The Rome report

Last week, my esteemed colleague, CT Sports Editor Jonathan Howard, wrote that he didn’t think that the talk of Charlie Weis being on the hot seat at Notre Dame was warranted. While I respect Howard’s opinion, I must disagree. I think that Weis should be on the hot seat, especially after what Notre Dame did to its previous coach, Tyrone Willingham. When the Irish athletic department fired Willingham, he had a 21-15 record in South Bend with a couple of bowl berths. He was also the first coach to fired by Notre Dame before his contract was over in the modern era. That record wasn’t good enough for Notre Dame. They fired him citing job performance. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you think someone isn’t getting the job done, you should get rid of them and bring in someone else to get it done. When you compare the record of Willingham and Weis through 36 games, you see Weis has won only one more game than Willingham. Did the Irish fire Weis citing job performance? No, the gave him a 10-year contract extension. Wait . did I miss something here? One more win is worth a 10-year contract extension? That’s hard for me to believe.

Weis has done no better a job at Notre Dame than Willingham did. Weis’ best seasons came in 2005 and 2006 when he led the Irish to BCS bowl appearances that they did not deserve. In both of those games, the Irish were drilled. They were smacked around by Ohio State in the 2005 Fiesta Bowl and they were obliterated by the JaMarcus Russell-led LSU Tigers in the 2006 Sugar Bowl. Not only did Weis get killed in these bowl games, he also got there with players that Willingham recruited to South Bend. In 2007, after Weis had a couple of his own recruiting classes come to Notre Dame and the first year those recruits were supposed to make an impact, Notre Dame went 3-9. Great job Weis. This year, he is doing a little better; the Irish are 6-4 and will get to some second-tier bowl game.

The fact is, Weis must go. He hasn’t done enough to stay in South Bend, especially after what the Irish did to Willingham. Even if Notre Dame likes what Weis is doing, they still need to fire him. The Irish set a precedent when they fired Willingham. Many people, including me, don’t like the fact Willingham got the ax and Weis got an extension with the about the same record. The firing of Willingham and subsequent extension of Weis also looks bad because there is not an abundance of minority coaches in the bowl subdivision. Did Willingham get the ax partly because he is black? I don’t believe so, but other people might not see it that way.

I did agree with my man Jonathan on a couple of his thoughts. First, he is absolutely right about Notre Dame firing Weis. It won’t happen. It would be too expensive. It would cost the school about $20 million to buyout Weis’ contract. It also would have to buyout the contract of Weis’ replacement since the Irish probably would bring in someone from another school. That’s a lot of checks to cut. There was one more thing that I agreed with Jonathan on. I hate Charlie Weis. I hope he flames out at Notre Dame and runs the Irish into the ground.