Notre Dame fires Willingham

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

So what did ol' Wilbon actually say on PTI?

 

a) "Holding a brotha down"

 

b) "Holding a brotha back"

 

c) "Notre Dame is RACIST"

 

d) all of the above...

[Vern Gagne 0]

Wilbon said he talked people and expected Willingham would be fired, so he was more prepared.

[Vern Gagne 0]

Are you kidding, this is a fucking shitty firing and Notre Dame can burn in hell now for all I care. They fired a coach with a winning record who is just starting to get the players HE recruits into the program. Yeah the BYU and Pitt losses were shitty but that is irrelevant, Willingham was brought in to change the style of play at ND and he never really got the chance. Hell, with that team they still beat Michigan and Tennesee whether they were "ready to play" or not thats quite an accomlpishment considering how green that team was. If I'm Urban Meyer I'm staying the hell away from South Bend cause they'll take him down too.

People are making way to much out of this. It wasn't working and getting his players whatever that means wouldn't of made a difference. Spicy's list is a good indicatator, they horrible games and the fact Meyer was available sealed the deal. Willingham's better off. He can sit out a year, or take a coaching job this year. Maybe, Washington a school with a strong football tradition.

[smh810 0]

People are making way to much out of this. It wasn't working and getting his players whatever that means wouldn't of made a difference. Spicy's list is a good indicatator, they horrible games and the fact Meyer was available sealed the deal. Willingham's better off. He can sit out a year, or take a coaching job this year. Maybe, Washington a school with a strong football tradition.

 

You cant say it wasnt working after just three seasons, if Notre Dame still looked like this by the time his contract is up then yeah make a change, Spicy's list is pretty much irrelevant because he was in the process of changing the whole way the team operates so yeah, the transition would be rough at times, but you dont fire a guy without giving him a chance with his own players.

[Vern Gagne 0]

Why not? If a coach isn't working out, he's not working out. After 3 seasons, a school should expect improvements and it's not happening at ND. A school can't keep a coach because he didn't have his players. Willingham had plenty of his players, and things weren't getting better.

 

Spicy's list was relevent. It shows how bad the program as fallen. This started under Davie, and continued under Willingham.

[lomasmoney 0]

Why not? If a coach isn't working out, he's not working out. After 3 seasons, a school should expect improvements and it's not happening at ND. A school can't keep a coach because he didn't have his players. Willingham had plenty of his players, and things weren't getting better.

 

Spicy's list was relevent. It shows how bad the program as fallen. This started under Davie, and continued under Willingham.

Yes because Willingham should be expected to come in and run a West Coast offense with players recruited to run an running attack. He didnt have a chance to get players that fit his system fully intergrated. Give him two more classes of recruits to go along with guys like Walker, and Quinn and he would get them back to 9-10 wins a season. The thing about football is you can't bring in a new coach with a new system and expect to win with the old players. They didnt win with these guys in a system they were recruited for and they sure as hell were not going to win with them in a west coast style of play.

[TheBigSwigg 0]

I would like to say two things:

 

1. ND firing Willingham is ridiculous after 3 years. 5, Maybe, but not 3. As stated before, a coach should be able to institute his own guys into his system before being canned.

 

2. ND beat a Tennessee team which played their 3rd string quarterback the entire second half. Which is also why Tennessee didn't do as well against UK or Vandy.

[Spicy McHaggis 0]

Being a USC student, but raised as an ND fan, I have a unique perspective. I watched Pete Carroll win the NC in 3 years...it can be done. Vern's right, you can tell if a coach is going to work out after 3 years.

[Guest fanofcoils]

I'm shocked a black man was a head coach of Notre Dame. From watching no games of them and from my memory of the movie Rudy, I thought it was a small Catholic school with virtually all white students. Seems I'm wrong.

[Vern Gagne 0]

I would like to say two things:

 

1. ND firing Willingham is ridiculous after 3 years. 5, Maybe, but not 3. As stated before, a coach should be able to institute his own guys into his system before being canned.

A good coach should be showing improvement reguardless of whether he doesn't have his players in place.A team doesn't have to be like Oklahoma, or USC and win a National Championship 3 years, but a school should expect improvements.

[Vern Gagne 0]

A few things.

 

People have said ND has never fired anyone in the middle of contract. Well Bob Davie made the Fiesta Bowl in his third year. If Willingham would of made a BCS Bowl is 3rd year he wouldn't of been fired. Also, Davie was fired after the 2001 season. In the middle of his contract.

 

Second. Willingham talked to Washington a few weeks ago. In order for this to happen, Notre Dame has to allow it. So it's not like Willingham at least wasn't interested in listening to other schools.

[smh810 0]

Being a USC student, but raised as an ND fan, I have a unique perspective. I watched Pete Carroll win the NC in 3 years...it can be done. Vern's right, you can tell if a coach is going to work out after 3 years.

 

HUGE difference though, Pete Carroll only had to recruit a better caliber of player that they were already searching for (pro-style conventional offensive and defensive players ) and its also easier to convert a team that was running shitty conventional schemes into one that actually works. As was pointed out several times Willingham had to change the type of players he recruits you are simply not gonna win with option players running the West Coast Offense, quite simply he deserved two more years.

 

People have said ND has never fired anyone in the middle of contract. Well Bob Davie made the Fiesta Bowl in his third year. If Willingham would of made a BCS Bowl is 3rd year he wouldn't of been fired. Also, Davie was fired after the 2001 season. In the middle of his contract.

 

And if you remember that team it was insanely lucky throughout the season (in fairness, not unlike Willingham's first year) and please dont try to imply that Bob Davie was a better coach than Ty Willingham. Davie was an incompetent hack who had one lucky season, Ty never got the chance to truly prove himself.

[Guest Salacious Crumb]

And if you remember that team it was insanely lucky throughout the season (in fairness, not unlike Willingham's first year) and please dont try to imply that Bob Davie was a better coach than Ty Willingham. Davie was an incompetent hack who had one lucky season, Ty never got the chance to truly prove himself.

 

So, they've been incredibly lucky under Willingham as well. Tressell came into Ohio State and took the disaster that Cooper left to a National Championship in under 3 years. The Iowa coach took a joke of a team that hadn't done anything for a decade and maybe weak talent look like world killers with his coaching.

 

It's been done over and over. If anything Notre Dame was getting worse under Willingham. He was running a stoneaged offense and his players were undersized and slow. He obviously wasn't getting the job done.

 

And stop these excuses about his players. He brought several classes in so he had plenty of his guys. Too bad he had some god awful classes to boot. They were reading the top 100 recruits and where they want to go and 1 just 1 wants to go to Notre Dame and their 4th on his list.

[Damaramu 0]

Being a USC student, but raised as an ND fan, I have a unique perspective. I watched Pete Carroll win the NC in 3 years...it can be done. Vern's right, you can tell if a coach is going to work out after 3 years.

 

HUGE difference though, Pete Carroll only had to recruit a better caliber of player that they were already searching for (pro-style conventional offensive and defensive players ) and its also easier to convert a team that was running shitty conventional schemes into one that actually works. As was pointed out several times Willingham had to change the type of players he recruits you are simply not gonna win with option players running the West Coast Offense, quite simply he deserved two more years.

Ok well then what about Bob Stoops? OU was traditionally an option oriented offense. Stoops went with the balanced offense and won the title in his second year. He didn't have a chance to get a full recruiting class. Hell he did it with mostly players he didn't recruit.

And OU was shit in the 90's so it's not like he had 5-star players waiting for him.

 

I'm not saying he'd do what Stoops and Carrol did but I mean he should've had better seasons than what he did have the previous 2 years.

I mean has Carrol ever not won 9-10 games? I know Stoops went like 9-5 his first year and has won 10 games every season since.

So if Willingham really was that good of a coach he should've had 8-10 win seasons. Not a losing season. And not 30 point blowouts.

[teke184 0]

ND's tarnish started with Davie but Willingham solidified it with his run over the past two years.

 

 

He may have had the same record as Davie over the same period of time, but that doesn't show the trajectory of the team during both periods.

 

Davie's team did bad in its first year then improved over the next two. Willingham did great out of the gate then ran into a brick wall once he played in a good bowl game.

 

A 5-7 season followed by a 6-5 season wasn't going to cut it, even with wins over Michigan and Tennessee, because of the way the program was losing games to bad teams like BYU and getting blown out by traditional rivals.

 

 

 

It may have been rash to fire Willingham after this season, but he was a dead man walking unless he pulled off a miracle soon.

[Guest Salacious Crumb]

Willingham would've had to go 8-4 and not been blown out by USC to keep his job this year IMO.

[therealworldschampion 0]

I read an article today, it was on either ESPN.com or CBS Sportsline about the ND alumni and why they didn't want Willingham. It mentioned the intensity that prior coaches had (Ara Parseghian, Lou Holtz, even Gerry Faust), and how the alumni and boosters loved that kind of coach while they pretty much fumed for six years while Dan Devine was the coach, Devine being a much more reserved, brooding type of coach.

 

I tend to agree with this article, as it seemed as if Notre Dame had gotten another Dan Devine in Willingham when the alumni and boosters all wanted another Parseighan or Holtz, not just the successes, but the fire and intensity that these two had.

[Vern Gagne 0]

I don't know if this will ever come out, but I think Willingham wanted to leave. He just didn't want to coach at ND anymore.

[teke184 0]

BTW, personal story time here.

 

 

My HS teammate Jimmy Williams, who plays for the 49ers, was being recruited by Notre Dame around 1996-1997 under Davie. He was exactly the kind of player the school is having trouble finding right now (black, fast, VERY smart) but they had two things working against them.

 

1. Notre Dame was too far from Baton Rouge for his family to be able to see any games in person. (The NBC TV deal was nice, though)

 

2. Notre Dame refused to even consider him as a running back, which was his primary position. They, like most other teams that recruited him, would only look at him as a DB.

 

(Darth Visor himself, Steve Spurrier, came to recruit him in person but was only looking at him as a DB. Jimmy's cross-town rival, Travis Minor, was the one being recruited as a RB, although Florida State ended up getting him)

 

 

He ended up signing with Vanderbilt of all teams because they'd give him a chance at RB. It lasted one season in which he was good but was shown that he could better help the team elsewhere.

 

He was converted into a Cornerback and then became an All SEC player at that position.

 

 

 

The point of the above story is that highly qualified players choose schools for different reasons. If they are willing to work with a player, the player may take that into consideration and go there.

 

If any of the other schools recruiting him (Florida, Northwestern, Notre Dame, LSU, etc.) had committed to try him as a RB for at least one year, they could have landed him. The way it turned out, though, Vandy was the only one to do so and they got one of their better recruits of the past 20 years as a result.

 

(Vandy went 5-6 at least once while Jimmy was there, which is pretty damn good for a school that's only been to two or three bowls in its history)

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

I don't know why the fact that he's black plays a factor, but good story nonetheless.

[teke184 0]

I don't know why the fact that he's black plays a factor, but good story nonetheless.

Him being black play a factor considering that a Notre Dame alum/booster made an ass out of himself last year because he claimed that Notre Dame's academic standards kept them from getting top black athletes.

 

That story is proof that there are black athletes out there who would qualify but that the coaches didn't do what they needed to in order to sign them.

[smh810 0]

WOW! Lots to reply to I'm gonna start with Dama since he makes the best point:

 

Ok well then what about Bob Stoops? OU was traditionally an option oriented offense. Stoops went with the balanced offense and won the title in his second year. He didn't have a chance to get a full recruiting class. Hell he did it with mostly players he didn't recruit.

And OU was shit in the 90's so it's not like he had 5-star players waiting for him.

 

I'm not saying he'd do what Stoops and Carrol did but I mean he should've had better seasons than what he did have the previous 2 years.

I mean has Carrol ever not won 9-10 games? I know Stoops went like 9-5 his first year and has won 10 games every season since.

So if Willingham really was that good of a coach he should've had 8-10 win seasons. Not a losing season. And not 30 point blowouts.

 

Dama I am a Florida Gator fan, you know and I know that Bob Stoops is a special coach. I saw him take a defense where 9 guys (at the same time) couldnt tackle Tommy Fraizer and make it functional enough for the Gators to win a National Title. He's just as responsible as Spurrier for securing the crown. Few people who follow the SEC may know this but in the years following the title the defense eventually became better than Spurrier's offense. Bob Stooops is probably the only coach that can pull off that drastic of a transition with players already there in a short period of time. I'm not claiming here that Willingham is the best coach but he deserved more time to execute his plan if he wanted it.

 

 

 

So, they've been incredibly lucky under Willingham as well. Tressell came into Ohio State and took the disaster that Cooper left to a National Championship in under 3 years. The Iowa coach took a joke of a team that hadn't done anything for a decade and maybe weak talent look like world killers with his coaching.

 

It's been done over and over. If anything Notre Dame was getting worse under Willingham. He was running a stoneaged offense and his players were undersized and slow. He obviously wasn't getting the job done.

 

And stop these excuses about his players. He brought several classes in so he had plenty of his guys. Too bad he had some god awful classes to boot. They were reading the top 100 recruits and where they want to go and 1 just 1 wants to go to Notre Dame and their 4th on his list.

 

Notre Dame was not regressing under Willingham they were just stagnant. Lets look at Ohio State and Iowa individually. Jim Tressel already had a solid base at Ohio State to work with his job was to change the attitude of the team and show half a brain on Gameday (which Cooper didnt have) so it was easier for OSU to emerge with a national title in a short amount of time. He wasn't changing the style of player for the program. Kirk Ferentz at Iowa is the epitome of getting the most of the least (at least early on) but all he did was employ simple schemes that his players executed very well. Again, he didn't try and change the style of player that gets recruited to Iowa. Willingham needed two more years in order for a proper judgement to be made on him and Notre Dame pulled the trigger too soon...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, there is one BIG caviat to that, if Willinghqam did try to contact Washington while he was coach of Notre Dame then that changes the landscape completely. If that is the case, then they were perfectly in bounds to fire him because he wasnt committed to the job, thats if and ONLY if the Washington rumor is true, if not he deserved two more years.

[Spicy McHaggis 0]

HUGE difference though, Pete Carroll only had to recruit a better caliber of player that they were already searching for (pro-style conventional offensive and defensive players ) and its also easier to convert a team that was running shitty conventional schemes into one that actually works. As was pointed out several times Willingham had to change the type of players he recruits you are simply not gonna win with option players running the West Coast Offense, quite simply he deserved two more years.

A few things:

 

Norm Chow has been a college coach for his entire career, with the exception of coaching in high school for 3 years. USC does not run a pro-style offense. Chow's system is insanely easy to learn and execute. The genius is in the coach's chess-like playcalling and adjustments. Carson Palmer sucked out loud until the Carroll era.

 

A new coach recruits new players regardless of the previous coach's players and systems. Better caliber vs. new type doesn't matter. Also, Ty won progressively LESS as HIS players were supposedly implementing HIS system. That means Bob "It is what it is" Davie is a better recruiter. Dama's got you also with Stoops.

 

Derrick Mayes, former ND standout receiver, has said it takes 6 years to learn the West Coast Offense. What kind of a moron puts a 6-year system into a program with a 4-year turnover?

 

ND dominated the line of scrimmage for the entire 1st quarter against SC. That tells me the talent is there. So what was the difference over the next 3 quarters? Coaching adjustments.

 

Finally, the talent level of a school's players is a reflection of recruiting. Should a coach be judged on recruiting ability? Absolutely. But coaching ability is something different. The Boise St. coach gets everything possible out of his players, who are on an equal level with their seasonal competition. He's a good coach. Urban Meyer is taking Utah...Utah... to the BCS. He's a good coach.

 

Please save "strength of schedule." ND beat Michigan, but lost to BYU. Inconsistency is the mark of a poor coach.

[smh810 0]

Norm Chow has been a college coach for his entire career, with the exception of coaching in high school for 3 years. USC does not run a pro-style offense. Chow's system is insanely easy to learn and execute. The genius is in the coach's chess-like playcalling and adjustments. Carson Palmer sucked out loud until the Carroll era.

 

A new coach recruits new players regardless of the previous coach's players and systems. Better caliber vs. new type doesn't matter. Also, Ty won progressively LESS as HIS players were supposedly implementing HIS system. That means Bob "It is what it is" Davie is a better recruiter. Dama's got you also with Stoops.

 

I'll grant you a couple of points here, calling Chow's offense pro-style was using the wrong terminology but its till didnt change the style of player that USC recruited. You still cant judge Willingham's recruiting class because again it was not enough time for what Ty was trying to do. Yes Notre Dame was lucky in 02 but that was more playing out of fear than beating their opponents (Willingham is known for being somewhat of a hardass) but their talent or lack there of caught up with them. Two years of recruiting is not enough, sorry. Also you obviously didnt see me mention that Dama had the best point in this thread concerning Bob Stoops and he is probably the only coach that has pulled or can pull this type of transition off.

 

Derrick Mayes, former ND standout receiver, has said it takes 6 years to learn the West Coast Offense. What kind of a moron puts a 6-year system into a program with a 4-year turnover?

 

Thats wrong. It takes approximately six years to MASTER the West Coast offense but you can (theoretically) learn it pretty well in one year for the pros (see Brad Johnson in the Bucs Super Bowl year) and approximately two to three years for college so say somebody red shirts his freshman year he learns the system that year by the end of his first playing year he should have the offense down pretty well.

 

ND dominated the line of scrimmage for the entire 1st quarter against SC. That tells me the talent is there. So what was the difference over the next 3 quarters? Coaching adjustments.

 

Or USC being asleep in the 1st quarter and then waking up.

 

Finally, the talent level of a school's players is a reflection of recruiting. Should a coach be judged on recruiting ability? Absolutely. But coaching ability is something different. The Boise St. coach gets everything possible out of his players, who are on an equal level with their seasonal competition. He's a good coach. Urban Meyer is taking Utah...Utah... to the BCS. He's a good coach.

 

Please save "strength of schedule." ND beat Michigan, but lost to BYU. Inconsistency is the mark of a poor coach.

 

I noticed you forgot to mention that ND beat Tennesee as well, Notre Dame's problem is that team was too green and Willingham didnt have enough of his players ready to make an impact. Again, if this was the case in 2006 then it would be time to pull the plug but in 2004 it was way too soon.

[Vern Gagne 0]

The same Tennesse team that struggled against Vandy and Kentucky. The same Tennessee team that was forced to play their 3rd string QB, and he had to give ND a gift int. TD for Notre Dame to win the game.

[smh810 0]

The bottom line is a win is a win. Did Tennesee win a lot of games in ugly fashion? Dude I'm a Gator fan I watched them STEAL a game but you know what theyre still a 9-2 football team and ND (granted in ugly fashion) deserves credit for beating them.