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Saturday I felt like I was in the middle of a dream. Syracuse 24 – ND 23. The Irish lose on Senior Day — the one game on the schedule in which we beat the ever living hell out of the opposition and have every non-starting senior get their moment in the sun at Notre Dame Stadium. Instead, we had this:

Inexcusable. In a game that should have been nothing more than a glorified scrimmage and a celebration of seniors, we instead have senior David Bruton in tears over one of the worst losses in ND history.

As if the loss wasn’t bad enough, Yahoo! Sports decides to write a nice hack article and spin it so that it appears as if the student section was so pissed off by the loss, they threw snowballs at their own team. I won’t spend anymore time on that BS than this: If you qualify drunk college students throwing snowballs around in the first quarter as “pelting” their own team, you have lost your mind. Granted it shouldn’t have been happening in any fashion, but there is no reason to spin the article in such a ridiculous fashion.

I am angry, furious, and completely pissed off. I’ve detailed before our issues and problems and the positives this season has shown us. I have also detailed my opinion on the current differences between Ty and Weis. However, despite any credit I have tried to give Weis and believing that this is just a young team, we found ourselves on the losing end of a Syracuse game in which we blew a 4th quarter lead and used all of our timeouts well before Syracuse’s eventual game-winning drive.

Absolutely embarrassing.

Weis is now firmly planted on the hot seat. Past failures that were shaken off as building the program up are now huge glaring errors. His signature game is a loss to USC. His biggest win was against an overrated Michigan at the Big House in 2005. And in that time, he is 0-3 (and likely soon to be 0-4) against USC, had Michigan State plant their flag in our field, lost to Navy, lost to Air Force, and had the worst season in ND history at 3-9.

John Walters at NBC sports summed it up perfectly:

And, as Notre Dame heads out to USC for a game that will truly test its character next week, I leave you with these numbers:

Bob Davie, five seasons, 35-25 record.

Tyrone Willingham, three seasons, 21-15.

Charlie Weis, just under four seasons, 28-20.

What do each of the last three Notre Dame coaches have in common? As of today, the same exact winning percentage at Notre Dame: .583.

Simply unbelievable. We are now looking at the very real possibility of Weis being fired in the near future. And with USC currently being favored at 28.5 points at the writing of this article, we are starring a 6-6 regular season dead in the face. If all hell really breaks loose, we could also be looking at a Sun Bowl loss and ending the season with a 6-7 losing record and the bowl loss streak extended yet another year (hell we might not even make a bowl). Who would’ve thought things would be going this way after we started 4-1?

Ever since the Pitt loss, ND has looked to be in shambles. The fact though is that the problems that were being overshadowed are just now coming to light and everyone we played has figured it out. Our O-Line is still God awful. We can’t get a rushing game going to save our lives. So now we pin all of our hopes on a sophomore QB to carry our offense — oh and with that same horrid O-Line blocking for him and trying to give him “time” to pass. There is no doubt in my mind Clausen still doesn’t completely have it figured out. He throws a pretty long ball, but if we need to throw that 10-15 yard route, he tries to throw it through the receiver’s chest every time which more often results in inaccurate passes that our WR never have a prayer of making a play on. You flat out can’t win like that.

Our offense was so bad against Syracuse that we managed to turn a blocked punt and what should have been an easy score into an eventual 3rd and 40 and then punt the ball right back. Syracuse wasn’t in a position to ever win that game, but we sure as hell found every damned way to ensure that they stayed in it instead of being able to stomp on their throats and come out with an easy win.

This team isn’t motivated to play. We can’t seem to get it through the team’s skulls that every other team we face is just ready to pounce on Notre Dame and beat us rival or not. Why? Because we are Notre Dame and if you don’t love us, you hate us and you want that win — you want to be the team to further shove ND into the ground.

What happened to that nasty football team mentality? What happened to proving the rest of the nation that WE ARE ND damnit? Where is the chip on our shoulder? What happened to proving everyone wrong and making Lee Corso and Mark May eat their words Sunday morning? And as Rakes of Mallow pointed out, what the hell happened to this:

“You are what you are, folks, and right now you’re a 6-5 football team. And guess what, that’s just not good enough. That’s not good enough for you, and it’s certainly not going to be good enough for me. So, if you think they hired me here to go .500, you’ve got the wrong guy.” – Charlie Weis

I hope to hell that one of the reporters brings this quote up at his next press conference.

Just because we went 3-9 last year does NOT mean a current 6-5 record is anywhere near good enough. Why isn’t Charlie coming out and saying this and making his team believe this?

Has Weis underperformed? Yes. Are the past two years fireable offenses for a ND coach? Yes. Will he be fired? No. Should he be fired? No.

Yes, you read that right. Despite the fact that I think Weis has completely failed the team the past two years, I can’t see a good reason to fire him. This isn’t another cry of “give him another year” and “things will get better just wait.” We are more in a situation of “who in God’s name would we hire in his place?” and “will we lose some of our top recruits in doing so?”

The fact of the matter is that there is no “Urban Meyer” on the scene to prompt a quick firing. There are openings at far too many programs right now and there are also come high profile jobs in the mix too. Tennessee is now looking for someone to rebuild their program much like ND for instance. Staying in the SEC, Auburn’s head coach, Tommy Tubberville, has met with his AD and been told that he will be evaluated after the Alabama game. I don’t know about you, but I read that as: “Beat Bama or Get Fired”. I have a feeling that any top flight coach would rather take stabs at schools like that than to be yet another coach to fail at ND.

Firing Weis and then hiring yet another sub-par coach isn’t the answer. We will cycle back to the Daviham era all over again if we scramble for a last minute coaching replacement. Right now, ND needs to start looking for possible replacements. Test out the waters, and find out who is interested, and most importantly, find a proven head coach. The time for experiments is over, ND isn’t the place for on the job training. If you haven’t proven yourself as a head coach, apply elsewhere.

Weis isn’t dumb, he knows he is one solid head coaching candidate away from being canned. He also has the persona in which he would love for all of us to eat our words and proving us wrong. Unfortunately, I just can’t see that in the cards right now. Weis has been a great recruiter, but he hasn’t been coaching them and even more importantly motivating them like he should be.

I still want to believe, but reality is starting to set in. I am more and more convinced (much like many other fans) that the 2005 and 2006 seasons were a result of great players being great and having the Ty Willingham handcuffs removed. They motivated themselves, they wanted to prove everyone wrong, and they wanted to look at the rest of the nation and say “we told you so.”

Saturday we face USC. Motivating a ND team to play USC should not be hard, especially on the heels of a horrid loss. ND should be foaming at the mouth to take out all the anger, frustration and pain of the Syracuse loss on SC. If we come out flat yet again, there isn’t even a glimmer of hope for Weis. Weis has a chance to redeem himself and this team has a chance to make a statement to end the year.

As far as Weis goes, this is all the motivation he should need:

“9-3 isn’t good enough. 10-3 isn’t that much better. 3-9 is inexcusable. 6-5 wasn’t good enough for you or ND when you got here. We are 6-5 now and it still isn’t good enough. 6 straight losses to USC isn’t good enough and it is time to turn all of this around RIGHT NOW. Your time is running out.”

Go Irish. Beat Trojans. God help us.

I wasn’t expecting to be writing about ND football again so fast. I mean honestly, we are playing one of the worst teams in college football this weekend — not exactly much to get excited about. And even some of ND nation has calmed down to a point regarding Weis‘ job security as well, despite nearly blowing the Navy game.

However, I saw a couple of different articles today regarding ND coaching. First off, we turn to Mike Haywood, who will meet with the University of Washington for their head coaching job. This has been (beyond the unfortunate death in his family), the “personal reasons” that Weis has been supporting this week, and why he has not been at practice.

A few things to note here. First off, I would be really happy for Haywood if he got the job. During the time I worked with the team, Haywood was easily one of my favorite coaches. He is very likable, very knowledgeable, and also a damned good recruiter. I know he hasn’t done the best job in the world calling plays; however, I think more often than not he got too cute with play calling and out thought himself. I chalk that up to inexperience though as it was the first time he had to do it — and let’s be honest, this is Weis‘ system not his. It is really hard to live up to that big of a shadow.

Second, he should strike while the iron is still hot. Even on the heels of a bad season, he still has two great years and one season of improvement on his resume. If the interest is there and he wants to be a head coach, he should definitely go for it.

Finally, this proves something that ND fans have been saying in response to the ESPN et al claims that ND was quick to let go of Ty because he was black. The fact of the matter is that ND, for the time being, is the only school with two black coordinators. Head coaching experience doesn’t appear out of thin air, and you look to the offensive and defensive coordinators for that new head coaching talent. And here we go, lo and behold the “racist” school of ND might just be adding a new black head coach to the NCAA ranks. How dare we right?

Anyways, I wish nothing for the best for Haywood. Also knowing Weis, I’m sure he has a list of potential replacements should Haywood get the job. Just take a look at how fast Corwin Brown was hired after Rick Minter was fired for a good example of this.

Now, in the ridiculous category, someone on NDNation found an article saying Urban Meyer would be a great match for ND. Funny part is, this was written by someone from Florida. Funnier still, Meyer is clearly lying out of his ass (to put it bluntly).

So why didn’t Meyer take the Fighting Irish job in 2004? Because the timing wasn’t right. His authorized biography explains, “Florida’s biggest advantage would turn out to be Urban’s and Shelley’s desire for a strong family life, because he could recruit closer to home.”

At Notre Dame, you recruit nationally, which means flying around the country, away from home a lot more. At a state school like Florida, you can recruit a kid, or several kids, during the day, and still be home for dinner, or at one of your kid’s practices, that night. With a young family, that mattered a lot. But even with that in play, turning down Notre Dame was very difficult, as Meyer notes in this passage in his biography:

“I wanted to go to Notre Dame,” Meyer admitted, “but my family wanted to talk about going to Florida.”

Shelley knew how tough the decision was for her husband because “he left his heart at Notre Dame when we left there last time — he really, really, really loved Notre Dame.”

That’s “really” loved three times, if you’re scoring at home.

Uh…we are keeping score here. Forget the fact that he wasn’t happy that he wasn’t going to get academic exceptions at ND and forget the fact that he targets ND recruits and bashes the school that holds his “dream job”. Seriously is this some kind of sick joke?

Weis seems to be doing quite well with his family here at ND. His son is out on the sidelines every game. He has established “The Ranch” for his charity foundation, Hannah and Friends, in honor of his daughter in the area. Hell, Weis even said at a press conference that his family was “sick of seeing [him] so much.” Damn, so hard to have a family life.

Facts are facts. Urban went to Florida because, in my opinion, he believed he had a better chance of winning there. He used the ND “dream job” line to leverage a sweet deal with UF, and I guarantee you he will use it again if given the chance. I can respect him to a point for his “win at all costs” thinking; however, when you have a practice of lying to recruits (hell, he told one recruit, Jevan Snead that he was recruiting Tim Tebow as a LINEBACKER) and you don’t care who’s toes you step on, I don’t want you representing ND.

Thankfully, I personally feel this won’t ever be an issue; however, seeing someone actually publish this opinion and believe it made me laugh out loud.