Do the Coach Shuffle

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.

Published by NDtex

Texan by birth, Irish by choice.

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