Weis.

Charlie Weis failed to take Notre Dame to the glory it deserves but I will always respect him. 

Weis gave us a thrilling five years of ups and down. He's one of the biggest reasons why I am such a huge Irish fan today. Three days after Weis was fired he called up Irish commit Daniel Smith and told him that he shouldn't think elsewhere just because he isn't the coach anymore (read full story here). He's the bizarro George Costanza. I couldn't respect him more, I wish him the best luck in his next job. 

I was ten years old at the end of the Ty Losingham era. I would still watch the games during the Willingham era at times but it was never quite as exciting as things were during Weis' time in South Bend. By the seventh game into the Weis era i loved Notre Dame and hated USC more than anything in the world. Charlie Weis was in the process turning the Irish into an offensive machine. Quinn to Samardzija was becoming a saturday tradition. That was the season I became a devoted Fighting Irish fan; I watched every minute of every game and checked for news on a daily basis.

People can continue to hate Weis and say we (Notre Dame and its fans)  are no better off than we were five years ago. We're a whole lot better than we were five years ago. Weis has consistently convinced great recruits to come to Notre Dame. He made Irish fans believe. He put Notre Dame back in the recruiting world. A great part about that is, he got alot of them to commit to the University not just him. For example to our knowledge only one commit from the upcoming recruiting class has decommited. That was DE Chris Martin, who was the top commit of the Irish class. Although he did decomitt today Notre Dame landed a top 100 recruit today DE Louis Nix. Weis has put the next head coach in a perfect position. The next coach will inherit at minimum a former five stat recruit Dayne Crist at QB and arguably the best reciever in the nation in Michael "The Cannon" Floyd. He will inherit a talented defense that with some coaching could reach a very high level. Stars on the defense will include sophomore Manti Te'o, junior Brian Smith, junior Ethan Johnson, junior Kapron Lewis Moore, etc. Notre Dame will probably lose only five starters from last year whom are Jimmy Clausen (NFL draft), Golden Tate (NFL draft), and seniors Eric Olson, Sam Young, and Kyle McCarthy.

While Charlie Weis has teed up this job for the next person to take over, he's also set a new precedent and a dangerous standard. He's proven that you can recruit to this frigid blue collar town, even when you're six games below .500. He's shown there's no reason Notre Dame cannot be an elite program

With a good coach next year don't be surprised to see the Irish in the middle of the BCS picture. I'm looking forward to it.

 

Wait til' Next Year?

The Irish fall 4 yards short of greatness. Just 4 more yards for Notre Dame and they would control their own destiny to play in a BCS bowl. Clausen came up 4 yards short of of potentially winning the Heisman Trophy. So now what happens? Clausen plays great rest of season and gets invited to New York for heisman ceremony and Notre Dame ends up playing in the Gator Bowl. Some might think that we've done well to improve over last year but that's really not important. We're Notre Dame and our expectations should always be BCS win or bust.

I dont want to keep having to say wait til next year. I want "just wait til the title game". We (Notre Dame fans) have been talking about the future for the past 5 years. In 2005 it was just wait til' next year we will have Brady and Samardzija back. I know we went to a BCS bowl in 2006 but we lost big to Michigan, USC and LSU. In 2006 we were all hype with National Title expectations; we werent looking towards future but immediatley after USC game in '06 i know at least I was saying "Oh just wait til we have Jimmy Clausen, no stopping him and all of our great recruits". My dad bought 6 tickets to that SC game in '06 so that my me and the rest of my family could go down and see a  Notre Dame win. I left Southern Cal wanting redemption. Right after I left I thought about when next our best chance to get redemption against SC would be. It was this game, Clausen as a junior, at home. And again, we fell short. I probably shouldnt even talk about 2007; that year was only for the future. Again in '08 we were waiting for our great recruits to transform into great players. Well our great recruits are all emerging (Clausen, Tate, Floyd, Rudolph, etc.) but still we are left waiting for next year. Just waiting for those players to lead the Irish to greatness. I dont know about the rest of you but I am sick and tired of waiting.

I'm not gonna say that I don't think that our future is bright but I don't think our future has us winning a title game with Weis. I will reconsider keeping weis if we go undefeated the rest of the way and a win over a decent oponent in at least the Gator Bowl. Otherwise, we should bring in Jon Gruden. He would be that hard-nosed but fun loving college football coach. Pete Carol-esque?. If we were to bring in Gruden we would keep most of our defensive and offensive recruits like Martin and potentially more recruits that we might get this week. The recruits would look at Gruden's defenses with the Bucs and would come right to Notre Dame. I know it was Monte Kiffin coaching defense with those Bucs teams but Gruden would bring in that tough defensive attitude and possible some NFL assistants with him.

If Notre Dame wins out or just loses a barn-burner in  a bowl game, Notre Dame should bring Weis back and see what he can do with Clausen. I dont think it would be a good idea to bring in a new coach and system when you have Clausen, Tate and Allen all seniors.There's a good chance it'd be Floyd's last year as well. Could be a complete waste of year for those great players.  I would like to see what this offense could do next year rather than seeing all these great athletes waste a season. Would be better to do a coaching change the following season and bring in new system with Crist , Theo Riddick and Shaq Evans all being juniors.

After this past loss to USC, Charlie's seat has gotten alot hotter. No more room for mistakes.

 

Lo Wood joins Irish family

Lo Wood on friday became the 3rd recruit to commit to the Irish in two day and became the eighth recruit of the 2010 class. Wood is a cornerback out of Apopka High School in Apopka Florida. The 5-foot-8 160 lbs corner had other scholarships on the table from Stanford, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Michigan, Ole Miss, Virginia, Duke, Louisville, and N.C. State. Wood is 3 star recruit and 32nd best corner according to rivals.com. So Wood is not so great but not to bad and can always get better throughout his senior season at Apopka. I have also seen much worse recruits turn into star. Just like David Bruton of the 2005 recruiting class was a 3 star and the 36th best safety according to rivals.com. Other 3 stars have been Jeff Samardzija, Darius Walker, John Carleson. Those are just some my eyes came across as I was looking at past recruiting classes.