I have yet to have anyone provide me with a clear answer as to why they want Charlie to be fired...

 

I know the team lost a game they shouldn't have to Syracuse, but in reality, can't we see the improvement on the field from last season...or have we all forgotten how bad the offense was, how we couldn't run the ball, how we had a revolving door at quarterback and the defense struggled...

 

Has the team made the big leap that we all had hoped for, no, not yet...but I am not so blind that I can't see improvement...

 

My main concern with all of the rumors and blog hate is that we are not looking at the big picture...WHAT DO WE HAVE TO LOSE BY KEEPING CHARLIE FOR ONE MORE YEAR?

 

Do you think Kelly wouldn't wait one year to have a chance at the ND job? Do you think there won't be any other quality candidates available in a year? Do we have some kind of guarantee that if we fire Charlie our team gets better? I don't think anyone can answer these questions for sure and the reality is this is a knee jerk reaction...

 

How many of you pointed to Ty Willingham for last seasons failures? Now, after taking the team to a bowl game, a game we can still win, we want to make wholesale changes, and for what...an unknown coach from Conference USA ???? Or on the hope and dream for Urban Meyer (you have a better chance of Vince Lombardi coaching this group and he's dead).

 

Now, if CW goes...what do we lose... how about Chris Watt, Shaq Evans, Floyd, Hughes, Christ, Bullard, Calobrese, Stockton, Riddick, Wood, Deion Walker, Kyle Rudolph and Trevor Robinson...

 

Call me crazy, but we would be staring at another historically bad season in a year or two and we would be facing the recruiting challenge of having no stability within the coaching staff or athletic department, a coach who has never signed an elite recruit, and a program that would be stuck at rock bottom for the foreseeable future as a result of the lack of talent, depth, experience and an unproven leader.

 

So for all of you who are so set on firing CW, tell me what we have to lose by keeping him on board for one more season??? Please I'm all ears...

 

Because I personally see this team heading in the right direction...

Check out this post:

http://www.domerdomain.com/forum/showthread.php?p=159883#post159883

 

This is a list contained within it.

Let me count the ways in which he is lacking:

1) He is a terrible game day coach

2) He calls terrible plays and they take too long to develop

3) His offensive formations are totally predictable

4) He takes too long to identify and replace bad coaches (How many people were calling for Latina to be fired last year - he failed to see that)

5) He does not inspire his players

6) He actually prevents players from expressing emotion on the sideline (GTate "I'm gonna have a talk with him" bit)

7) He does not know how to coach up/develop HS talent

He says that the players "were pressing" and did nothing to change it

9) He says that he "felt the air come out" of the players and did nothing to change it

10) He says that the players "came out flat" and didn't do anything to change it

11) He says that the players are starting to get it when the truth is that CW doesn't get it or them.

12) He is not a motivator.

Here are eight games we have to lose if we keep Weis for one more year:

 

2008 Bowl Game

Nevada

Michigan

Mich St

Pitt

USC

Stanford

2009 Bowl Game

 

1. I believe that with Weis we are in serious jeopardy of losing every single one of the above games. Then you will be looking at 2009 as another waste of young talent.

 

2. All skill players will return for 2010 but you will have a new offensive line. That sounds good on paper but seeing as how Weis has had 2 years with the current group to learn how to gain one yard on 3rd and 4th downs and we still can't do it, I have no hope for next year's line improving regardless of whether or not a new OL coach is brought in. It's not as if this is a new problem unique to this year. Go back to 2006 and look at the problems with the OL there against a relatively weak schedule. This is a 3 year problem now and nothing has been done to fix it. I suspect it is not a problem with assistant coaches as much as the way practices are run.

 

3. I am only in favor of firing Weis if we can bring in someone better. The definition of that is up for debate. I believe if you get a high profile coach in place then you are not in jeopardy of losing current athletes and very few recruits.

 

4. A good coach is known for overachieving. In 48 games I would be hard pressed to find 2 wins in which a Weis coached team has overachieved. The time for winning is NOW. I want someone in place who will take these guys and win now.

 

Having said all this, I want to compliment Da Coach on the most well articulated argument for keeping Weis.

So for all of you who are so set on firing CW, tell me what we have to lose by keeping him on board for one more season??? Please I'm all ears...

 

First of all, where did you read/find that we will lose half our team if Weis is fired ??

 

With that said, I understand your argument, but where does this all end. Lets say for argument sake, we keep Weis.

 

Next year he goes 6-6, 7-5 - does ND fire him then ? If we fire him then, then we have to worry about losing next years recruiting class, which by all accounts has a chance to be better than this years class. We would still have to worry about losing members of this years class as well, which will be freshman. Clausen may also leave at that point because he will have finished his junior year and not want to learn a new offense. The list goes on and on......

 

And who is to say, that one of the coaches ND may be looking at, may be "the" guy? And in keeping Weis the extra year, we lose out on him...Who knows ?

 

I guess what I'm saying is that there is never really a good to time to let a head coach go, at some point, if things don't work out with CW, we are going to have to bite the bullet. I don't see the advantage of waiting a year - there are going to be consequences to firing a head coach, its just when you deal with them....

Whats to lose? How about the respectability of the program.

 

Alright lets say that the administration decides to give charlie another year as some of you are proclaiming they should. Please tell me; what are your realistic expectations for next year as far as wins and losses go? If you want to wallow in mediocrity and accept 6 or 7 wins then by all means bring weis back but does any rational person who watched this team against BC, Syracuse and USC really believe that this team will win anywhere near 10 games next season? Do you really believe that there will be that much improvement in one off season after seeing the regression over the second half of this season? Da Coach you cannot possibly believe that this team has progressed throughout the season and not regressed. Its the regression and 2-5 finish that scares me more then the 3-9 embarrassment of last year.

 

Not to mentioned that we were pitied and laughed at last saturday in the coliseum. If 9 first half yards and your first first down on the last play of the third quarter isnt the icing on the cake to firing him then i dont know what is. Whats more embarrassing then having a 32 point spread put up against your team? How about that that spread was covered!

 

You can call me irrational or impatient if you want ill accept that criticism but ive been waiting 15 years for notre dame to matter again in college football and all charlie weis seems to do is cast them deeper and deeper into mediocrity. It is my opinion that if you bring weis back for one more year all your doing is prolonging the inevitable.

 

And for those of you that think we are unrealistic or our expectations are to high...

-Its unrealistic to think this team should have won more then three games last year?

-Or to expect this years team beat pittsburgh at home after being up by 2 td's at halftime in the 4th year of a coaches tenure?

-Or how about just beating a 2-8 syracuse team at home on senior day after which our players admitted that syracuse "wanted it more."

-Is it unrealistic to expect to be outscored by a little less then 73 points over the last two games against usc?

-Or to not be embarrassingly shut out by Boston College?

-How about winning against more then one ranked team in the first four years of your tenure?

-Or in that case how about being competitive against a top 10 team. Those who appease weis always say look what he did the first two seasons. Well i remember those bcs games and i remember a team that lost by a combined score of 75-34.

 

Maybe these are unrealistic expectations for you but they are realistic to me. Once we accept mediocrity, notre dame football will never be elite again. And the product that charlie weis has put on the field is mediocre AT BEST!

I forgot one more reason to fire him:

 

The rest of the college football world wants us to keep him! That's all I hear from any fan especially those on the schedule.

 

Do you think Pete Caroll wants Charlie to stay? Heck yeah! By the third quarter he's already thinking about UCLA.

I don't disagree with your comments about our performance this year, and probably the most accurate measuring stick is USC. They have a top 10 defense and completely shut us down. Compared to last year, we were 3 points better. The other games are a bit harder to gauge, but clearly on paper their slate this year was much easier than last, and maybe that had something to do with their improvement in record.

 

But, I still would like to see Weis with one more year. For one thing, I'd like to see one more solid recruiting class come in and round out the team, as opposed to risking losing a lot of these kids and some other potential defections. It's impossible to say whom, but clearly with a change there will be some defections. There always are.

 

Before keeping Weis on board, there has to be parameters and changes. I still believe the root of all their problems is the lack of ability to win the battles upfront, so that is the first place I would look to get those position coaches responsible out of here. And we've talked about who those people are.

He should remain another year with the understanding that the team perform up to its capabilities, that being whatever he and the powers to be agree to. He's brought in too many outstanding players to be cut loose now.

 

The only way I would soften my opinion if there is someone who could convince me there is a better alternative for next year. Don't give me some pie in the sky comments such as bring in a motivator, someone more suitable etc., give me some specifics and not just speculation and whining.

the way practices are run.

 

 

 

That is the key phrase. I keep hearing the practices are not intense enough.

If players leave because of a coaching change, they never loved ND IMO.

I have yet to have anyone provide me with a clear answer as to why they want Charlie to be fired...

 

charlie is 28-21 which is a 57% win percentage

 

ty was 21-15 which is a 58% win percentage.......

Leopard

 

True, but MAN MOLDER left us in a crap sink hole with 2 lousy recruiting classes that left us the grease fire from last year. Furthermore, he didn't take responsibility for anything.

 

At least with Charlie, he takes responsibility for everything. Even if you don't like him, want him, whatever.....you have to say he LOVES ND and he will be man enough to say he and the team aren't getting it done without throwing the team under the bus.

Leopard

 

True, but MAN MOLDER left us in a crap sink hole with 2 lousy recruiting classes that left us the grease fire from last year. Furthermore, he didn't take responsibility for anything.

 

At least with Charlie, he takes responsibility for everything. Even if you don't like him, want him, whatever.....you have to say he LOVES ND and he will be man enough to say he and the team aren't getting it done without throwing the team under the bus.

 

What are you talking about? See bellow.

 

6) He actually prevents players from expressing emotion on the sideline (GTate "I'm gonna have a talk with him" bit)

7) He does not know how to coach up/develop HS talent

He says that the players "were pressing" and did nothing to change it

9) He says that he "felt the air come out" of the players and did nothing to change it

10) He says that the players "came out flat" and didn't do anything to change it

On Charlie's recruiting which has been awesome, will in my opinion only become worse each year as the kids realize that the four or five star athlete can't block off a two star athlete from a Syracuse or similar program. Talent hasn't blossemed with the exception of the receiving corp and even their talents are minimized because the Quarterback is forced to make plays under extreme duress since we can't run, and we're wholly one dimensional. The offensive line has been a sore thumb on this program for years yet no changes were forthcoming. You can't flounder around for consecutive years without having it figured out and we haven't heard anything from Charlie that he'd do anything other than whats already be tried.

On Charlie's recruiting which has been awesome, will in my opinion only become worse each year as the kids realize that the four or five star athlete can't block off a two star athlete from a Syracuse or similar program. Talent hasn't blossemed with the exception of the receiving corp and even their talents are minimized because the Quarterback is forced to make plays under extreme duress since we can't run, and we're wholly one dimensional. The offensive line has been a sore thumb on this program for years yet no changes were forthcoming. You can't flounder around for consecutive years without having it figured out and we haven't heard anything from Charlie that he'd do anything other than whats already be tried.

 

Exactly:cool:

He should remain another year with the understanding that the team perform up to its capabilities, that being whatever he and the powers to be agree to. He's brought in too many outstanding players to be cut loose now.

 

The only way I would soften my opinion if there is someone who could convince me there is a better alternative for next year. Don't give me some pie in the sky comments such as bring in a motivator, someone more suitable etc., give me some specifics and not just speculation and whining.

 

According to one power that be the head coach , this team was good enough to win 9 or 10 games this last year.

 

As for the practices also being too easy, I was under the impression that CW fixed that this year with a much more intense practice environment.

 

I want CW to have another year, but things absolutely must change with the O line and the strength of both lines.

We all know that those two coaches will be gone, so let's try this again next year.

 

CW has so much more to prove next season than he did this year.

I have yet to have anyone provide me with a clear answer as to why they want Charlie to be fired...

 

I have moved back off the wanting a change. But there are still some matters to resolve.

 

But how do we come out strong, then regress? Even our loss to MSU had some strides being made. It's kinda like this...if your sick, stay home from work. But if you show up for work, you best be ready to preform to the level your accoustomed to. Leave your excuse for not perfoming at home.

 

My biggest concern is that we went backwards after week five. Yeah yeah, we weren't really going to be that good this year due to our youth. I am buying that all the way. We weren't ready to contend, yet we came out and proved we could be within our schedule. Whose fault that we slid backwards?

 

The change we need is not necessarily the head coach. But he is the main man responsible for all things Irish football.

Is that really your reason?

 

yes, 57% winning percentage is not good enough for Notre Dame

My favorite reasons are that CW has broken his promises to the program:

 

* He said being a .500 football team was not good enough at ND

* He said he would never again lose to MSU after 2005

* He promised we would have a hard working, intelligent, nasty football team (we got the nasty part nailed)

* He said we would win 8-9 games this year

* He promised we would have a decided schematic advantage

 

I loved the swagger coming in but name me one thing that Charlie said that actually came true. Talk is cheap and I'm sorry but being the laughing stock of college football in year 4 is not what was promised to us.

9 yards and ZERO first downs in one half against U$C. NINE YARDS!

9 yards and ZERO first downs in one half against U$C. NINE YARDS!

 

Yah and this was with the "offensive guru" who was going to bring with him a "schematic advantage" he talked a good game and he backed it up for one season. Once top teams started to figure out his scheme his offense was a joke. And yes i know he won ten games in his second season but i dont think any of those wins were against top tier opponents and the losses were pathetic.