CSI South Bend: Evidence suggests Notre Dame to fire Charlie Weis

November 26th, 2009 by Vince Mullins

In one of the worst kept secrets of the Coaching Hot Seat Season (coincides with baseball’s Hot Stove), my forensic analysis of media reports and my intuition to tie it all together comes to only one conclusion:

"Charlie, if Notre Dame has got the wrong guy to go 6-5, YYYYEEEEAAAHHHH!

"Charlie, if Notre Dame got the wrong guy to go 6-5, do you call yourself an improvement at 6-6?" YYYYEEEEAAAHHHH!

Charlie Weis is out as the head coach of Notre Dame by the end of November. A regular Lt Horatio Crane I am…

I know I am not breaking any new ground here – but let’s lay out the facts before dropping names of his successor:

Charlie Weis record is very similar to the records of predecessors who were shown the door. Weis is 35-26. Tyrone Willingham 21-15. Bob Davie 35-25. That would be acceptable at UTEP or Baylor, not Notre Dame. And also recall, George O’Leary was 0-0.
After the Pitt game, Coach cancelled the usual Sunday press conference due to “late travel arrival” According to local beat writer Scott Novak, Sunday pressers get postponed, but never cancelled.
His conference Monday sound like a man resigned to his forced resignation.
Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick lets Weis know that he should return home after the Stanford matchup, rather than his usually scheduled recruiting trip through the West. You know, just to talk about the season, and the future direction of the program. The $4-to-$18 million buyout.

So who is next to lead the Fighting Irish? BoDog put odds on that, so let’s see what the wisdom of crowds says:

Florida’s Urban Meyer is 3-2, but has already clarified he will stay at Florida.
Cincinnati’s Brian Kelly 3-2 and is flattered at the mention.
Stanford’s Jim Harbaugh 3-1…hmmmm.
Oregon’s Chip Kelly 5-1, but that strikes me as odd since he came to Oregon specifically to be the head-coach-in-waiting.
Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz 10-1, the perennial “next great coach”.
Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops 20-1, but do they want to upgrade from a coach struggling to win a game to a coach that has not shown the capacity to win a big game?

and forget about Jon Gruden, he just re-upped with Disney to share his depth of football analysis, like “Drew Brees is just a guy who wants to win.” ESPN’s Beano Cook threw out Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald as a candidate also, an interesting suggestion since he is young, successful at a school with high academic standards and like Kelly an Irishman.

If I had the chance to pick the new leader of Touchdown Jesus nation, I pick Brian Kelly in a heartbeat. He will not command the salary of Meyer, possesses a great pedigree of conference (Central Michigan, likely soon Cincy) and national championships (two at Grand Valley State) and precedent was set that he will leave his current team hanging in order to pursue the next opportunity (left Mount Pleasant before their bowl game to get to the Queen City). A unique part of the Kelly mystique is his commitment to his staff, he has maintained the same coaches his entire career – just the type of long term investment Notre Dame needs after a series of five-year trades.