Why Notre Dame Should Have Given Charlie Weis One Last Chance

“Winning, that’s the bottom line.”

16 days after a too common defeat by USC (41-10), 13 days after the expected firing of the underachieving Tyrone Willingham, with three rings on his fingers, the newly hired head coach of Notre Dame preached such a determined statement. Irish nation was sold. December 13, 2004, a new reign has come to South Bend: the Charlie Weis era.

Charlie Weis jump started Notre Dame fast and seemed to have been the guy to bring the Irish back into the spotlight after starting off with two great seasons. He also transformed average 3 star recruits to All-Americans such as Brady Quin and Jeff Samardzija.

Yes, he had a .565 win percentage, his biggest win was a last second loss to USC (The Bush Push), his team lost to Navy for the first time since 1943 in the horrific 2007 season, and in all honesty he just couldn’t get it done on a regular basis. So I bet you’re asking yourself, why in the world should we have kept Weis?

Charlie Weis led Notre Dame to a BCS game his first season as a head coach. Not many coaches can say that.

He had top recruiting classes each year

His teams had the best graduation rate each year

He snapped Notre Dame’s nine game bowl loss streak

And to me the main reason Notre Dame should have kept Weis for another year was because all the potential the next season could bring.

Notre Dame’s 2009 season will always be remembered as the team that was 28 points away from playing for the national title.The Irish had six losses decided by seven points or less for an average loss of 4.7 points. Notre Dame was stacked offensively and it looked National Championship-caliber at times.

They were in every game they played, and never looked liked they were the lesser team. A couple of breaks here and there and lets say Notre Dame finishes 10-3 with a bowl win. There would be no reason for this article. 

The scary part is, Jimmy Clausen and Golden Tate still had a year of eligibility left. If Weis stays, both Tate and Clausen stay. The offense would have been loaded and literally unstoppable for the 2010 season. The motivation would be enormous for all the seniors knowing it was just 28 points that cost them the last season. Also, the 2010 schedule already set them up for a big year.

Yes, the defense would still be shaky, so rather a big name D coordinator would have been a better hire than a Weis fire. After all he was/is an offensive genius (hence the Kansas City Cheif's recent success) and had no business managing a defense.

Lets fast-forward a little. November 1, 2010, 6 days after Notre Dame lost its football manager from a fatal fall, 3 days after an inexcusable/embarrassing loss to Tulsa (resulting in a 4-5 record), and 2 days after it was announced starting quarterback Dayne Crist would miss the rest of the season with an injury, all hope across Irish nation is extinct.

You can’t tell me things wouldn’t be better right now if we still had Charlie Weis rather than Brian Kelly.

I'm not saying Weis was a great coach by any means, and I guarantee Brian Kelly will have much greater success when its all said and done (that is if he's still around after the ongoing investigation) but, you have to look at what it probably would have been rather than what it is right now.

So now we can all wonder what if Jack Swarbrick would have given Coach Weis one last chance?

Be careful, the thoughts can be painful.