By now you know that Chicago Sun Times columnist Jay Mariotti has resigned. You probably know because parades have been running all over America in response to the news, violence in major metropolitan areas has dipped in the last 24 hours, and that acid-reflux that’s been giving you fits for the last 6 months hasn’t been too bad today despite the double-double you had for lunch.

And by now you also know that Mariotti is hardly done with this world any more than Satan is. He’s bound to pop up somewhere. That’s just a fact of life, like the inevitable recurrence of certain STDs.

Indeed, despite rumors, it seems Mariotti intends to move on to some other, livelier medium. And I hope he finds it. I hope he finds it and that he finds it impossible to survive. Because the livelier medium is filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of people who do “it” better than Mariotti could ever hope, and most of them do it for free.

So here’s to Mariotti moving on, not just from the printed press, but from the keyboard altogether. And let’s hope that he takes his buddies Hamilton, O’Connor, and Zemek with him.

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Really, thank God Brian Hamilton and the editorial staff of the Chicago Tribune are a bunch of desperate morons looking to manufacture news in order to improve their bottom line and keep their new owner from axing them like he’s been axing so many others. It gives us all something to talk about until football practices start for Notre Dame. I’ve been working on a pretty stats-heavy post for the last few days, but it’s been a lot of work to put together. Writing about this Brian Hamilton thing has been easy – hardly any effort is required at all. This must be what being Brian Hamilton is like.

At any rate, El Kabong of NDNation.com has written up some thoughts on the entire matter, and here’s the summary of his point:

Some people are acting like this is all Brian Hamilton’s fault and if he wouldn’t have written the story, it’d all be fine. That’s not the case. BH bears some of the blame for writing a non-story, but an equal part of the problem is the public jones for stories like this. BH could leave the Tribune tomorrow, and we’d still see these kinds of stories. The only way to truly combat them is to not read them and let people know they’re not necessary.

And on the face of it, that seems like a reasonable argument. In essence, El Kabong is saying, “fight the disease, not the symptom.” He argues that Hamilton feels he has to write these sorts of pieces because if he doesn’t, someone else will, and this is the sort of thing “the public” craves.

But what El Kabong (who, by the way, I respect quite a bit) and the editors of the Chicago Tribune (who, as you might have guessed, I do not) are failing to grasp is that news media, as the Tribune would argue itself to be, and sites like TheBigLead.com, which originally posted the photos of ND football players at a party and apparently have people like Hamilton feeling mighty threatened, aren’t even in the same industry. So why does the Tribune feel it needs to compete with blogs? Because their ad revenue numbers are down? So what? That doesn’t mean that a company that wants to represent itself as a news source gets to also play in the muddy waters of gossip and speculation in which blogs like TBL (and HLS) roll around. By what proclamation does the newspaper industry have a right to revenue that never shrinks? If the public’s craving for news has dropped while its craving for gossip increases, that’s just too bad for the Tribune. Either they must completely abandon any sense of being a reputable news source, or get accustomed to watching the gossip game from the sidelines while operating on a set of more limited resources. That’s the Tribune’s burden to bear, and it’s certainly no excuse for the Tribune to manufacture news. Sure, it’s only sports, but I can’t help but wonder where else in the paper the editors feel it’s okay to speculate and represent gossip as news as well. Further, how is it that news outlets have identified blogs as the threat to their revenue source? Have they looked at novels, comic books, or poetry readings? Those all seem to involve the written word in some fashion, and as near as I can tell, that’s the only commonality between blogs and news sources. Perhaps the Tribune could create a new section: “Fiction.” They already seem to have a knack for it. Or maybe they could create a comic book and sell the story to a major movie studio – lots of revenue to be had there. Or maybe they could publish more poetry. One particular piece comes to mind.

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

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By now you’re all familiar with how the Chicago Tribune’s Notre Dame beat writer, Brian Hamilton, saw a blog post about college kids acting like college kids and decided to manufacture a “news” story about it, first in his own Chicago Tribune Notre Dame blog, and then, once some apparently desperate editors got ahold of it, the Chicago Tribune itself. And today, we find the inevitable results of the mainstream media “telephone game,” as Philly.com, the website for the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, took Hamilton’s speculation and reported it as fact.

Essentially, the phrase (bold is mine):

For the second time in a year, Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen may have to explain his alleged participation in a situation involving alcohol.

…written by Hamilton has been transformed on Philly.com to…

The Chicago Tribune reported that Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen and at least two other teammates are being investigated by the university for possible violations of the school’s conduct code.

And that, kids, essentially sums up what pisses me off so much about the behavior of Brian Hamilton and the Chicago Tribune editorial staff. They’ve managed to make themselves the Pre-Crime unit of sports media. Use enough of the terms “may,” and “could,” and “might,” and the Tribune can say just about anything about anyone, knowing full well that their voice will be heard, but the words will likely be misconstrued until the readers read and the listeners hear the fantastical claims that they really want to make because the more fantastical the story, the more money from ad revenue.

And hey, who can blame the Tribune for making the development of revenue a priority over the pursuit and accurate reporting of news? After all, have you noticed how the Chicago Tribune is essentially dead? At this point, any desperate attempts by Brian Hamilton and the Chicago Tribune editors to keep their jobs are less death throes and more involuntary, postmortem releases of gas.

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This morning, TheBigLead.com published undated photos of Notre Dame football players Jimmy Clausen, James Aldridge, and Brian Smith at what is apparently a party. And the website notes that said party may have been called “The Beer Olympics.” We noticed the post and thought little of it, figuring that TBL originally posted the photos because the players are wearing some really unusual “team uniforms.” In other words, they look like stupid college kids being stupid college kids.

But then Brian Hamilton of the Chicago Tribune picked up on the story, as he often does after surfing the internet looking for stories to serve as “inspiration,” and turned it into a post headlined: Could ND players be in hot water over pics?

Brian, a graduate of Northwestern University, apparently thought it was news-worthy to mention that these football players in these undated photos may have been drinking beer! Yes, beer! In college! At a party! At Notre Dame! My God!

This, of course, leads us to a question we keep asking ourselves about Brian: Has Brian Hamilton, the Notre Dame beat writer for the Chicago Tribune, ever actually stepped foot on ND’s campus? The place reeks of beer. That smell in the air every 3rd day? That’s not an “ethanol plant.” What a ridiculous notion. If there were really a plant producing that much ethanol, oil would be about 3 bucks a barrel. That smell is just vapors from all the spilled beer in the dorm carpeting.

We haven’t gotten any comments from Brian on why he chose to attend Northwestern over, say, Bob Jones or Wheaton. And, frankly, we feel about as motivated to actually reach him as Brian feels compelled to cover his beat with any semblance of competence.

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Someone at Notre Dame should probably actually sue ESPN at this point.

From ESPN’s Team Preview of Notre Dame (done in conjunction with Blue Ribbon College Football Yearbook):

Not only, however, was there a thought, there was an entire thought process, which Weis described in detail on Feb. 8, nine days after hiring Jon Tenuta as an assistant head coach in charge of the defense, a move that demoted former assistant head coach Bill Smith to the athletics community relations staff.

To summarize, Weis said he knew something had to be done to his defense, and once he decided it had to come at the expense of Smith, he wanted to hire another veteran coach to replace Smith and work with defensive coordinator Corwin Brown. Once he settled on Tenuta, it was a matter of making sure Brown was comfortable with his decision.

“The No. 1 thing I wanted to do was make sure that we had an idea guy,” Weis said of his conversations with Brown. “I told Corwin, ‘As long as you’re the defensive coordinator, you’re always running the defense, you’re always calling the defense.’ “

Although it didn’t go down in the smoothest way possible for Weis, which has been a theme of his tenure with the Fighting Irish, he appears to have landed a good coach in Tenuta, whose last job was as Georgia Tech’s defensive coordinator.

What. The. Hell?

Demotion of Bill Smith? Who the hell is Bill Smith? Tenuta was hired as assistant head coach, defense, after former assistant Bill Lews had double-hip-replacement surgery. Maybe that’s how ESPN avoids a libel suit from Bill Lewis; they call him Bill Smith.

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Matt Zemek, blogger for Scout.com, and moral authority to us all, took Notre Dame to task, again, because taking Notre Dame to task is one of the 2 standard ways to ensure a lot of traffic to your “work,” and thus a happy editor/employer. This time, he claims that not only has Notre Dame lost track of its Catholic identity, but Notre Dame is also hurting America. To quote the ignoramus, “The ultimate problem with Notre Dame football has less to do with the institution itself, and much more to do with its violation of fundamental moral principles.” And if I were dumb enough to link to his column, and if you were dumb enough to go read it, this is what you’d see:

So while Zemek is busy blasting ND for hurting America and losing its Catholic Identity, he’s also busy marketing a credit card in the midst of one of the worst credit crisis this nation has ever seen, and a website called “NaughtyOrNice.com,” a matchmaking service that, apparently, is for those who want their sex without all those nasty entanglements like marriage, or, at the very least, commitment, and a video game system that’s helping our already obese society get even sicker while we, as a nation, are in the middle of a health care crisis. I’m surprised there isn’t an advertisement for lawyers who can get dads out of paying child support somewhere on the site. Maybe if I refreshed, there would be a new set of marketing promotions designed to help Zemek with his own Catholic identity or Americans with their morality.

Zemek continues his must-be-drunken rant with doozies like this:

I thought Notre Dame football’s biggest problem all these years was its lack of fidelity to Catholicism. Turns out that the program’s biggest problem was really its use of business methods that have hurt, are hurting, and–if unchecked–will continue to hurt America.

Right. Because “America,” which ND is apparently hurting, is bigger than, “Catholicism,” don’t ya know? This must be true, as Zemek, moral arbiter of Scout.com, spent the first part of his rant establishing that he’s a Catholic, so it must be true.

There’s a bunch of other stuff I could pick apart, like his complete lack of understanding of how a “free market,” actually works, or how investments, like, say, the purchasing of exclusive television rights to ND home games, are made based on forecasting of future performance rather than as a reward for the past. Zemek probably poured all of his money into Wang computers and still thinks it was a great buy. Never mind that after this entire diatribe, Zemek never once points out what team that isn’t already contractually obligated to a television deal via conference affiliation would be more “deserving” of NBC’s investment. I dunno, maybe he had Army in mind.

Anyway, let’s all hope Zemek sleeps well at night, making “money in a sound manner, with integrity and honor.” You know, with those internet banner ads to credit companies and find-sex-now websites that display while he baits people to read his “work.”

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Salve, Magisterium.

I was visiting with Brother Bernard, the Enclave’s archivist, the other night and beneath the full, silvery moon, with the sound of his rare, red piglets squealing in the background, Brother Bernard passed on to me a rare and unsettling manuscript.  For centuries the Enclave has gathered every piece of writing in existence.  Not just work that has been published, mind you, but copies of every scrap and doodle on earth are gathered, catalogued, and archived by Brother Bernard’s minions.

It was with trembling hands that the good Brother handed me this work, and I share it with you now, previously lost to the ages, only so that you may understand the devastating power of the written word, the vastly overrated goodness of abbreviations, and the importance of a good editor.

OMG, IMO Gators’ Meyer so Hott I May G in my P’s

His name is etched in the anals (sic) of history.

Urban Meyer is so hot that he can roast an entire turkey by merely pinching his nuts together and yawning on the fowl.  It doesn’t even have to be thawed...

The list continues for one hundred-and-three pages after that, makes some rather dubious claims about a football coach’s abilities and sexual proclivities, and concludes abruptly with the sentence: “Only I could make you truly happy, Urban.”

The piece has no author listed, but is written entirely on Orlando Sentinel stationary and is heavily perfumed with Calvin Klein’s “CKIN2U” Cologne.  Which is delicious.

Let us read and heed.  Warnings abound in such work, and the would-be columnist wallows in superlatives like a pig rolling in its neighbor’s shit.

Let us pray for lost souls, and let us pray for gout unto those who worship false idols.

H’amen.

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Generally speaking, I’m most-of-the-time okay with Michael Rothstein’s writing at his “Irish Insights” blog.  While not the most prolific/inspiring writer, he gets some good stories at times.  And while he loooooves to cover the mundane during the off-season, so do we, so we can’t knock him for it.

But, Mike, seriously, you can’t call out Tim Brown for his ‘poor’ stock picks one freaking week after he picked them!  That’s just not how the analysis of financial instruments works.  Ever read “Random Walk”?  No?  Shocking. 

I know you like to cover any and everything ND, and Tim Brown’s foray into picking stocks is kind of a fun story.  But please, please please leave the commentary on the quality of those stock picks to people who actually know a tiny little bit about stock valuation, PE ratios, DCF, etc.  Because 1) It’s unfair to Tim and 2) It makes you look a bit foolish.

So just a public service announcement so folks don’t necessarily write Mr. Brown off this early.  Maybe he’s great, maybe he’s terrible.  But one week means nothing.

PS – Your assertion that it’s harder to make money on stocks in a poor economy shows just how much you have to learn.  You may want to hit up Mr. Brown and get some lessons on Shorts, Straddles and general Value strategy.

PPS – Yes, I’m a finance nerd. 

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Chicago Tribune’s own Notre Dame beat writer, Brian Hamilton, doesn’t know much about the Notre Dame Football Program.

In covering the news about Tenuta joining the Irish, he said (and I urge you not to click on that link)…

What, exactly, does “assistant head coach/defense” mean — especially for Irish defensive coordinator Corwin Brown, whom Weis lauded at every turn in 2007? We’ll see. At minimum, it means that the defense’s performance in ‘07 still wasn’t good enough in Weis’ eyes, however effusive his praise of Brown was. Given Tenuta’s credentials, consider the fire under Brown officially lit.

Moron.

Let’s see, “What, exactly, does ‘assistant head coach/defense’ mean?” Um, Brian, you’ve been the beat writer for Notre Dame for a full season. Did you not bother to notice that the guy Jon Tenuta is replacing, Bill Lewis, had the job title, “Assistant Head Coach/Defense?”

Here’s some visual proof in case they change his title by the time you check that link…

Dear Lord, if all of humanity knew as little about their jobs and researched as little as Brian apparently does, we’d all still be convinced that leeching is an excellent treatment for mental illness.

There is no fire lit under Corwin Brown. Charlie Weis saw a great opportunity and grabbed a great football coach while he was available. Why? Because Charlie Weis is good at his job. Brian Hamilton is not.

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As you’ve no doubt heard, Irish Illustrated is reporting that Jon Tenuta is joining the ND Football coaching staff. I’m not going to link to them. They’ve really ticked me off. This is just another example of Irish Illustrated being unable to act with any sense of responsibility to the program that essentially makes it possible for them to exist as a business. There’s still not 100% confirmation from any ND officials that this is happening. If it is, in fact, happening, there area many reasons why Notre Dame and Charlie Weis haven’t announced it yet: perhaps they wanted to let the players know first, they probably wanted to make sure the recruits knew about it and were comfortable, they certainly wanted to do background checks and prepare for such a big announcement. Maybe they just didn’t want to give the Urban Meyers of the world a little more reason to be calling Irish commits. So why on earth Irish Illustrated couldn’t see fit to keep their big yaps shut is beyond me.

Here’s a little hint to Irish Illustrated: We knew, or at least heard about this, days ago. And we’re just a few guys with professions completely outside the sports journalism world. How pathetic is that, II? You’ve probably spent a full day hurriedly pursuing a “lead,” and developing your “sources” for this “story.” We sat around, watched a little American Gladiator, and someone e-mailed it to us. But we decided not to post anything about it because A) it’s still only rumor and B) the program that we care about wanted to wait on announcing it. But that’s cool. If you want to go stomping on the feet of those who make it possible to garner your wages, feel free. I’ve never subscribed to Irish Illustrated. I suggest all other Irish fans follow my lead. If you really want a service that can give you great information and does their business with some sense of honor, then there are far better choices out there for Notre Dame football fans.

To say I’m surprised that II did this would be wrong. I figured if we knew about it, others did too. I was mostly just waiting to see which site decided to break with it rather than just keeping quiet and letting ND announce things on their own schedule. II is the same site, of course, that managed to put a wrench in the recruiting works of 2007 with their little depth-chart-engineering stunt/article, scaring the bejesus out of certain recruits. To assume that those in charge of Irish Illustrated are fans of Notre Dame would be foolish.

No word yet on if Irish Illustrated’s loose lips have managed to put holes in the 2008 Irish Recruiting Barge, but what was looking like a final recruiting week with few downsides and lots of potential upside just got a lot shakier. Way to go Irish Illustrated. Nobody likes you.

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I tried telling myself, at the start of the season, that if and when things got a little dicey for Notre Dame, and the vultures started lining up to feast on the resulting carcasses like so many past office-mates with the promise of birthday cake, I would not take umbrage. I would not react. But then Notre Dame went 0-2 and Washington, coached by Tyrone Willingham, went 2-0.

That last sentence just took me 4 minutes to type. I kept writing, “Notre Dame went 2-0 and Washington, coached by absolutely nobody, went 0-2.” Amazing what muscle memory will do.

Anyway, Pat “Gonzo” Forde of ESPN has taken a shot, and, well, I’m reacting. But why do I react? Is it because I want him to know the truth and the flaws in his column. No. I actually couldn’t care less about what he thinks. I write up what is to follow because the ND fanbase is so large, and so diverse, that, despite our heroic efforts here at HLS to spread truth and wisdom, there may still be some ND fans that don’t know the truth, and are thus unprepared to defend themselves against the inevitable onslaught of so many e-mails including links to Forde’s work with clever subject lines like, “Take That Notre Dame,” sent from coworkers and or “friends” that didn’t actually finish a degree at University of Wherever 65% of My High School Class Attended, but still cheer for them anyway.

With that said, you, as Notre Dame Fans, are to simply read this if you feel the inclination and then keep the knowledge and reasoning in your back pocket, ready to defend yourself when need be. As with Judo, the truth is a powerful thing, and using it simply to smite your friends for fun and profit is, well, fun and profitable, but also irresponsible. So do not, under any circumstances, read the source material of Forde’s column (from espn.com). Also do not e-mail him, trying to win some battle of the minds. You can’t win a battle in which he will not play. Simply read below, absorb, contribute any points of fact/knowledge/wisdom you possess that I miss in the comments, and then go about your day a little more prepared for the future.

Let’s begin. Bold is mine (Except in the case of his cute little name highlighting). More…

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The AP Poll just announced that they’ll allow “lower-division schools,” meaning non-D1 schools, meaning App State, to be voted into their Top 25 College Football Poll.

This is mind bogglingly stupid on a level usually reserved for contestants of Big Brother. Let’s consider this new, improbable, but not impossible scenario for a moment…

App State, riding the wave of excitement over the biggest upset in football history, gets voted into next week’s AP Top 25. Michigan, now fully pissed and a bit more focused, goes on a tear and wins the rest of their scheduled games. And let’s say at the end of the season that their exists only 1 undefeated BCS eligible team, and, say, one other 1-loss, BCS eligible team. Whereas, with the old voting rules, there was no chance that Michigan would get into the BCS National Championship game because every person with a brain would just have to see that they lost to a freaking 1-AA team, now any thinking person must contend with Michigan apologists who will contend, “But Michigan simply lost an early season game in a close contest with a Top 25 team!”

Sure, the AP isn’t part of the BCS formula, but suddenly you’ve got a real problem on your hands. And you can be sure this world is full of enough idiots that, should the perfect storm occur, there will be people fighting for Michigan’s “right” to be in the BCS NC game.

And why would the AP do this? They’re already, essentially, irrelevant under the current BCS system. Why now make it possible that teams that have no reasonable place in a Top 25 ranking get voted into your poll? You wish to be a joke along with being irrelevant?

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We know it’s slow during the offseason, but that doesn’t give Dennis Dodd of CBSSportsline.com any excuses for the piece of fecal matter he’s published on their site (fecal matter gets no link here (unless you count self-referential links, of course)).  Then again, if we’re looking for things that need an excuse, just about everything Dodd has ever done in his entire life needs an excuse of some sort.

Anyway, here’s what Dennis has pulled out of his “hat,” and by “hat” we mean “butt.”  Bold text is my commentary.

As momentous occasions go, it’s not exactly the season finale of 24. In fact, you might just want to go ahead and TiVo it.

Uh, I believe Heroes proved that the season finale of 24 isn’t even the season finale of 24 anymore, Dodd.

The significance of Wednesday’s announcement at Notre Dame won’t be felt until the fall at the earliest, and maybe not even then. But this being ND, half the world will be salivating while the other half will be hating. So Charlie Weis might as well make an event out of it.

Media will be alerted. There might even be a press conference.

The Irish coach is not naming his starting quarterback in May. Nothing like that. Having taken a reasonable time to analyze the situation (39 days since the end of spring practice), he will merely cut the list of candidates from four to two.

Actually, Charlie’s never officially said he would make an announcement today (Wednesday).  He just said it may be sometime at the end of this month.  Stop going to the interns for facts, Dodd.

We’re here to spare you the suspense.

How?  You don’t know shit, Lebowski Dodd.

Freshman Jimmy Clausen and sophomore Demetrius Jones will compete for the job come August. You may now go back to your iPods and barbecue pits.

Where on earth did you come up with this, Dodd?  Seriously.  You may be right, but only by guessing.  It’s my guess too, but the “whispers” to which I listen to (and which are probably much more connected to the program than your “whispers”) are starting to place some doubt in my head – at least about one of the two.

Now onward with the juicy particulars.

Alert!  “Juicy Particulars” is a term used to subconsciously indicate that this is a piece written for the enjoyment of morons/ND haters.

Clausen didn’t grace Notre Dame with his prep All-America talent and enroll a semester early just to be a backup. But Jones didn’t sit around for a year — he didn’t see the field as a freshman — just to back up a prep All-American.

Uh, I’m pretty sure no D1 level talent ever recruited to play football in the history of D1 football has ever gone to a school looking forward to sitting on the bench and playing backup, Dodd.  Way to be insightful, Dodd.  Hey, I hear Christopher Columbus didn’t go sailing just to shipwreck and drown.  Have you heard anything illuminating about that, Dennis?

Let the hostilities begin. [Hostilities?  Competition is now synonymous with "hostility" now, Dennis?  Can we start calling terrorists "big competitors" now, Dennis?] Sorry, junior Evan Sharpley and sophomore Zach Frazer. Here’s some lovely parting gifts. No, really. A transfer might be in order for one of you. You might want to stick around for a while, though, if only to have club seats to the drama. This Clausen-Jones thing could get good. [It could.  It could also be incredibly boring. Know what else could have gotten really good, but turned out to be boring, Dennis?  Spiderman 3.]
More…

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…Because this whole Journalism thing just isn’t working out.

Jon Wilner wouldn’t know a fact if it beat him within an inch of his life with a lead pipe. And as a result, he’s turned in this piece of detritus as his latest hack job. No link for Jon. The bold words are mine:

Why does Weis get a golden pass?

By Jon Wilner

Mercury News Staff Columnist

It has been more than a week since Notre Dame got hammered by Louisiana State in the Sugar Bowl, more than a month since it got whipped by USC, almost four months since it got waxed by Michigan and just over a year since it got thumped by Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl.

So why hasn’t Irish Coach Charlie Weis been fired?

Why, at the very least, isn’t his job in jeopardy?

After all, Tyrone Willingham’s poor performance in big games got him fired after three seasons in South Bend. Weis is 0-4 in big games in the past 54 weeks. Shouldn’t he be held to the same standard?

Because Willingham wasn’t fired for his losses in big games. Or, at least, not just for his big losses in big games. His losses to teams like Purdue, Boston College, BYU, etc… hurt Willingham more. The losses to elite teams hurt, but the losses to the supporting cast of characters on the stage of college football damn a program to irrelevance.

The Irish couldn’t possibly be treating the white coach differently . . .

Before we go there, let’s review the facts:

• Willingham became the first black coach in Notre Dame history in any sport when he left Stanford for South Bend after the 2001 season.

• Willingham was the first Notre Dame football coach to be fired before his first contract expired — in his case, after three years.

• Willingham was not fired because of the team’s off-field performance. The players stayed out of trouble and did well in the classroom.

• Willingham was not fired because of his record (21-15), which was better than the three-year marks of two predecessors, Gerry Faust and Bob Davie. Both of them were brought back for a fourth season — and a fifth.

Actually, Willingham was fired for his record. The bar isn’t set at Gerry Faust and Bob Davie. God help us if any program were to set the bar at Bob Davie. Willingham knew the score. And if he didn’t, that’s his fault. ND wasn’t just going to say, “ooh, that whole Bob Davie era? Forget it. We’ll just pretend it didn’t happen.” Willingham needed to win and win immediately and then keep on winning. He failed.

No, the Irish needed a reason they could justify, and it was this: Willingham’s teams were not competitive in big games.

According to who? What official announcement claims as much?

Notre Dame’s president and athletic director opposed the dismissal, but members of the board of trustees made it happen — perhaps because they didn’t like the performances in big games but more likely because Willingham wasn’t a Notre Dame guy and because Urban Meyer was available. (Yes, the same Urban Meyer who just won the national title with Florida.)

Now here we are, two years into Weis’ tenure. No question, he’s a terrific offensive coach, and he has a better record through two seasons (19-6) than Willingham (15-10). But again: Willingham, who’s now at Washington, wasn’t fired by Notre Dame because of his record. He was fired because of bad losses in big games.

You keep saying that, but I see you don’t use any supporting evidence.

Interesting that you bring up the 2-year records of Weis and Willingham. Weis has 19 victories in 25 games. How long did it take Willingham to garner 19 wins at ND? 31. It took 31 games for Willingham to win 19, and that’s after he won his first 10 in 12. So he only garnered 9 wins in the next 19.

Tell me, Jon, do you really think the comparison is apt considering Weis only needs 2 more wins to match Willinghams benchmark, and Weis has only coached for 2 seasons thus far? Further, do you really think Weis will enable you to compare records any more after next season? Even with the loss of so many “big names” after this past season, do you really think Weis will only win 2 games in his third season?

In the past 54 weeks, Weis has four of them:

• Ohio State 34, Notre Dame 20.

• Michigan 47, Notre Dame 21.

• USC 44, Notre Dame 24.

• LSU 41, Notre Dame 14.

I probably don’t need to point out to Jon that 2 of these “big games” were brought about by virtue of the fact that Weis got the team into 2 BCS games in his first two seasons. Even with the “hot start” that Willingham had, he didn’t reach a single BCS game. Didn’t even sniff one his 2nd and 3rd year.

Applying the same standard to Weis that was applied to Willingham, Weis’ job should be in jeopardy. Instead, he’s the golden boy under the Golden Dome, owner of a huge contract, beloved by fans and trustees alike.

But not, apparently, by a former Irish coach.

Warning: Wilner’s using Bob Davie to support his points. It’s sort of like using Attila the Hun to support Manifest Destiny.

“When you lose to Michigan, you lose to USC and you lose to LSU in a bowl game by a significant score, there will be ramifications from that for Charlie Weis,” Davie told ESPN radio, according to the Chicago Tribune.

“I think the shine is off, to be quite honest. I know going around the country talking to football coaches, particularly head coaches, I think a little bit of the mystique is definitely off.”

Pretty strong stuff. But Davie wasn’t finished.

“It’s hard to say Notre Dame improved this year with probably the No. 1 player in the NFL draft, (quarterback) Brady Quinn, with (receiver) Jeff Samardzija, with potentially five first-round NFL draft picks,” Davie said. “I don’t think they’re as good a team as they were last year. On defense they continued to go backwards.

“Notre Dame has had two successful seasons, two BCS bowl games in a row, but I think it’s hard to say that the program is really going in a positive direction right now.”

Everyone ok? Good. Moving on…

So, why isn’t Weis at least on the warm seat? Because, Notre Dame supporters say, he doesn’t have the players to compete with the USCs and LSUs — he still has Willingham’s recruits.

But that argument reeks of hypocrisy.

Actually, it’s because to any serious observer of the sport, it’s clear that Charlie Weis can and will do what’s necessary to win. Willingham wouldn’t know much about that. You don’t learn a lot about successful recruiting when you’re out on the golf course.

Further, time to let the “Willingham’s Players” myth die. It’s almost impossible to say Weis is winning with Willingham’s players on a metaphysical level. For one, there are almost no “Willingham Players” on the team. He did such a rotten job of recruiting not only quality, but simple quantity that his recruiting product is largely heavy with players from the Brady Quinn class. And heck, don’t even get me started with how Willingham recruited Quinn. He didn’t. Ndukwe’s father essentially recruited him. Shark was a largely unnoticed recruit from a town just down the road from ND. How hard could it have been to recruit him? And by the way, why didn’t Willingham ever play Shark? Was it a white/black thing?

The Irish didn’t cut Willingham any slack because he had Davie’s recruits. And the players Davie left for Willingham were not as good as the players Willingham left for Weis, starting with Quinn. We’ll see how the next few drafts turn out, but I’d bet the ‘06 Irish have more upperclass talent than the ‘04-05 Irish.

Only because Weis coached them up to their potential. Willingham wouldn’t have a clue about that. He wouldn’t have a clue about coaching anyone up to anything, really. Ever watch the guy at practice? He acts kind of like he acted in games, except he says less.

Why the apparent double-standard? I don’t think Willingham was treated differently by Notre Dame because he is black. I think he was treated differently by Notre Dame because he was different, and being black was not an insignificant part of that difference.

He was treated differently because ND’s supporters didn’t want to go thru 2 more years of mediocrity (to put it kindly). Granted, he paid for the sins of Davie, but he knew that going in, or he should have. Shame on him for his own naivety if he didn’t.

Willingham wasn’t a Notre Dame guy. He didn’t go to school there, had no ties to South Bend and, with his reserved personality, wasn’t the type to make boosters and trustees feel comfortable and important — to make them feel like the head coach was one of them.

Ask boosters and trustees how much time Weis spends hobnobbing. Answer: Very little. His job is to coach football. He understands that and so does ND. Willingham thought his job was to sneak onto the ND golf course without signing in so that his bosses would have no idea of all the time he spent working on his short game rather than recruiting.

Weis is one of them. He’s a white guy who went to Notre Dame.

You’re right. He’s white and he attended ND. Yay. What’s the point?

ND doesn’t demand that you attended ND in order to be part of the family. Ask the millions of Subway Alumni. You just have to be willing to be part of the family. Neither Willingham nor Davie were ever willing to do that.

Look, I’m not saying Weis should be fired this winter; he deserves another year. But if the Irish get pounded by Michigan and USC again next season and all is still swell with Weis, then Notre Dame could have an enormous public relations problem on its hands.

Only if you make it so, Jon. And if yo do, you’ll be setting your “cause” back yet again because you’re picking battles that just aren’t there. But seriously, consider trade school. I’m sure you have talents, but, like Willingham, you just haven’t figured out what they may be.

Further:  The more I think about this, the more it ticks me off.  The Civil Rights movement is far too important and far too valuable to this country to put up with some little snot like Jon Wilner and his efforts to trivialize it with straw-man arguments within the relatively unimportant context of college football.   I do not know the history of Jon Wilner, and after today I don’t particularly care to know.  However, I do know that Jon should really re-examine his life and his values.  He took a precious piece of American history and made a mockery of it, especially in releasing this piece of trash on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Shame on him, and may karma and God judge him and treat him accordingly.  It’s well within his rights as (I presume) an American citizen to act like a complete idiot for all the world to see, but it’s a measure of a man’s character in whether or not he chooses to do so.

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At least one good thing almost came from the Sugar Bowl.
Thanks for the heads up, FLP.

Karma just missed him. This time.

Editor’s Note: You may have noticed that I’ve edited this post. Hey, I have a softer side. That and I don’t feel like mocking a dozen posts by people who kid themselves into thinking they’d never wish death on anyone, even people that deserve it like Hitler, Bin Laden, and Jay Mariotti. (Thanks, HLS Legal Team, for the guidance.) Screw you guys.

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