That’s comparable to Stoops and Meyer and Fitzgerald, not as much to Patterson, who is signing an extension while ND conducts it’s search.
That’s a bit different. 
He wouldn’t have liked it there anyway.
How about Bobby Petrino? He quit on the Atlanta Falcons in the middle of a season after declaring that he would “absolutely” be back for the 2008 season.
Incidentally, it chaps my ass that Saban isn’t failing miserably like Petrino and Rodriguez are.
No, that’s very different. He was a total failure as an NFL coach and the Falcons were a mess, so he quit to return to college ball. But it turns out he does come pretty close to fitting the criteria here: Petrino signed a ten-year deal with Louisville in mid 2006, then flirted with a couple of NFL teams, and quit to coach the Falcons in January 2007. So that’s fairly close to this situation, and reminds me of what a shitbag this guy is.
That said I don’t think Patterson is going to go back on his contract and go to Notre Dame. Compare that to Kelly, who keeps giving classic non-answers like ‘that’s not our focus right now’ and ‘I’m focused on our bowl game’ when he’s asked about the vacancy.
I don’t think Patterson gets an offer unless they get several nos from higher profile guys. But if he wants to go his new deal won’t mean anything.
What? Petrino isn’t failing miserably. Not by a long shot.
I can’t stand the guy (Falcons fan), but he’s appears to be putting together a decent team in Arkansas. It’s only been 2 seasons.
Does anyone really believe that Urban Meyer at Notre Dame would have a hard time going into blue chip athlete’s living rooms and getting them to play at Notre Dame?
Most people think there is no reason for him to leave Florida which makes sense to me. He would win a lot at ND.
The Stoops rumors are still strong.* I’m hoping it’s going to be him. If he’s not announced by Friday, then it’s likely never going to happen.
*Aside from Stoops himself, but what does he know.
Stoops might just want a raise. Get an offer and ask OK to match it. Of course this year they may decide to let him walk.
I tend to think there is a reason why coaches such as Saban & Meyer only stick around most jobs for 5 or 6 years. When you look at Richt, Stoops & Tubberville, Bowden, etc., it becomes apparent that those first few years on top are often difficult to sustain long term. Maybe skipping around & injecting much-needed energy into the school-du-jour is the right way to go.
Harder than getting them to go to Florida, yes.
Notre Dame’s last three recruiting classes were ranked 5th, 11th and 2nd nationally. Florida’s were 2nd, 12th and 1st.
Considering Florida won a national championship during that period while Notre Dame continued to fail to win anything, it seems that it’s actually easier to recruit at Notre Dame.
WTF? By those very numbers, Florida did better in recruiting 2 out of those 3 years, and was about tied in the third.
I think the logic is that since ND isn’t winning anything and still pulling in roughly equal talent, ND itself is a bigger magnet (rather than ND+winning+championships).
sigh They were “about tied” in all three years - even though Notre Dame football hasn’t been relevant for 20 years, and Florida had just won a national championship. Ergo, it is not harder to recruit at Notre Dame.
ETA: What Munch said.
Recruiting and rating recruits is a bit of a crap shoot. There are sources that rate the recruiting classes. I wonder how well they do themselves? From sr. in highschool to a major college football program, is a huge jump.
Yes, but that’s beside the point. As long as we’re all using the same set of rankings, we can evaluate the relative strength of recruiting classes using recruiting rankings. We just can’t evaluate whether the recruits will actually perform well.
Sure its a bit of a crapshoot, but at the time most teams are going into the recruiting season witht he same inofrmation regarding who are the most likely to be successful, knowing full well that there are no sure things. Now one could argue that a) Charlie Weis is not very good at seeing the BS recruits from the recruits that will actuallyu pan out; or b) that he can’t ocah and develop players worth a damn. But when the recruiting is actually taking place ND is competeing for the same players as Florida, Texas, USC and Oklahoma and they are getting the players.
So I have no reason to doubt that Urban Meyer could not be just as successful, if not more so, at recruiting players to ND than he has done at Florida.
No kidding. I wonder if there is report on the guys who evaluate high school hot shots. If the kid doesn’t make it as a player in college, despite being highly rated the raters never say, “Gosh, we really over-rated that kid!” Instead, they say the kid didn’t live up to his potential or the coach didn’t teach him well.
I actually think that this is an edge for teams that recruit primarily in their own area (and a weakness for teams like Notre Dame that try to go national); a bit better actual knowledge of which players (and high school programs) are up to the hype and which aren’t.