I wanted to hold off making a post until I actually saw the official news and it came down this morning.
Needless to say, I agree with the decision, and I have definitely made my thoughts well known on the matter. For next year, this is easily the best decision for ND football. While I do hope we have a great turnaround next year so we can all laugh that we had this moment of panic, I am quite realistic on the situation. Swarbrick must test the waters of other potential candidates during the offseason and through the 2009 season in my opinion. When we fired Ty, our plan was get Urban Meyer and when that we really didn’t have a plan B. We should never find ourselves in that situation again.
I do honestly believe we wouldn’t be able to find a better coach to fill Weis’ shoes right now than Darth Sweathshirt himself. Believe me, I’m as outraged as anyone else with the last two years, but I don’t think we would’ve made ourselves any better by firing Weis out of pure rage and then bringing in yet another mediocre coach.
Of course now, ESPN and anyone wanting to trash Notre Dame will likely be playing the race card very heavily. As sad as that old argument is, I’m going to hate hearing it no matter how off base it is. So brace yourself you know it is coming. My major counterpoints to the BS:
- Look at his Washington tenure
- Still cares more about his golf game (see point #1, pulled the same crap there)
- He refuses to take responsibility for any mistakes (aka he’s quite classless)
I seriously feel bad for anyone that tries to paint the ND/Ty situation as an example for unequal opprotunities within NCAA for minority head football coaches. He is a horrible example to hang that hat on.
Anyways, on the bright side, this will very likely ensure we retain our current verbal commits and lead us into yet another top ten recruiting class without a doubt. At the very least, Weis will have done one thing and that is stock us full of talented players, and that bodes well for anyone that is walking the ND sidelines in the near future.
It is time to move forward in any case. Personally, I feel like the song and dance Swarbrick put on went on for far too long. For now, I am hoping Weis can start the 2009 campaign on the right foot and end the bowl losing streak. I don’t care who it is against, it needs to end, and it needs to end this year. Quite frankly, in terms of “Are we improving?” — that question will continued to be answered in this year’s bowl performance.
EDIT: Chin up, have some laughs.