RockneDrive

well, ya know, genius, i'm sick of seeing like a thousand posts in 2 weeks by you saying all the same things about how we're "not improving." really? not improving? JC throwing for 275 and 3 td's is no improvement, eh? AA's not showing improvement? how about darrin walls? brian smith? james aldridge? dan wenger? bruton? you haven't seen ian williams improve? no improvement by duval either? hmmm, seems i just named about 10 guys who i have seen improvement from in just the past few weeks. and what do all those guys have in common? recruited by CW. the same CW who won 18 games in his first two years. The same CW who i bringing in the NUMBER ONE RECRUITING CLASS IN THE COUNTRY next year. but he's an idiot and Nd should dump him despite him being an alum and all the great ways he impacts the program off the field, the hughes situation just being the latest example of CW going above and beyond to the right thing. oh, and sitting duval because it was the ND THING TO DO. we gotta get rid of that guy, right? I'm sorry, but i've had it with these frosh and walk-on commenter's coming here in to DD and making it DUMBER and more crass with each one of their frequently pointless comments. right at the top of this masthead it says "intelligent talk about ND football" and i'm sorry to say there's been precious little of that lately. and god knows i've been somewhat guilty myself with some of my stupid comments made out frustration on some game day threads! but this place used to have people like calves and gallup and domenaddomer and many more i'm forgetting making points and even disagreeing but always with intelligent and cogent points made. not "CW sucks and we gotta fire him and blah, blah, blah!" it's just depressing to me that this losing has brought on board dummies and whiners who seem to add little, if anything, to the discussion on here. in that respect, we may have become just another board. and that makes me sad... sorry if i stepped on too many toes, sir john, but i feel it needed to be said. I guess we will just have to find out who is right on this one. If I'm wrong, I'll be the first to admit it. A year from now, we can bump this thread and see who made the right call.

I don't play these stupid "are you a real fan" games. I've been a Notre Dame fan my whole life and will stay one until I die. You want an answer to your silly question? I say all players, students, alum, and fans are IN and CW is OUT! How about that for a little bit of the ole' "in/out"? (Sorry for the Clockwork Orange reference)

D&D: Yeah, sorry about that. Recovering from denial myself. There is no more benefit left in the doubt. What is, is! One's eyes don't lie. And what we have seen is not Notre Dame football, period!!! Anyone who thinks this is Notre Dame football doesn't know Notre Dame or football. Anyone who excuses what has happened this late in the season needs to have their head examined. The buck stops at the top. This is a team run by CW, no one else. The buck stops there. The bleeding won't stop next year either I'm sorry to say. There is no reason to believe any differently. As we kept hoping week after week that things would eventually get turned around while confidently placing our trust in CW's ability to fix the problems, we have been left with nothing but disappointment and frustration at the lack of results. Some have opened their eyes while others pretend that what they know to be true isn't really true and remain in their stupor of denial. And as they wait in hopeful expectation for next year to somehow be different, I am afraid what they will ultimately come to realize is a continuation of the same thing we have seen week after week this year.

You should be more embarrased by what you see on the football field than the opinions stated here on this board.

This is hardly the first sign of adversity this year. There have been ten games from which to have demonstrated some improvement. Yet we don't get any better. In fact, we have regressed. There is no excuse for that. There is something rotten in Denmark and some continue to be in a state of denial. And it will take the same kind of mediocrity on the football field next year for some to realize just how bad things are and have been for more than a year. (This started late last season) Someone posted the number of dropped balls, missed tackles, lack of leadership when QB took a hit out-of-bounds, etc., in the AF game. And how we are dead last in many facets of the game and on track to break records for the worst (insert statistic here). Facts are stubborn things. Take off the rose-colored glasses. It would be different if we had seen some improvement. CW is not the man for the job. To be a successful head coach in college, it takes a much more diverse set of skills than just having been a successful x and o offensive coordinator in the pros. CW has a big heart and brain and is a good talker and recruiter but is lacking in so many other facets of the job of head coach and has trouble walking the walk and doing something with what he has. How well do you think ND would have done this year if either one of the highly disciplined coaches (and effective motivators) at Air Force or Navy would have begun to coach our guys last spring practice? I say much, much better. And I think either one of those coaches would have been working with a whole bunch of more athletically gifted Irish players than the players they actually did coach this year. Being a head coach at an elite university should not be an on the job training exercise as it is with CW. Somehow this fact was overlooked in the recruiting process. Next year, you will agree with my assessement and come to realize that myself and others who see the real problem here and now were probably too patient for too long, not the other way around as you suggest. And cut the loyalty crap. I'm tired of hearing that from those who are in a state of denial!

How is that other coaches can do so much more with less and CW does so much less with more?

The fact is this team stinks and has stunk all season. In fact, we have regressed. Anybody who thinks this team has improved overall this season is in a serious state of denial. This team if it was really well-coached should have improved after nine games into the season. I no longer accept that our players are talented, 4-and-5-star players. They simply are not. And they have little to no fire in their bellies. Don't give me the loyalty crap anymore. How many times does it take to watch these guys lose to teams like Air Force and Navy before we fans can be shaken out of a serious state of denial? And what makes anyone think things will get better the rest of this season and next season? All of the sudden the players will just like "poof" be suddenly better next season? Puhhleese! It all boils down to coaching. And if it ain't coaching, it's that the players are overrated. How else do you explain getting a butt-whipping from two of the academy teams the last two weeks? My guess is that some of us have our head so far up our a$$es we won't begin to realize how pathetic things have gotten until we suffer through another year of the same old same old. I am now convinced. It's time for Charlie to go. Because if the guys are as good as everyone thinks they are, he should be able to get out of them what the academy coaches gets out of its players who aren't even on the lowest rating scale and were not recruited by most competitive NCAA teams. Yet they play with precision, fire, execution and they know how to kick butts and win against bigger, more athletic, and "better" teams, just like they did tonight. It's either coaching or no talent at this point. I'm betting on a big dose of both. Nuff said!

You Cubs fans have a great way to look at life.

Fans have the right to bitch about whatever they want. Doesn't make you a better person or fan because you think you are a "true" fan, whatever that means. Fans and their opinions are as diverse as the universe. We don't need uniformity or cookie-cutter fans who criticize other fans who don't see things exactly as they do. Unity trumps uniformity. Relax, there are people who see things differently from you. We can all agree to root for old Notre Dame, onward to victory, can't we?

Personally, I see it as a no brainer that you kick it. First of all, it is unrealistic to think that these kickers aren't consistently making 40+ yard field goals in practice. I personally watched Walker kick at least a half a dozen 50 yarders in the warm ups for the SC game. So, no, I'm not buying the gee shucks we can't kick. He also made a 48 yarder against UCLA. We'll agree to disagree...but for my money, Charlie is NOT going to get a pass for this game. He is responsible for a game we never should have lost, to a team we never should lose to. To me, it doesn't get any clearer than that. One thing you learn in investing is that hindsight is 20/20. You can always say well if I would have just sold everything in March of 2000 and preserved my gains for a couple of years, I'd be a millionaire by now. And there are those who think it's easy to read charts whose price action in hindsight makes it look like a cakewalk as to where to buy and where to sell. But if you are starting with looking at any chart of a stock at the last price and then you have to say, ok where's it going from here, well that's never easy. It's the same in football. That's why one side of me wants to say (angrily and with much frustration) that it's CW's fault we did not try a field goal and the result would have been a win. That's an easy, after-the-fact, Monday-morning-QB call (after a loss) to make for anybody who loves ND football. But we can't forget the past two years when CW called some unbelievable and risky plays that paid off. We all thought then because they turned out successfully that CW REALLY WAS an offensive genius BECAUSE those high-risk calls turned out to be right. They could have easily failed and our record could have been dismal. But this year those plays have not turned out as we would have liked them to. I'll bet you that if we would have converted both of those situations yesterday, not too many folks would be pissing on CW and would be saying something completely different today. That's just the way it goes when you lose. Now I don't think someone like Joe Paterno would have tried anything other than a field goal. Same for many coaches. CW likes to surprise folks with the unexpected. But it seems to me, in hindsight (with all of hindsight's limitations and its perfect 20/20 vision) that being more conservative and traditional with playcalling should rule the day, especially with this group of players. So I can see both sides of this issue. And it's not an easy thing to deal with as a fan. Would I have tried a field goal? Yes Do I think we would have had a better chance to win the game if we kicked a field goal? Yes Is CW's unexpected play calling starting to become not so unexpected to our opponents? I think so. Is CW starting to out-think himself too much? Yes Should he just let his offensive coordinator make the calls for a couple of games and create some distance so he can get a better view from the sidelines and see the bigger picture and allow his team of coaches to do their jobs? Yes Can CW see the forest for the trees anymore? I just don't know what to say about CW anymore. All I can say is that he doesn't instill a whole lot of confidence in me anymore. But I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt one more year. If next year is anything close to this year, then CW must go in my view. It should then be plain for everyone to see, even Charlie junior. It should then become obvious to all that even though CW is a good man who has had great success in the NFL and who loves ND with all of his heart that it's time for him to go. And if he uses that wonderful brain of his, I think he will do what is best for the university and will make his exit as gracefully as possible. And we should give him our blessings. It just didn't work out as we all thought it would. That would be a class act on his part and would shame all of those who have called him arrogant.

What does a coach do when he sees in practice every day that none of his current (can't recruit mid-season and no free agency) kickers, scholarship or no scholarship players, made longer than, say a 35-yard field goal AGAINST THE WIND and you are playing against one of the saddest defenses in the country and you want to make the best decision for the team and get a win? Do you kick the field goal when none of them ever made one that long during practices or do you think the odds are better to run the ball (or pass) against a very weak defense? No brainer.

For those of you who are second-guessing CW, what did you think about his play calling the first two years? (Especially the ones that were risky but which paid off.) Were you singing Charlie's praises then? Just curious.

I found one of the Carlson quotes from the SB Trib:

This may have been said before but I recall reading an article or hearing it on the TV that John Carlson was asked about younger players getting more playing time the rest of the year. He is the only one so far who said something to the effect that it is important for us seniors in this situation to make sacrifices and that he wasn't bothered at all if his playing time decreased because he realizes the importance of the future of the program. This was in the media, not on a BB. As far as I know, no other 5th year senior has been reported to have agreed with his view. But I thought it was quite remarkable.

Nothing wrong with cookin' up some some sweet USC schadenfreude.