Moving Forward

It has been a rather eventful off-season for Notre Dame football. Charlie Weis has been retained, and two assistant coaches, Jappy Oliver and John Latina, have not. Meanwhile, Mike Haywood, running backs coach and offensive coordinator, has left to become head coach of the Toledo Rockets. Joining the staff will be offensive line coach Frank Verducci and running backs coach Tony Alford. There is still an opening at the defensive line coach position.

At this point, it is high time that Irish fans moved on and accepted the fact that Weis is still the coach. There have been many rumors floating around that ND would like to hire Jon Gruden, who was recently fired from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. However, this flies in the face of athletic director Jack Swarbrick's own words that Charlie Weis will be the Notre Dame football coach in 2009. Meanwhile, Blue and Gold Illustrated is reporting that Brian Hardin, Football Director of Media Relations, says that the rumors are being spread in order to hurt ND's recruiting. ND fans need to move on lest they aid our enemies in their endeavors.

Instead, we should hope that Weis somehow figures out what it takes to become a college head coach. He is going to need to develop a tougher team that can block and run successfully. His first four teams, including the surprisingly good 2005 team, all failed in these key areas. A key in turning things around just may be the new offensive line and running back coaches. If not, Irish fans will most assuredly get their wish for a new coach in 2010.

Where It All Went Wrong

This is getting old. Notre Dame is once again in position where a new football coach has been hired, and he has failed to rebuild the Irish program. While the Irish have not yet fired head coach Charlie Weis, it appears obvious that he has failed to resurrect the program, and there is no point in allowing him to continue on as coach if he is not moving you towards your goals. The only reason why they would let him continue at this point is if their goals are something less than Irish fans’ goals.

Early on, it seemed like Weis was the right guy at the right time to return ND to prominence. The difference in level of play for players like Brady Quinn, Maurice Stovall, and Jeff Samardzija after Weis took over was like “night and day,” to quote the head coach. The 2005 Irish, Weis’s first ND team, was just two plays away from playing for a national title. If just one play each had gone differently in the Michigan State overtime loss and the USC 34-30 loss, ND would have been undefeated and headed for a title game match-up with Vince Young’s Texas Longhorns. Weis and the Irish seemed to be headed toward greatness, but instead, they soon found themselves headed toward disaster. How did it all go so terribly wrong?

The problems, as they do with all struggling teams, started along the lines. The 2006 team posted the same 10-3 record as the 2005 team, but it seemed hollow because the team was winning without playing much defense. This cost defensive coordinator Rick Minter his job, but it is difficult to play defense if your defensive line is weak, as the 2006 line was. The following year, things would get worse.

The 2007 Irish were forced to play with a brand new offensive line due to graduation, and other than Trevor Laws, the defensive line did not improve, either. Suddenly, the lipstick was off of the pig, and Charlie Weis’s team limped to a 3-9 record. To make matters worse, the Irish sat school records for most sacks allowed and fewest rushing yards per game despite Weis’s reputation of being an offensive genius. The Irish offense had become offensive indeed.

This year’s Irish were supposedly and improved unit after winning twice as many games as the year before. Yet, the fact of the matter is that the 2007 Irish won all 3 games against bowl eligible teams while losing all of their games against teams who did not become eligible for bowls. The 2008 Irish did improve by beating one bowl eligible team, Navy, but they also lost to one bowl ineligible team, Syracuse. In other words, there was no improvement between the 2007 and 2008 teams. The 2008 team merely played an easier schedule that their immediate predecessor. Once again, the major culprit was the offensive line as quarterback Jimmy Clausen rarely had time to carry out his progressions, and the Irish once again had one of the worst rushing attacks in school history.

Moving forward, the Irish must reinvest in the run game and the offensive line. Currently, teams are defending the Irish by rushing four and dropping seven into coverage because they know that ND does not have the ability to run the ball, even against four man fronts. Whether this means changing coaches or not is irrelevant. ND will not win again until they can once again force teams to respect both the run and the pass.