Only one choice to help ND return to major college football

How ironic that on the same weekend TCU and Boise State moved one step closer to undefeated seasons, Notre Dame would be getting ready to part ways with Charlie Weis following its sixth loss of the year. The Fighting Irish, after all, have been the bane of every non-BCS conference program’s existence for years, mainly due to the fact that even a two loss season pretty much guarantees them a spot in a BCS bowl no matter how many other teams are more deserving.

This is what happens when you’re the biggest name in college football, when NBC willingly becomes NDBC every Saturday afternoon. Yet there they were, trading touchdowns with Stanford the same way they traded touchdowns with everyone this season, looking like the stereotypical upstart program our current bowl system rarely rewards. Now it was Notre Dame, with all that tradition, displaying its prolific offense and a pathetic defense that couldn’t stop Navy or Connecticut this season.

That’s the program Weis built at Notre Dame. A remarkable offense with a glass jaw defense that allowed 30 points or more 24 times in his five years running the show. For the record, TCU and Boise State combined to do that just 21 times over the same stretch. He managed to help develop two first round picks at quarterback, but he couldn’t get a stop from his defense in year one against USC and still couldn’t in his final game against Stanford.

Now Weis is gone and the focus switches to who his replacement will be. The key will be bringing in someone who knows how to win in college football. For too long, Notre Dame has been a program that tries to get cute with its hires. 25 years before handing the keys to Weis, who had zero college coaching experience, the Fighting Irish hired Gerry Faust, a high school coach, to run the most recognized program in college sports. In between Faust and Weis, there was Lou Holtz, Bob Davie and Tyrone Willingham. Of that group, only Holtz had won more than one bowl game prior to coming to South Bend.

For Notre Dame to return to some form of respectability, the next coach needs to be the full package. He needs to know how to sell the program to players and parents, how to handle the boosters and most importantly, how to put together a team that can compete for a National Championship. That’s why both Jon Gruden and Brian Kelly, two coaches considered to be on the Fighting Irish’s shortlist, might not be the best choices.

Gruden has never been more than a wide receivers coach at the college level. What makes anyone believe he will know how to recruit? Spotting talent is only half the battle in college football. Kelly appears to be the favorite, but the question with the current Cincinnati head coach is, will he be able to handle the recruitment limitations at Notre Dame? Kelly has built winners at Division II Grand Valley State, Central Michigan and now Cincinnati, but he’s probably never had to deal with anyone in the admissions office refusing to accept any of his recruits before.

The obvious choice for Notre Dame has to be Bob Stoops at Oklahoma. It will take a lot of money to lure him away from one of the best jobs in college football, but Stoops is a brand name in the sports, he can recruit with anyone and he’s won a National Title. His resume blows anyone other than Urban Meyer‘s right out of the water.

And that’s exactly what Notre Dame needs. A big splash.

Stoops has more credibility than any other candidate and would need very little time to start bringing five star players to the program. Most importantly, he rebuilt a once-proud Oklahoma team into a national powerhouse seemingly overnight, which is precisely what’s in the job description at Notre Dame.

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Coach K can show Charlie Weis and Notre Dame how to win

Ask anyone who is even slightly familiar with college basketball about the best coaches over the past two decades and there is little doubt that Mike Krzyzewski will be one of the first names mentioned. This is obvious. The Duke Coach is a no-brainer. But what might be most impressive about Coach K isn’t just that what he’s done with the Blue Devils in his career, but who he’s done it with.

According to the US News & World Report, Duke University is the tenth best school in the United States, just behind Columbia and the University of Chicago, but ahead of Northwestern, Johns Hopkins and Brown. And while these rankings are entirely subjective and for the most part, irrelevant, this much is clear when it comes to recruiting top-notch athletes: The elite universities won’t just admit any kid with a nice jumper or a fast forty-yard dash time on to campus.

Krzyzewski doesn’t have the luxury of being able to focus on recruiting only the latter half of the student-athlete. Unlike many of his rivals, especially the public schools who are more willing to lower their admissions standards, he can’t bring in a kid who excels on the basketball court but avoids English class at all costs. Yet still, he’s got a resume that stacks up with the likes of John Wooden and Dean Smith. His eleven ACC Titles, ten Final Four appearances and three National Championships put him on the shortlist of the greatest coaches in the history of the sport.

The same can’t be said for Notre Dame Football head coach Charlie Weis, who was already on the hot seat even before his team’s loss to Pittsburgh on Saturday night. Notre Dame also appears on the US News & World Report’s list, at No. 20, and there are many people who point to the school’s strict admissions standards as the reason Weis has been a colossal failure in recent years.

To his credit, Weis has never complained publicly about the admissions policy at Notre Dame. But he’s also never defended the school in the face of constant criticism from fans, media and especially, former players. In August, former quarterback Joe Montana said there was no way for Weis to be successful year in and year out without some leniency from the admissions office.

“You can’t ask any football coach here to be constrained like that on the academic side and to have a consistent team,” Montana said. “Unless you try to relax some of that for the athletic programs here, it’s hard to consistently compete with the programs that have different standards.”

There is no question that Weis has a more difficult job than coaches like Urban Meyer at Florida or Randy Shannon at Miami. While both Florida and Miami are also ranked among the top 50 schools in the country, their higher-ups have embraced a win-at-all-costs mentality for athletic programs. But unlike what Krzyzewski has done at Duke, Weis hasn’t figured how to compete with the top programs in America by not competing for recruits.

What I’ve always found fascinating as a UConn Basketball fan is that even as a perennial powerhouse, the players who end up in Storrs rarely list Duke as one of their final choices. Usually, it’s Maryland, Arizona and Oklahoma. The same can be said for the type of kids John Calipari at Kentucky recruits. These coaches are examples of guys who are allowed to recruit based solely on talent. But rather than fight for the same player, Coach K has managed to corner the market on the top athletes who can also perform well in the classroom. Sure there are less of these types of kid around, but they’re more likely to go to Duke in the end.

Weis still takes it personal when someone picks Florida or USC over Notre Dame. What he should be doing is making sure that the best players that schools like Stanford, Cal, Northwestern and Michigan are recruiting are all signing on to play for the Fighting Irish. That’s not too much to ask and it would make all the difference.

Unfortunately for Weis, it might be too late to start now.

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