Things You Cannot Do

The Biscuit

I honestly don’t know if CW will be fired. I think we have just as good a chance of beating Pitt as we do of losing to Navy. This team is really good when it’s good, and we’re really mediocre when we’re mediocre. If we win out, CW will stay, despite two losses to Navy, unless a coaching savior appears out of nowhere, which is hugely unlikely. My dream scenario? Weis wins out, but agrees to be demoted to Offensive Coordinator in the post-season, and we hire a solid defensive-minded HC. That way we keep all the talent and the momentum on O, but fix the issues on D, and we also keep most if not all of Weis’ recruits. Of course, there is a 0% chance of this because 1) Weis’ ego would never handle it and 2) No HC in his right mind would want that situation. But still, it’d be nice.

JVH

Some of your finest work. Well said.

And I know you like vanilla in your lattes.

Bad Kermit

Awesome post, Q.

Paul

Growing up I knew of two things that would happen every football season One that every saturday I would cheer for old ND and ND would kick Navy ass. And maybe the 43 years it happened in a row made me believe that would always be. I have yet to CW do something that made me sit back and say wow that was a good call or that was a well prepared team. Go back to the NFL and Tom Brady because that is the only thing that make Chuck look good. Bob Davie is starting to look real good about now

usmc53

When you say, “There are just things you can’t do no matter the mitigating circumstances…and you can’t lose to Navy!”, it seems like you’re saying that, in a vaccuum, regardless of anything else, you CANNOT lose to Navy.

And when you say, “you just can’t lose to Navy. That’s it. End of discussion.”, it sure doesn’t seem like you’re talking about other games being too close, or the fact that there are no “big wins.” It sounds like you’re saying: Navy is inferior, end of discussion, losing to them is an embarrassment and the mark of ineptitude.

I’m just pointing out that losing to Navy is not the mark of ineptitude. During much of Navy’s history, it was. But not anymore.

usmc53

“i agree that Navy is legitimately good…But they also lost to Temple.”

Navy also scored more points against Ohio State than any other team has scored this year, including Penn State, Wisconsin, and USC.

Navy is the only team to gain over 400 yards against ND this year.

So Navy gave one away against Temple? Anyone can have a bad game, especially with their sophomore backup QB playing, and lose a to a team they shouldn’t lose to. The fact is, though, that Navy is a very solid team, and losing to them is only an embarrassment if you’re too blind to see that reality.

The Biscuit

usmc and calinavy, i’m not trying to bag on those teams. but if you had a team with as much talent as ND has, and you were losing these games, you’d be asking the same questions. because on paper, the talent gap is freaking HUGE. and not just with Navy. with Purdue, MSU, etc. which means there’s something wrong when ND needs last second wins to pull it out, or loses in a tight game. because it means that the coaches aren’t getting the production out of those more talented players.

Catholepistemiad

I went to Michigan and attended the UM ND game this year in Ann Arbor. I am Catholic, an attorney and live in a Rust Belt city heavily populated with ND fans and alums–many of whom are close friends of mine. I follow college football closely and offer these “outside the tent” observations about your plight.

First, that’s a lot of analysis about Weis. It’s really much simpler than that however. He has never been a head coach in college before. Ever. I’ve never tried a criminal case, but maybe I should apply to be Attorney General of the United States. You just cannot give the HC job at the University of Notre Dame to a guy with no HC experience who consistently blames everyone else for his mistakes, just like he did when he sued his Doctor for malpractice. And let’s not forget why he had that surgery: VANITY—ARROGANCE’S first cousin. Instead of putting down the doughnuts and running laps with his players, he took a shortcut and went under the knife. And when it didn’t go right, he blamed someone else for his vanity and arrogance. He’s a whiny personal injury plaintiff, yet he writes a book called “No Excuses.” Right. Thanks Charlie.

The more important point is this: He has never held a head coaching job before and he had no business even being a candidate. It’s not Weis’ fault he’s the HC. If somebody was dumb enough to offer him the job, when he has no experience nor the mindset to be a HC, of course he’s going to take it. Your Athletic Department has been incredibly and inexplicably inept in its hiring practices—always taking fliers on guys like Davie and Faust and Weis—guys who have NEVER held a college head coaching position before. NEVER. Think about that. This is really pretty simple. Who is the best ND coach in the last 25 years? Holtz. What did he do before ND? He coached successfully at Minnesota and Arkansas. Thanks for playing. C’mon Domers.

By the way, as an aside, the Michigan crack is puzzling. That’s the first time I’ve heard anyone argue that UM is in essence a façade–great academics for normal students but when it comes to athletes they just use them and then throw the kids in the trash. Is that the implication? If true, hey whatever, the truth hurts. But it’s not true. An armchair psychologist can easily figure out the motivation for the complaint: M is supposed to be a good school but they’ve been more successful in sports the last 20 years than ND—so it must be that they use dumb athletes and hide behind their façade of academic excellence.

Just going by Federally released NCAA graduation rates for student athletes last year, let’s look at some good public Ivy type schools. Michigan is graduating 83% of its student athletes; University of Texas at Austin 72%; Cal Berkely 76%; University of Virginia 86%. Sounds about right.

Similarly ranked PRIVATE schools with power athletic departments, who are obviously not encumbered by mandates to admit a broader base of applicants and the graduation rates are understandably higher: Northwestern 97%, Notre Dame 98%, Duke 97%.

So, there you have it. Notre Dame is exceptional in this category. Kudos to them. So is Northwestern and Duke. I think one must conclude that Cal Berkely and Notre Dame are great schools. Just as Michigan and Northwestern are too. But when the schools are public, the grad rates are a little less. Again, I think the explanation lies in the mandated admissions policies of public instituions. Whatever. But to conclude that “You can’t cheer for Michigan and claim to value academics at all” is immature hyberbolic talk that can be run over as easy as ND’s D-Line. C’mon Angry Domer guys. You may have a higher graduation rate, but you aren’t too swift at statistics. If UM had a 60% or lower rate, then I’d listen.

If you would allow me to paint with a broad brush, your comment about Michigan’s academics is reflective of the collective minset that got ND into the coaching jam it’s currently in, namely shooting from the hip and reaching “it just feels right” gut conclusions without doing its homework. Stop doing this ND. Don’t hire people like Weis, Faust, Davie who have never had a SUCCESSFUL COLLEGE HC gig before (Willingham was a HC, but not what I would call successful). Hell, Weis has never even played football. Yet you give him arguably the most prestigous post in college athletics? His hire was so crazy.

Say what you will about Rodriguez–I still love the hire–but even if it doesn’t work out, no one can accuse UM for being stupid to hire him. He was an incredibly successful coach at schools with weak resources and traditions and turned them into world beaters despite anemic recruiting classes. Who wouldn’t hire Rodriguez? WVU had no business beating Georgia and Oklahoma but he did so with duct tape, no name 2 and 3 star Rivals rated players, hard, hard work and brilliance. If Weis coached WVU, he would never win and blame it on the fact that he can’t get good recruits to come to a rural University with a redneck rep.

I would humbly suggest that you get off the Meyer train too. Not going to happen. Brian Kelly is the only coach you can and should hire….and what do you know, he’s beeen a successful HC before. He’s an a-hole and will drive you crazy, but so is Saban. Make the Faustian bargain Domers and give Kelly the keys to the kingdom. Don’t go with Gruden—he has been a HC, but that would not be as good a move. Again, no COLLEGE HC experience. Although I do believe going from the pros to college is easier than the reverse. I apologize for my passionate defense and impatience with ND’s blindness. You guys are better than this.

WJK, University of Michigan 1990…one of the proud 83%.

The Biscuit

CaliNavy, appreciate the well thought out comments. And I agree. But I think all our guys fit at ND and fit the system well. I just think that the coaching needs to ensure that that talent, and that fit, results in a good product on the field.

Catholepistemiad

Gents:

I have never visited the site before. A friend of mine who went to ND cut and pasted DMQ’s post in an e-mail to me, so I checked out the site. So, no I do not have the historical perspective to understand that you are not on the “Meyer Train.” Forgive me. I find it a little comical to think that he would actually have you is what I was saying regadless of his rumored thoughts to contrary, which he has dismissed.

I also find it tragi-comical that graduates of Notre Dame are taking on the White Man’s Burden and holding themselves out as the last great protector of African American males. Really? C’mon guys. You did read that UM went all the way to the Supreme Court to defend its extremely proactive affirmative action admissions policies? You did see that didn’t you? Don’t make UM out to be Ole Miss circa 1964. I can’t think of another institution that has gone out of its way to be more inclusive of African Americans and Jewish students and so on. ND is a great many things to this world, but keeper of the flame of diversity isn’t one of them.

Michigan had 626 black men on campus out of 12,518 men overall. That’s 5%. 60 of those 626 black men were athletes or 9%.

Notre Dame by comparison had only 165 black men out of 4,444 or 3%. 32% of those black men were athletes.

So, 91% of the black men admitted to UM are there for academic reasons. Only 68% of black men admitted to ND for academic reasons alone.

Sorry boys, you cherry pick some great kids who happen to be black and play football well, while at the same time, you aren’t beating the band to get more young black men in the doors who don’t run a 4.4/40. I mean really. A lily white private school in conservative Indiana run by Irish Catholic men is keeping a lookout for America’s black men. I get it. You’re joking.

DMQ apparently wasn’t pleased with the generalized student athlete breakdown I did and wanted it limited to black men who touch pigskin. Ok. According to the same database that I used before, the national graduation rate for black males is 38%. That is attrocious by anyone’s standards. UM last year graduated 54% of its black football players which was in line with similar PUBLIC schools: Cal 53%, UVA 61%, Texas a paltry 38%.

At similar PRIVATE schools, ND graduated 93% of its black football players, Northwestern 91%, Duke 88% and Stanford 88%. That’s tremendous and laudable, but I do think there will always be a disparity between the public and private schools for the reasons I stated previously.

Nevertheless, UM’s incredible leading role in inclusive admission (whether you agree with the practice or not) prevents you from assailing it as some Cracker College that disposes of black men like trash. At worst, it’s in line with Cal and UVA. At best, it’s 14 percentage point higher than the national average.

And Biscuit: RR is a scumbag and a losing scumbag? Family man, married forever, a walk-on at WVU from a poor family, good student in college, has won more games than Weis will ever win at ND even if he’s allowed to coach the full 10 years. In 7 years at WVU he was 60-26 with 3 impressive bowl wins. Gastro Plaintiff is 35-24 during his internship. C’mon. His contract dispute was a mess, but not because of him, that was UM’s fault. They wrongly assumed that since John Beilein’s buyout was negotiable, so would the buyout for RR. WVU went nuts over him leaving. Why? Because he’s an incredible coach and he just dumped them for a prettier girl. My guess is that if Weis leaves ND…no one would be pissed. There you have it.

Give me three hail Mary’s, quit hating on UM and look toward your incompetent athletic department. Quit looking for the flying saucers in Area 51 and bitching about Armando Allen’s out of bounds foot. Hire a good coach, shut up and play ball. Because as your literary lion of a coach says, there are “No Excuses.”

Catholepistemiad

Hey, altar Boy, don’t use the Lord’s name in vain. So I address your uninformed innacurate slur against UM with facts and from your mother’s basement you type “spin much?” Great. You Domers are doomed to repeat bad history. Step outside your shell and realize your limitations, then do something about them instead of projecting your frustrations elsewhere by maligning undeserved targets. Look, I want ND to succeed. College football isn’t right without a healthy ND program. Plus, more great teams in the Midwest is good for UM. Burger King wants to build across the street from Micky D’s. But you’re program and your fanbase is not healthy. Thought I was trying to help. Go ahead and hire Eric Mangini for all I care and keep thinking you are virtuous while everyone else is scum. That’ll fix all that ails ND Nation I’m sure. I know my audience better than you think.

Catholepistemiad

Biscuit: Grazzi. I get it. I read Brian Cook’s mgoblog which is excellent, but that too is prone like all blogs to food fights that are more about the fight than anything. This isn’t my first blog rodeo. But ND can’t go off on UM (and the hatred has to be interpreted as a compliment I guess) with this sanctimonous air about not caring about blacks. Look at the body of their work with admissions. I’m not giving them a pass. Is a 54% grad rate for black football players acceptable? NO. They can and should do better. But when you see similar great schools like Cal Berkely and UVA struggling with the same issue, I think a wider berth should be afforded. Private schools for some reason are able to address this issue better. I don’t know why, but 50,000 Elvis fans can’t be wrong. Every public U for some reason just can’t seem to get over the hump. M is not unique in this regard. What is clear though is that UM isn’t this factory that just whores these kids.

RR is not a scumbag. You know it. I get it. You have to say that. It’s fun to pile on the guy for some reason because there’s been so much drama with his contract dispute. The cheerleader rumor–my goodness. I seriously doubt that it’s true. To my knowledge it’s never been reported and confirmed by a reputable news service. All I know is the guy is still married with two well-adjusted kids. He’s never been dinged by the cops, the NCAA or anyone else for that matter. This latest NCAA thing is such a witch hunt by the Free Press. I’m sure ND players only work 20 hours a week on football. What a crock. RRs been coaching the same way for 20 odd years and has clean. Now all of a sudden he’s going to start skirting the rules when he finally is at a school where he doesn’t need to due to unlimited resources? Yeah, that makes sense. Saban is a scum bag. Weis is an overmatched arrogant douche, but he’s not a scumbag. RR is a winner, and a family man. I know those labels are no fun when posting about a rival, but they’re true. M tore down its house and is building a new one. They were tired of 8-4 and 9-3. That’s what they did in hiring him. I suggest ND do a little of the same.

Coach Mike

Coach Weis has been a head coach… in high school. No passion, arrogant, cocky and uninspiring. The players don’t want to play for him. He’ll soon be back in the NFL as a OC, mired in obscurity and getting anyone he can to gander at his Super Bowl rings. The quicker the better for ND by canning his big ass. Hire Chris Peterson, a success with 2- and 3-star athletes. Imagine what he will do with real talent.

The Biscuit

Quit recruiting DTK. We tolerate you around here. We won’t tolerate you + minions.