I think a season like 2009 is about as good as it will ever get for Stanford. They’re quite capable of going to the Holiday Bowl on a regular basis. Maybe even the Rose Bowl every 15 or 20 years. But that’s about it- and Stanford alumni seem to be okay with that.
As I’ve said before, Notre Dame has to decide “What do we want to be?” If they want to be a football factory like Florida or Texas or USC, they have to act like a football factory. If they want to be Stanford or Northwestern, they have to keep their high academic standards and squeaky clean image.
I don’t think they can maintain their present standards AND contend for national championships. They can and SHOULD do better than 6-5, but if you turn away stud linebackers or swift cornerbacks because they have low SATs , you’re not going to be able to compete with the big boys. Nick Saban, Mack Brown and Pete Carroll will be happy to take the guys you pass on.
Duke seems to be managing OK in hoops. Notre Dame is getting plenty of NFL caliber recruits. Lack of talent isn’t their biggest issue. If Notre Dame gets it’s house in order and puts the right man in charge they’ll get all those elite recruits that go to the dozens of other schools because of their standards. If ND stabilizes and wins just a little bit it won’t be long before any quality student-athlete who’s considering Northwestern, Stanford, Michigan, Illinois, Vanderbilt, Cal and any number of other schools who expect to graduate players will be putting ND at the top of their list. If you’re the #1 option for student athletes you’ll have plenty of talent to compete with USC and Florida, the issue is when you are only one of maybe 10.
Well to be fair, in basketball you only need to recruit 2-3 players a year, so that is why Duke doesn’t have any real troubles. Still, I agree with you. Unlike Stanford and Northwestern, ND truly has a national recruiting base. They have fans everywhere, it is many Catholics default team. They have gotten the talent and if you puyt a coach like Urban Meyer in there, a guy who has true rep as a college coach, they will have absolutley no problem finding recruits.
i am not saying it is going to be Meyer, my money would be on Kelly like everybody else, but I simply would not brush off the possibility so lightly.
Florida high schools put out a ton of talent every year, more than enough for all the Florida schools. The ACC and SEC schools outside FL get a lot of talent from Florida too.
Never been to Tallahassee, have you? It’s a pretty shite place.
Florida high schools put out a ton of talent, but until pretty recently only three schools were competing for it. Now there are two new big-money programs, plus FIU, which nobody has ever heard of but has money and Howard Schnellenberger.
Schnellenberger is at Florida Atlantic and since he’s 75 I don’t expect he will be there much longer.
I know they have a lot of schools there but it’s still a better situation than many other places for talent. Here in NC we have 5 programs that are 1-A and nowhere near the amount of talent of Florida. That’s one reason why NC schools are mediocre in FB most years.
The head coach is one thing- additionally (and more importantly I think) are: 1) Who will coordinate the D and 2) will the school lower standards enough to get some real defensive line recruits in there.
The offense has been pretty great this year, but ND was giving up too many points. Their average opponent scored nearly 26 points. Take first-week patsy Nevada out of the equation and that average jumps to over 28- that’s FOUR TOUCHDOWNS that you have to hang on a team to even compete. And I probably don’t need to remind anyone that post-season there are only two ranked teams on that schedule.
That’s a punch in the gut, and you can’t succeed consistently in big-time college football with that statistic against a mushy schedule, even with Clausen and Tate lighting people up left and right (which they have been). I get the impression that Weis basically ignored the defense, counting on his ability to recruit guys to replace Quinn and Samardzija- well he did, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t a complete team and hasn’t been for a long time. ND without a defense is never going to amount to anything.
Anyhoo- I like what I see of Kelly- and he may fit the bill in terms of the admin, they want someone they think they can exert influence on and Meyer or Stoops would not be that person. I feel like Kelly could fly under their radar and then end up as a true program-runner like Holtz was allowed to be, and that’s what the team needs.
Any coach going to ND is going to ask for more and better academic exceptions, if the university will flex on that they will have a good D-line and therefore a good defense and therefore a good team- if they do not they will not. It’s that simple.
Can you provide any indication at all that ND’s recruiting footprint has shrunk in the last 10 years? Feel free to ignore ND’s ability to nab the best recruit out of Hawaii since…well, ever.
I absolutely agree regarding ND’s defensive patheticness under Weis. But are you saying that there’s something inate about quality defensive linemen that makes them less than academically inclined?
I don’t have any objective evidence to support that conclusion, so you’re right to call it out, but it sure seems to be the case that the great recruits turned away for academic reasons have been on the defensive side of the ball, and specifically the line. I think that it’s not so much the D-Line recruit being below average, but maybe the O-line being a special case in the other direction. ND has been able in the past to recruit guys for the O-Line that are academic standouts in high school (an important distinction- I am not saying necessarily that people are dumb, etc, just not focused on academics in high school).
It’s certainly the case that ND has been able to recruit blue-chip guys on the offensive side of the ball that suit their standards, and they have been forced to compete on the defensive side of the ball for three or four hot picks per year that end up drifting to warmer climes. Relaxing those standards a bit would certainly make a larger pool of similar guys available on the defensive side.
For whatever reason, ND seems to have lost great D-Line guys andand corners to academic standards. So I’m not saying so much that D-Linemen or defensive guys in general are less academic, just that it seems that ND has had trouble getting 5-star guys on the defensive side of the ball due to academic restrictions
As long as I’m opining, I think that offensive skill players are more susceptible to the “On TV Every Saturday” line of argument than defensive players are, taking away a big bargaining chip for the defensive recruit who can meet the standards. If academic standards were lowered, I’d bet green money that the exceptions go to big five-star d-linemen.