Weis To Both His Notre Dame Fans: "Don't Cry for Me!"

OK, raise your hands on this one. Who wouldn't take a kick in the butt for say eighteen million dollars? So, as Charlie Weis leaves Notre Dame his farewell statement to his two remaining fans should be, "Don't cry for me".

And why should they? Let's look at the reasons...

He'll have eighteen million reasons not to be overly sad.

The NFL is waiting with open arms for Charlie to return. He will be unemployed as a coach only as long as he wants to be.

He'll now have time to do Jenny Craig and land that lucrative endorsement deal.

He'll finally have time to comb his hair.

And he can say with pride that he at least did better in college football than Steve Spurrier did in the NFL.

Charlie Weis gave Notre Dame his best shot. I'm sure of that. He simply was not a good head coach. It's the old case of the Peter Principal. He was promoted to the level of his incompetency as there was arguably not many better offensive coordinators.

Same old tune with a different singer, not all great assistants make great head coaches.

And I certainly don't blame Charlie for Notre Dame's apparent cash flow crisis with his firing. I would point the finger at the administrator who gave him such a lengthy contract extension with so little to show for it.

I remember the day it happened and remember looking around the landscape and not seeing any one else waiving a check book in Charlie's direction. It wasn't like there a fight to keep him there.

Notre Dame may be mired in mediocrity for a few more years while the next coach wades through players left behind and starts building his own team.

Recruiting is tougher now because this is a generation of "NOW" kids. Notre Dame hasn't been relevant since this year's group of five-star high school athletes were in elementary school, and few grew up looking at Notre Dame saying, "Wow, one day I want to play for them."

At least this saga gave something for us writers to kick around while we're waiting for the bowl announcements and that's something. We won't have Charlie Weis to kick around anymore.