Not Bashing ND, Just A Question
If you are the Notre Dame AD what do you do with Weis?
1. Win 4-7 games for the next 6 years and never rise above mediocre.
2. Fire Weis pay the $21 million dollar buyout. Get a new HC and roll the dice with them.
Assumptions:
-ND will only win 4-7 games with Weis (not a huge assumption)
-Peter King's estimate of the buyout (maybe a big assumption)
What do you do if you're ND? No fat jokes, okay. I'm seriously serious here.
November 28th, 2008 at 2:17 PM ^
I'd tell him to go on a diet.
Sorry.
BUT.....I heard this on the radio this morning and found myself agreeing. Last year ND went 3-9. They were the suckiest bunch of sucks whoever sucked. I mean epically bad. What did they expect this year? A 'Ship? I think their expectations were way too high. Give the guy a couple more years, he pulls in some great recruits, that's for sure.
November 28th, 2008 at 2:23 PM ^
Syracuse.
November 28th, 2008 at 2:36 PM ^
I'm pretty sure their ceiling is higher than 7 wins. Their core is still pretty young and their schedule the next few years is pretty weak. Once the guys in the key positions on offense get more experienced, I see no reason they can't repeat the top 25 caliber teams that beat all the weak teams but get smashed by good teams that they had in Weis's first two years. And hopefully, once Rodriguez gets everything straightened out here, we'll be one of the good teams. And then once that core graduates, they'll have another down cycle when everyone is inexperienced, and this time the buyout will be lower.
November 28th, 2008 at 3:09 PM ^
Assumptions. I didn't ask for what you think is actually going to happen. I'm asking what you think in a hypothetical situation.
November 28th, 2008 at 3:20 PM ^
Well, I'd say if it's going to be 4-7 wins the next 6 years if they keep Weis, they'd definitely get rid of him. With the addition that 1) Sadly, I don't think that's the ceiling on wins for them, and 2) if they only get 4-7 wins, he's only there one more year, two years at the max.
November 28th, 2008 at 3:06 PM ^
I don't think ND can fire Weis after this season. They have to give him next year. The problem arises if Weis does good enough to avoid embarassment but still not achieve their goals. In that case, they might have to use the inevitable blow out to USC in 2009 to hang him. Wouldn't it be nice if Michigan could do them the favor of destroying them also?
November 28th, 2008 at 3:37 PM ^
I don't think they will, though. Thanks to that contract extension, I don't see him getting axed until the alum are in open rebellion. I think right now the fans and alums are maybe looking around their basements to see what they did with the pitchfork and the torch, but they're going to leave them down there at least until next year.
However, if I were Charlie I would not leave my dog tied up unattended.
November 28th, 2008 at 3:28 PM ^
I think this goes back to the statement on the front page right now (UV Says Seeya), that NFL type passing games are extremely difficult to learn in 1-2 years, much less 3. By late next year, Clausen may actually start to show signs of being "fairly good." If the rest of their young team gets up to pace by that time, perhaps even borderline "very good." Last year Weis spent a little too much effort in finding an offense, with the whole, spread, not spread, who knows shenanigans. Over the last year and a half you can see the gradual improvements. The real question is whether Weis has figured out college players don't mature fast enough to run NFL schemes. If he wants to start a freshman qb with his "nfl caliber playbook" after clausen graduates, then we will know he truly is the idiot we always claim him to be.
Again, this is under the assumption he hasn't already adapted his offense to one of college level, and that the statement by Andy Reid is valid.
Honestly, I don't think there is a HC available to take ND back to glory, or at least their standard of glory, at the moment. Then again I didn't see RR on the market either. I imagine Weis leading them to inconsistent roller coaster of wins. Years with inexperience, they will win 3-5 games max. Years with experience on both sides of the ball, they will go 7-9 wins. With the talent they have now, I think it would be premature to change coaches this year regardless of the USC game. All of Weis's eggs are in Clausen's bag at the moment. If he can get Jimmy to play outstanding as a Junior and Senior, then ND will be okay. If they suffer another 3-5 win season next year, then the seat gets truly hot.
November 28th, 2008 at 3:33 PM ^
Wow, I give two possible hypothetical situations and say "choose one". Yet, no one is capable of doing that. (shakes head; walks away)
November 28th, 2008 at 3:39 PM ^
To summarize my post: Choice #1, except 6 years is rather arbitrary.
November 28th, 2008 at 3:57 PM ^
That's because one of your hypothetical situations is very unrealistic in order to make the other sound more attractive. Yes, the ND AD and most ND fans would take situation #2 over situation #1. However, since Weis isn't going to be around 6 more years unless the team rises above mediocre soon, it doesn't really matter.
EDIT: Or to sum it up in one sentence: Your hypothetical situations are so flawed it's impossible to answer the questions without pointing out how flawed they are.
November 28th, 2008 at 4:12 PM ^
I don't really think it's unrealistic? ND average wins over the last 12 years is exactly 7. I think that they are a worse program now than they were under Bob Davie, which was when they had the most wins through that 12 year stretch. The 6 years might be a stretch but about the length of time remaining on the contract. So, my two options were buyout, or no buyout. If they fire him in 3 years there's still a buyout and I didn't feel like asking when do people think the buyout will happen. It was a question that only asked for a simple choice. If you didn't like them, then you didn't need to answer. If I wanted your opinion I would have started the topic as "Hey wile_e8, what do you think of these assumptions?" But I didn't do that, so I probably don't care about what you think of the assumptions. It was just a simple question, you don't need to take it that seriously. Nor do you need to answer it.
November 28th, 2008 at 4:37 PM ^
Right, because everyone on this board just answers questions stated in the first post and never points out any of its shortcomings. Especially everyone associated with the WLA.
Oh, and if he finishes out his contract, Charlie Weis will have coached at ND for ten years. Bob Davie was fired after five years. I do think it's unrealistic for Weis to last 10 years if his teams continue to have Davie-level records.
FWIW I read the WLA blog and agree with most of what they post there and here on this message board. But for someone to put that URL in his sig and then resort to the "If you don't like my post, just ignore it" defense seems kind of hypocritical.
November 28th, 2008 at 5:02 PM ^
I don't actually think you've ever seen me attack anyone who posts a hypothetical question. We're not a group that sits around drinking the same kool-aid and never differing on a topic. I'll admit that it wasn't a great question, I was bored and I thought I'd try to see what people here thought about the situation in SB. The only stuff that I, and for the most part the WLA is really critical of are knee-jerk, half-assed opinions that have no common sense. They usually pertain to UM as well. This was just a general football question. Plus, usually we do say, "if you don't like it, don't read it". The criticisms fine, I just don't think it was that important of a topic to get that critical over. Whatever though.
November 28th, 2008 at 4:20 PM ^
But i didn't realize this was multiple choice mostly because you picked 2 rather ridiculous choices. Here's my question for you. Are you incapable of asking a decent question becasue you are
1. drunk.
2. too busy being an elitist.
November 28th, 2008 at 4:40 PM ^
All I was trying to do was ask if you were the AD, do you fire him now and eat the $21 million. Or stick out the 6 years getting somewhere around 6 wins a year. I don't think that's elitist but maybe it is.
November 28th, 2008 at 5:23 PM ^
Because my come back was going to be funnier than my fairly lame initial post.
I thought it was odd to suggest ND had to fire Weis today or wait for 6 years when something in the middle strikes me as the most likely outcome. The 'elitism' came into the equation when you suggested we were the dumb ones for not understanding your odd hypothetical.
But it's Friday evening and I love everyone!
November 28th, 2008 at 5:48 PM ^
Yeah, it's not really something I felt anyone needed to be flamed over. I didn't say anyone was dumb, I just was surprised that no one actually gave an answer. Rather, they just bashed the question. I realize that he will probably get fired between the two dates. That's part of the reason I asked the extreme ends of the scenario. Do they eat the full buyout now, or suffer through a long stretch of mediocrity? Reality is one thing, I'm asking for which is a worse cost, the lump sum now, or the gradual cost of prolonged mediocre football. It was an unrealistic question just to see which extreme end they preferred.
November 28th, 2008 at 4:28 PM ^
If they get rid of Weis, then there will be no need to print all of the fat jokes that exist around him and the program...so when you say "no fat jokes", you have subconciously gotten rid of him...at least that's what Freud would have said.
November 28th, 2008 at 4:50 PM ^
i keep him, expecting no more than 9-10 wins in a year with an average of 7.
but, the bigger news would be how ND hired a UM alum whose obvious goal is to sabotage the entire AD in SB.
November 29th, 2008 at 12:19 AM ^
The issue, I think, is that this question is insane limiting. The phrasing reduces the question down to "choose between sucking or firing Weis". Given that, the answer is #2 - fire him. But I'm not sure where that gets us - clearly, if they don't fire him, they don't believe that 4-7 wins is contractually obligated.
I understand that you wanted an answer within the framework of your question, but I think that Wile_8 and imafreak rejected the premise of the question - which, I think, is understandable.