Notre Dame, Say Goodbye To Charlie Weis and Meet Brian Kelly

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The Notre Dame football program once again finds itself staring into the abyss following yet another late season loss to a team that they should have easily beaten. All preseason hype and hope is lost as the Irish continue to play to the level of their competition.

Of all the sins committed by the Irish over the Charlie Weis era, Saturday’s 23-21 loss to a good Naval Academy team is by no means the worst. Still it serves as a glowing reminder to all that under Weis Notre Dame has played lots of bad football.

The defense has been a weak point for the entirety of Weis’s five years in South Bend, and has forced the offense to walk a tight rope every week in order to win games against teams that should have been put away early.

The fact that the defense has remained a problem for so long is a damning indictment of the coach in and of itself, but unfortunately for Weis it is not the end of the charges.

In games against ranked opponents, Weis is 5-12. Against teams with winning records he is 11-21.His total record at Notre Dame stands at 35-24. While not terrible, it is no better than the record of his fired predecessors. Weis is averaging a 7-5 mark, and looks to be right on pace for equaling that mediocrity this season. His in game management is highly suspect, often making first-year mistakes well into year five. Often he will go for a fourth down in the first quarter where taking points would be more helpful.

Clock management has been an issue, highlighted by the last-second loss to USC where the game ended on a 3^rd down from the USC three-yard line and a time out on the board.

He no longer has the excuses of Ty Willingham’s recruiting, youth, or lack of talent to fall back on.

He has an upper-classmen led team with Heisman candidates at QB and WR, and a host of two and three year starters. Still this year like last the team is faltering down the stretch. The defense is a mess. The offense looks tired. And the team appears to be getting worse.

The loss to Navy makes nine wins improbable, eight wins a stretch, and seven wins optimistic.

With the talent on the field, the play of this team can not be acceptable.

Enough is enough, and time for change has come

There is little doubt around the Notre Dame community that there will be an off-season coaching search. Unlike last year where the big topic was “will Weis be fired”, this year the talk is mostly of who will replace him.

A good deal of blog chatter deals with uprooting Urban Meyer from his throne at The University of Florida and anointing him the next savior of the program. I feel that Meyer would not only be hard to pull out of the swamp, but that his spread style of football would need too long of a rebuild with Notre Dame’s current roster.

Plus Meyer’s recruiting history is peppered with players with records and academic shortcomings that would make admission to Notre Dame very unlikely.

Very simply Meyer couldn’t get “his” players into Notre Dame.

I do hope that Irish eyes turn south in this year’s very probable coaching search.

But not that far south.

Brian Kelly has his Cincinnati Bearcats poised to make a second straight BCS appearance and win their second Big East title in as many years.

Before coming to Cincinnati, Kelly played linebacker at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts, a Division II level Roman Catholic school.

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