RAM VELA, SUPAHMAN THAT HO

No love for Humanity Advanced?

I guess that running for just shy of 1/5th of a mile against South Carolina isn’t enough.

Boston College in a nor’easter? MAO!

Matt Ryan was the BC “Player of the game” with a line of 26-52, 416 yds, 2 td, 3 int. Did they not have anyone else to choose?

I just got vertigo from watching that clip.

Oh, hey, by the way, did anyone else know this? Charlie Weiss is legally a f_cktard for not kicking the field goal.

Roaming, I was yelling, screaming, and laughing at the stupidity of Weiss’ rediculous descision. It had to have been a chipshot from where the ball was. One more reason why Weiss doesn’t deserve food. Congrats, Middies.

Notre Dame – do you realize you been “The Suck” since that arse-raping in the Superdome last January????

But, and this is a strong BUT… Navy is the bomb! Reggie Campbell, all 5-6 of him, is pound for pound the best player in the game! How about his catch on the winning 2 point conversion where he went in against 3 defenders to catch it. And Kaipo is the Hawaiian Assasin… And Ram Vela… RAM VELA!!! Ram, clocking in at 5-9, 185 playing Linebacker in Div 1-A… Ram carried the hopes and dreams of every one of us 5-9, slow as molasses couch surfers who hate Notre Dame with a passion by making the “La-Z-Boy Sofa Jockey Play of the Season”!!!! Go Navy!

No mention of Knowshon Moreno’s 197 yards, which put him at 2nd all-time behind only Hershal Walker on Georgia’s Freshman runningback list?

For shame. Watch out, or he might score on Florida again.

Forget Moreno, McFadden runs for an SEC-record 323 yards, with a TD pass to boot, and no mention?

best play ever seen live. (i missed roy williams’s superman play).

humanity advanced 80 yard run untouched was pretty good. i guess

Good thing ND fired Willingham before he took the program into the gutter. Think of where they would be if that bullet hadn’t been dodged.

#4, the ball was on the 24, so that would’ve been a 41-yard field goal. Not exactly a chip shot… though still makeable.

Except our kicker sucks.

Except maybe Charlie should’ve recruited a better kicker at some point.

sigh

He still should’ve tried for the field goal. Our odds of making that are still better than our odds of converting 4th-and-8.

That McFadden guy did OK tonight. Tyrone Nix won’t be able to shit right for a week.

#5: Considering the last time the words “Knowshon Moreno” were uttered on this site, they were followed by a very long string of profanity, I’m not certain that Orson wants to try that again.

Upon further review, Brady Quinn is the greatest college footballer ever. Ever.

No kidding on Humanity Advanced. Click-clack, bitches, indeed.

yeah … i’m gonna go ahead and wave the white flag on defending any single aspect of ND football this season. absolutely nothing about the team is even adequate.

weis said afterwards that in pregame his kickers were coming up four yards short from 40 at that end of the field … but you still have a better shot at 41 yarder into the wind than at a 4th and 8. you just do.

and playing zone in the defensive backfield (like they did on navy’s final offensive play) is just stupid when you have such a speed advantage.

i’m just gonna think about the pumpkin cheesecake i had for dessert last night. mmm … pumpkin cheesecake.

kansas just scored again on Nebraska

A.) They still lost, and B.) it was relegated to the television Siberia of the Big Ten Network, but did anyone see that fake-punt pass Wisconsin completed on their first possession? About a 30-yard bomb, across the field, dropping it right in to a receiver along the sideline squeezed between two defenders. If a quarterback had made that throw, I would have been impressed. But a flippin’ PUNTER?!?

I missed the superman sack, because I was watching LSU-Bama, but tracking the Navy game on the computer and so I was pissed they blew it. Then I flipped over to NBC during a commercial and Navy had the ball and I was thinking “what the heck?!”

I salute Vela and all the Middies for breaking the streak.

As far as Weis and ND…
I saw a little post game clip with Weis and he was smirking and talking like it really wasn’t a big deal that they lost- just any ol’ loss. I hope he realizes the depth that ND has sunk to, because it is pretty dang deep. Maybe he was trying to look strong so he didn’t cause the players to lose hope.

Think about this- in all the dark days of storied programs: Bama, Nebraska, OU, Miami, Florida State, Michigan, Ohio St, etc. When was the last time that one of those teams was 1-8? Even in DuBose’s worst year at Bama 3-8, I don’t know if it was this bad.

People want to say that the Irish don’t have talent or experience, but when I did some research, I just can find justification for this level of futility. Even if Ty Willingham left them dry, the past 2 offseasons, Weis has pulled in the #5 & 11 recruiting classes according to Scout.com. You would think there has to be some young talent there. But the starting lineup is not plagued by youth like some other teams were at the start of the year:
Offense:
2 Fr, 3 Soph, 4 Jr, 3 Sr
(I included Clausen since he has been the QB for most of the season, but isn’t now).
Defense:
1 Fr, 2 Soph, 2 Jr, 6 Sr
It’s hard to cry “we’re just too young” with those lineups, especially on defense.
I know ND’s defense is decent and that most of the problems are with the offense, but really should they be performing on this level.

WIth Air Force, Duke and Stanford up next, I really don’t know if ND makes it to 3 wins. Air Force has a winning record (despite losing to Navy). Duke is still a pretty horrible team, but they have shown flashes of competitiveness this year. And Stanford has won 3 games including a win of USC.

If Weis hadn’t suckered ND into a long, expensive contract earlier this year, he would be sending out resumes like Callahan and Coach Fran. If he had any respect, he would quit because he isn’t able to do the job, but it looks like along with poor coaching skills, pride is another one of Weis’ follies.

I am surprise no on has set up a Crisis Hotline for ND players yet.

What about Jake Christensen throwing for 299 yards in one game? That’s like 7,000 regular people yards.

I’m still pissed about that overturned diving catch that Bama had last night. WTF? I’ve seen countless diving catches overturned ever since instant replay started. If a guy lays out for the ball — arms extended, catches the ball, and it slightly moves when he slams into the damn ground, it’s still a fucking catch! Even Gary Danielson pissed me off with his commentary of “well, uh, i guess he didn’t have possession cause it moved.”

/rant

Actually, the best Wisconsin reception was for their first TD, because the WR laid out across the back of the end zone and still had to do the mid-air roll to bring the ball in.

Also, Weis not trying the FG has to be one of the most colossally stupid decisions in all of football. There’s simply nothing that justifies it, especially given that weather reports at the time (and some corroboration from people at the game) indicate the wind was a non-factor. But if you go ahead and blame wind and claim that you need 4 more yards, it probably would have made sense to keep the ball on the ground (where ND and Navy had been mutually gashing each other), rather than depend on Sharpley and that swirling wind to cooperate and get you the potentially game-winning first down.

It’s not about ND’s youth. It’s not about the poor recruiting classes of Willingham. It’s about Charlie Weis sucking as a coach. Period. With the two supposed amazing classes he brought in, a chimpanzee could have coached the Irish to something better than 1-8. Have fun for the next 7 years.

Oh, and as a Michigan alum, I have to say that my favorite moment from yesterday was seeing a group of M fans in Spartan Stadium holding up a banner at the end of the game that read: “Still Arrogant.”

Nobody can claim that Ty had worse recruiting classes than Navy.

I wake up every Saturday glad that I’m not a Michigan State fan.

Well, at least Notre Dame doesn’t hate America this year.

Delaware must, though.

sigh

and I don’t care what it takes, but Nebraska and Notre Dame need to play one another in a bowl game at the end of the year. It would be ugly as hell, but it would sure get some ratings.

Hell yes. Nebraska and Notre Dame should play at the end of the year. The winner gets to remain a 1A football team; the loser gets demoted to 1AA to get roughed up week in and week out by the likes of Wofford. Basically, it’s a game to see who is subjected to more abject humiliation. Both teams are going to stink for a few years, but it’s far less humiliating to get smoked by 1A teams than 1AA teams (just ask Michigan).

And the Sagarin rankings are up. Predictor has the top 6 in this order:
1 Oregon
2 Oklahoma (8th in ELO chess)
3 Ohio State
4 West Fuckin Virginia (12th in ELO chess)
5 Kansas
6 LSU

ELO Chess has
1 Ohio State
2 Kansas
3 LSU
4 Oregon
5 Boston College (24th in predictor)
6 ASU (8th in predictor)

Which is a quite a bit of difference. Looks like the margin of victory really favors Oklahoma (obviously) and Oregon, who don’t see much love when the margin is thrown out. When the margin is considered, LSU doesn’t look so hot.

NAVY FOOTBALL RULES!!!

Basically what has happened here is there can only be so much good karma for hideously overweight coaches, and somehow it has all slid toward Mangino and away from Weis. This is the only possible explanation for NDs sucktitude, which I am not at all sad about.

Listen—Ram Vela won’t play in the NFL. He could be in a submarine next year, or working the early watch, or leading a SEAL team for all we know. This is the pinnacle of glory for him.

McFadden split no less than 4 defenders with angles on an 80 yard run that had us dragging out the long, Orgeron-style GODDAAAAAAAAMs watching it.

Plus, we can’t find any video of McFadden’s evil, evil run.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1417922089565075103&q=darren+mcfadden&total=129&start=0&num=10&so=1&type=search&plindex=1

Is that the run you’re looking for?

RE: Blaming Willingham’s recruiting for ND’s season.

Could someone please explain why, if Ty’s recruits were so bad, that Weiss was able to win some games with two teams FULL of Ty’s recruits but is now struggling after having a couple of seasons to bring in some talent.

Quinn, Smarzdia, Walker, etc were all Ty’s boys, correct?

1. - That’ s it. McFadden has J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS.

1. - I can’t imagine the pain of being a Michigan State fan. No lead is safe.

Kansas just scored again.

Ram Vela? A 5’9" linebacker? Smallest player in the country at his position? And he Punks ND?

So, Orson, sacking a QB is the pinnacle, as opposed to leading a SEAL team? Higher education did indeed turn you into a perspectiveless Commie. How else do you explain the cruel and unAmerican witholding of Bunda?

i’m incredibly proud of the way Beanie Wells played yesterday, but i was almost as proud of the fact that when the stadium PA played soulja boy, not one single Ohio State player did any sort of dancing.

the only kind of dancing we do is to the slow, methodical waltz of Tresselball

It’s nice to see Henne’s good knee got some love. It’s going to be so awesome when he throws TD passes against Wisconsin, Ohio State and the Pac-10 champion from his customized, maize-and-blue Rascal.

Weis’ # 1 recruiting class is still intact (fingers crossed). Still, it doesn’t excuse the absolute stupudity of not attempting the game winning field goal.

Congrats to the middies

Smaller guys like Ram Vela are why I’ve never lended any credence to Rudy. Its like, ok this lil pipsqueak got in for 1 play, but other guys his size are fucking starting and supermanning QB’s and going to a tough school. Its like, Rudy go fuck yourself & cry to your mom.

Midget-Hero-Number Two (2): The winning TD and extra point was caught by a receiver Reggie Cambell, who is Five Feet Six (5" 6")!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Notre Dame got Punked by tiny players who had bigger hearts and johnsons than Weis’ football factory boys….

I wonder what is next, Maury Finklestein of Duke University punking ND next week?

EDSBS is mentioned in the New York Times and is even thanked for making this clip available.

http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/

There are youtube vids of the Naval Academy Superintendent doing the Superman rap dance.

Is there anywhere we can see Ram Vela going superman without the atmospheric disturbance? The Blair Witch footage has got me more nauseous than impressed.

this video begs 2 questions:

1. who videotapes themselves watching a game?
2. Navy has fans?

My best friend from college who now lives up in Annapolis informs me that yes, Navy does have fans, and they were going bonkers Saturday in A-Town. I was really hoping they’d burn a couch on the deck of a destroyer, though.

Navy has fans. If you watched the broadcast of the first OT, you could hear them loud and clear at the end of the stadium to which both offenses drove. In fact, the Brigade sounded louder than whatever group of home fans were down that way.

1. -

Ty’s 1st class, coming on the heels of his 10-3 finish in 2002, was very good – Quinn, Samardzija, Ryan Harris, Victor Abiamiri, etc. – and ranked anywhere from #8 – #12 in the recruiting rankings, depending on whose rankings you looked at. Of this group, 7 (or 8) are currently 5-year seniors, including S Tom Zbikowski, C John Sullivan, and DT Trevor Laws. Of the 5-year seniors, only Laws has had a good season, and Sullivan seems determined to play himself out of the NFL draft.

Ty’s 2nd class, coming after his 5-7 finish in 2003, was not very good at all. The highest ranking for it that I saw was #32. While this class had Darius Walker, I believe he was the lone 4-star recruit of this class, which only contained 17 signees (out of a possible 25). This ND’s current senior class, of which there are only 7 left on the roster, and only three starters.

Ty’s 3rd class was shaping up to be even worse than the previous year’s when he was fired in December of 2004. He had no 5- or 4- star recruits verballed, and ND was in the running for only 1 or 2 of the nation’s top recruits that had not made a verbal commitment at the time, with neither of them being considered a likely ND commit. This is ND’s junior class.

Of ND’s senior and junior classes, only LB Maurice Crum is considered a pro prospect.

The 2007 Irish are playing with a gaping hole mature talent. This is not an excuse for their horrible season, but it is a contributing factor. One problem that has arisen is the seemingly large disconnect between “Ty’s guys” and “Charlie’s guys”. I suspect that the last two classes came in with a rather vocal “We’re here to save ND”, something the “Ty’s guys” resented. Last year, the Irish had a strong offensive leader to unite behind in Brady Quinn, who commanded everyone’s respect. I don’t see that on the Irish offense this season. On defense, Crum has distinguished himself as a leader, and the defense has played reasonably well considering a) how often they’ve been hung out to dry by the offense, and b) how ill-suited the Irish are this season personnel-wise at the OLB spot (relying on converted DE’s or safeties, or playing true freshmen).

The Irish’s troubles cannot be summed up in a sound byte, or even a long message board post like this one. There are simply too many factors involved, and ND message boards have been hashing them out, day by day, for two months now. Unfortunately, in our sound byte culture, people tend to want sound-byte answers to problems, hence the “Fire Charlie” stuff swirling around, and the endless comparisons to Ty Willingham. With two non-winning seasons in a row coupled with two extremely lackluster recruiting classes and the unwillingness on his part to make staff changes, it was clear that ND had no future with Ty Willingham. The jury’s still out on Charlie Weis, and his consecutive 9 win seasons (something neither Faust, Davie, nor Willingham acheived) and Top 10 recruiting classes will buy him at least a couple more years.

GeronimoRumplestiltskin: The Jury is still out on Charlie Weis? (Gotta be kidding me. ) What jury is that? OJ’s jury? Charlie has proven to be a terrible head ball coach, much like Nebraska’s NFL-veteran-Callahan. And, if that gruesome-twosome were men of honor they would hand in their resignations today and go back to the NFL as spear carriers again.

Blaming Ty for the recruiting class after he was fired is pretty silly. And the fact is it was Ty’s recruits (Like Brady Quinn) who covered up the flaws in Weis coaching and made him look better than he deserved for two years (and some luck with the schedule in catching opponents in down years helped too)

Navy lost to 1AA Delaware. Are Notre Dame’s recruits really worse than Delaware’s or Navy’s? How many times did Willingham lose to Navy?

I’ve been anti-Weis for a long time, his teams have still never beaten anybody who finished in the top 20. It looks like this loss to Navy (with the bunch of coaching screw ups) has been the tipping point to wake up lots of the Notre Dame Kool-aid drinkers regarding Charlie.

Novus, how would you know the ND kicker sucks? It’s not like you’ve actually been in range for any FGs this year to find out …

Seriously, I can think of one kicker bad enough that going for it there would actually make sense. (That would be John Goss, who was legendarily awful in 2005 for MSU – we’re talking 5-for-22 with a long of 34 yards, attempts shanked so badly they went out of bounds before reaching the goalposts here.)

As for the pain of being a Spartan fan … yeah, it sucks sometimes. And then we do crazy shit like beat third-ranked Wisconsin by four touchdowns (in ‘04) or set an NCAA record for biggest comeback (’06). Basically, you learn very quickly that black is white, up is down, and short is long. And no lead is safe, whether yours or the other guys’.

Geez, I bother with careful analysis and get SKLM and oc phil’s silly response.

Yes, Ty deserves blame for the recruiting class signed in Feb. 2005, much the same way that the 2002 class was Bob Davie’s. Recruiting is a year-round process, and Ty could not be bothered to lay the groundwork. I’ll reiterate for you, phil:

“He (Ty) had no 5- or 4- star recruits verballed, and ND was in the running for only 1 or 2 of the nation’s top recruits that had not made a verbal commitment at the time, with neither of them being considered a likely ND commit.”

Ty deserves credit for getting Brady Quinn on campus (and even then he did not recruit Brady until high school teammate Chinendum Ndukwe sold Ty on him) and that’s about it. In the first two years of Brady Quinn’s career (under Ty), he had 26 TDs and 25 interceptions. In the next two years (under Weis), he had 69 TDs and 14 INTs. If you want to kid yourself into thinking Brady made this kind of leap all by himself, go ahead.

And yes, SKLM, the jury’s still out on Charlie, primarily because unlike everyone’s favorite hero, the eternally mediocre Willingham, Weis recruits well (Ty’s recruit rankings: 2003 – 8th, 2004 – 32nd, 2005 – 40th vs. Charlie 2006 – 8th, 2007 – 8th, 2008 – #1-2 so far; if this year’s class is ranked in the Top 10, it will the first time since ‘88-’90 that ND has had 3 consecutive Top 10 classes), has shown willingness to change his staff, and had two consecutive 9 win seasons. For that matter, neither Faust, Davie, nor Ty had consecutive 9 win seasons, though all three had years like 2006 for Charlie where they pretty much had their entire team coming back. If ND does not win 8 games next season, Charlie will be in trouble.

Oh, and SKLM questioning someone’s honor has got to be the highlight of this entire thread – a man whose entire existence is consumed with hatred toward a school that graduates 95% of its players, and a coach whose damnable sin is that he’s losing football games. High comedy, indeed.

So you don’t think the mob with pitchforks and torches might have had some impact on “Ty’s” last recruiting class? Any coach clearly on the hot seat has trouble bringing in top recruits. And Weis, with his 10 year contract. does not fall into that category. I still think it is ridiculous to “blame” someone fired in December for a recruiting class when the LOI day is in February.

As for Quinn, he’s hardly the first quarterback to suddenly get much better as a junior or senior. Carson Palmer might be an even more extreme example of a pattern that happens all the time.

I guess that Charlie still has a better winning percentage than Willingham, 588 compared to .583. Though he will need to win 2 out of the last 3 to keep it and at this point I’d favor both Air Force and Stanford over ND.

Unlike SKLM, I’m not generally a Notre Dame basher (just a Weis basher). I respect the school and the program and I’d rather see USC beat a good ND team than a bad one.

Hi oc phil -

First, I know that you don’t belong in the same category as SKLM. I’m sure he is a fine fellow in all other respects, but on the subject of Notre Dame, he is like Richard Dawkins on the subject of religion: his “insights” are ill-informed and foolish, but he just can’t leave the subject alone.

Second, I apologize in advance for the long post. I prefer complete thoughts to sound bytes, so bear with me.

As an ND fan and alum, I don’t hate USC, either. I actually missed them being a powerhouse in the ’80’s and ’90’s because playing them at their peak is a lot more fun.

Let address your points:

No, I don’t think the “mob with pitchforks and torches” had any bearing on the 2005 recruiting class for two reasons:

a) No one, neither inside ND nor out, thought Willingham would be fired after three seasons. Everyone assumed that he would get five years. That he was fired after three years came as a complete shock. Simply put, until the day he was fired, no one thought he was going anywhere for at least another 2 seasons.

(Note: SKLM and others cry “racism” over Ty not getting five years, but the truth is that consecutive non-winning seasons + two extremely subpar recruiting classes + unwillingness to change staff though ND never ranked higher than 81st in offense and had the 2nd worst pass defense in the country in 2004 despite a senior-laden defense + 3 straight 31-point losses to USC = fired. Faust and Davie never had consecutive non-winning seasons, recruited well, made staff changes, and both fought till their last day to keep their job; Ty began talking to Washington in Oct. 2004, when no one in ND’s administration had even uttered a whisper that he might be let go. Ty would have been let go regardless of skin color; however, if he were white, nary a complaint would have been heard about it, as there was none about Florida’s [Name Redacted], who was fired after 2 1/2 seasons, had the identical record as Willingham on the day of his firing, and was a much better recruiter. Cries of racism and unfairness on ND’s part are unwarranted, and serve as little more than a stick to beat ND with.)

b) The “mob with pitchforks and torches” was there for Gerry Faust, who oozed ND blue and gold from every pore, pretty much from the first season. It did not stop him from signing four straight Top 10 classes.

The “mob with pitchforks and torches” was there for Bob Davie during his 3rd season, a 5-7 campaign. It did not stop him from signing a #8 – #12 class (depending on whose rankings you look at). The mob for Davie, believe it or not, was actually more vicious than the one for Ty, as it was widely held among ND faithful that Davie had had a hand in Lou Holtz being forced out three years earlier.

c) Ty’s second class was, at the time, the worst class ND had signed in over 40 years, maybe ever. It had only 17 players in it, with no 5-star players and only 1 4-star player (Walker). Ty and his staff were very slow in their recruiting efforts, often not making initial contact with top players until they were already reported as being a “heavy lean” somewhere else. Of the recruits that listed ND as a final candidate but ended up signing somewhere else, their feedback on ND was damningly uniform: the other schools had made much more of an effort than Ty and his staff.

You would think Ty would change his approach after Feb. 2004, but he did not. He and his staff actually had to be called (by the AD) back from a golf outing in May 2004 – a prime recruiting month for the following year’s class – and told to get out on the recruiting trail. Nevertheless, as of Nov. 2004, the 2005 class was shaping up to be even worse than the previous one. They had no verbal commitments from any 4- or 5-star recruits. Of the recruits who had not yet verballed anywhere, ND was only listed in the top 5 choices for 2 recruits in the Scout Top 100. Even if those 2 had signed with ND (they didn’t), the class would have not finished in anyone’s Top 25 recruiting class rankings. Charlie picked up a couple of signees and lost a couple who had verballed, which in the recruiting rankings ended up as a wash – they gained as much as they lost.

To sum up, I have presented all the reasons I can as to why I consider the blame for the subpar 2005 class to be on Ty.

Next point:
“As for Quinn, he’s hardly the first quarterback to suddenly get much better as a junior or senior. Carson Palmer might be an even more extreme example of a pattern that happens all the time.”

Um, yes, though in citing Palmer as an example of “a pattern that happens all the time”, you could hardly have picked a worse candidate to make your case, as he, too, benefited from a coaching change. Palmer indeed had a breakout year in 2002 – once he had spent some time under the tutelage of Norm Chow. Good coach+talented student = success. Are you going to tell me that Chow had nothing to do with Palmer’s success? But perhaps you’re right, maybe it was just a coincidence that Charlie arrived right at the time Quinn was ready to throw 3 times as many TD passes and half the INTs and increase his completion rate from 50% to 65% over the next two seasons. Perhaps also it was coincidence that when Weis began coaching Vinnie Testaverde in 1998 with the Jets, the 11-year mediocre-to-bad QB had a career year and led the Jets to the AFC championship. It must have also been a coincidence that under Weis’ coaching, Tom Brady took a monumental leap from late round draft pick to All-Pro. Yup, coincidences all.

Funny, last year, quite a few folks considered Quinn to be not anything special. This year, these same folks now cite Quinn’s greatness as masking Weis’ ineptitude. I think a more reasonable analysis is that Quinn had the tools – ability to pick things up quickly, tough enough skin to withstand criticism, toughness, and an uncommonly strident work ethic – to be a great QB. Under Willingham (and his OC, Deidrick), he was grossly underdeveloped, and remarked more than once to his family that he felt “like he wasn’t being coached”. When Weis showed up, it was the perfect marriage of student and teacher. Whether Weis can be a successful head coach is another matter, but to deprive him of the credit he deserves in Quinn’s transformation is unfair and inaccurate.

And please don’t try to posit that since Brady and the Pats are better than ever (and kicking titanic amounts of ass this season) that Charlie was some superfluous cog in the Belicheck machine and he doesn’t deserve credit for his role in the Pats’ success while he was there. Tom Brady was not going to suddenly unlearn everything Weis taught him. A well-run organization is not going to collapse because one person, no matter how valuable, leaves. It will find a suitable replacement, bring him up to speed, and move on. The company I just left lost their vice president (he died) in 2003. He had been part of the management team (of about 6) that took the company from a $4 billion dollar company to a $40 billion dollar company in a relatively short time. He was considered have had a major role in the company’s growth (I can’t even balance my checkbook, so the particulars evade me). The company kept chugging on, and is now a $60 billion dollar company. Would you now posit that the late VP therefore must not have been that important?

To sum up, not to give Weis credit for Quinn’s leap in development makes no more sense than to not give Chow credit for Palmer or the late VP (whom I actually never met) credit for my former employer’s leap in growth.

As for the Weis – Willingham winning % comparison, I don’t care. Such a thing is only important to ND bashers. Like most ND folks, I’m more concerned with a) keeping this recruiting class together, and b) next season. As I said before, if ND does not win 8+ games next season, Weis will be in serious trouble.

Good luck on your team’s season and whatever bowl (Holiday?) they end up in….

GR

GeronimoRumplestiltskin:

Geronimo:

I’ll play, here is my response:

1) OC Phil Angle: Although OC Phil and I are USC fans, we obviously come from different viewpoints. He takes a more serious approach.

2) SKLM Angle: While, I take the humorous route, in the spirit of this EDSBS blog. Sometimes my material goes over like a lead balloon, and other times I think it is funny. Since ND and Charlie are the usual butts of my jokes, I can understand your anger. I even stopped piling on for weeks, when the ND season reached its nadir. I have also written that I feel bad for the fifth year seniors, especially Zibby, who came back only to get whacked week in and week out. A good ND team is good for college football and USC. Beating up on cupcakes is not all that satisfying.

3) Ty W: By now only a tiny percentage of ND fans are still blaming Ty for this season. I could go on and on about how Monk Molloy and others felt Ty was given the bum’s rush, and how some national sports types brought up the race issue, but that is old news. It should be clear to all by now that this season is in the toilet not because of the stuff that did or did not happen three years ago with Ty, but with the awful coaching of Weis and Co. He simply did not prepare his players this year and if he were a man of honor, he would resign. The few that still bring up Ty as the problem with ND this year sound stupid. (This last line was tough, but you Kool-Aid drinkers need to hear the truth straight up sometimes.)

4) Weis the Genius Recruiter: If Weis is such a good recruiter, why didn’t he get any good kickers, running backs with speed, blah, blah, blah, during the past few years?

5) Weis the Genius QB Coach: If Weis were such a genius offensive mind, why did he mess up the QB situation this year? Brady Quinn was good in spite of Weis not because of Weis.

6) Blue Gray Sky: Did you read Jay’s rant on Sat or Sun and the game thread at the ND site? Jay cut Charlie a new one. Seems most ND fans and commentators think more like me than you by now! The rant is still available in:

http://mgoblog.blogspot.com/

It is located toward the end of the blog, so scroll down to read some ND primal therapy.

Seems the only people still defending Charlie are his relatives or his coaches relatives, right Ms. Weis, sorry, "Mr. Geronimo Rumplestlsken"?

Geronimo: I’m not going to answer at such length, but your make a number of good points. Where we disagree it is mainly a matter of emphasis. For example, I think Charlie gets way too much credit for developing QB’s but that does not mean that he does not deserve any.

I cited Palmer in part because I’ve heard way less hype about Carroll/Chow developing him than Weis with Quinn. Like Quinn, Palmer was supposed to be a stud coming out of high school, developing into what he was projected as a bit late isn’t that massive of a surprise. Guys have breakout seasons as juniors or senoirs all the time. I see that as the more normal pattern than players who don’t make big improvements as time goes on.

I think the whole waving of the Superbowl rings that Charlie does is obnoxious. He was an assistant, not the head coach or a player. I’ve been both an assistant and a head coach (NCAA Divison III) and it isn’t at all the same thing. I think a big chunk of the problems that Notre Dame is going through right now comes from Charlie learning that difference the hard way.

I’m curious that you talk about Tom Brady not forgetting all that Charlie taught him, where did Charlie get all of this information from? He never played the game at a high level.

I don’t think your former VP deserved ALL the credit for the companies growth if he was part of a 6 person management team. Maybe he was due more than 1/6 of the credit, maybe less than 1/6. I don’t see at all why he should get more credit than the CEO, so I’d be inclined to say he probably contributed to less than 1/6.

No Willingham clearly wasn’t fired based on his race. Though I think SOME of the coolness towards him and the over the top love towards Charlie has to be related to that factor. Yes Charlie “gets it” and is “one of us” but I think that is much much easier for many of the fans to react that way to a white guy than a black guy. It’s a subtle thing in general and certainly does not warrent painting Notre Dame as a racist institution. Obviously TW would never have been hired in the first place were that the case.

And the key factor that people tend to forget when talking about TW’s firing is Urban Meyer. I think TW was treated somewhat unfairly given the historical precedents but he was let go because of Meyer not Weis. So the comparisons of TW vs CW at the end of 3 years are still relevant, but they are by no means the whole story.

As far as USC’s bowl this year, they have twice made it into a BCS bowl with 2 losses in the past 5 years. If they win out against Cal, ASU and UCLA they will have a good chance to do it again. Especially if Oregon goes to the title game, I can’t imagine the Rose Bowl not taking a 2 loss USC team. If USC does end up in the Holiday bowl then I’m OK with that too. I have lots of family in San Diego and we will have a great tailgate.

Looks like this did get long after all…

Gr –
Haters hate. It’s what they can do. Sometimes the bricks are just too dense to get through to whatever grey matter might (?) be inside. To make it (hopefully) clear enuf for a hater to grasp, the jury is still out on CW as a college HC. These next 3 games, the ensuing off-season with its hoped-for changes, and the 2008 season on the field will tell the tale. Your points are well made, and accurate. We’ll all be watching and waiting, some with great hope, some with hatred. GO IRISH!!!!