Integrity in recruiting? What a novel idea!

I have ripped Jeff Carroll of the South Bend Tribune pretty good in the past, and I still think he's the definition of an assclown. However, I think every recruit that wants to understand Coach Weis should read this article.

In the wake of a 3-9 season, we have the #1 recruiting class in the country. I've blogged previously about how unprecedented that is.

What's more impressive, however, is Weis' commitment to his word above all else - even getting the top recruiting class.

After last year's last minute defections, Weis was fustrated with the recruiting system, and not just because he got so publicly burned. Weis is a true Notre Dame man, a man of integrity whose word is his bond. And these 18-year-old kids took advantage of his honesty and left him holding the bag.

So almost one year ago, on the afternoon of National Signing Day, Weis established a new regime in recruiting - an all in / all out approach where he will hold his recruits to their commitments. Once they are verbally committed, no more visiting with other teams, or we yank your offer.

That ultimatum was tested earlier this week, when Buford, GA defensive end prospect Omar Hunter was wavering on his commitment to the Irish and had begun talking to the anti-Weis in recruiting integrity: Urban Meyer. Rather than bending over to pressure to maintain the highest profile recruit in decades at the position of highest need for the Irish, Weis kept his word.

Multiple sources have confirmed that earlier this week, Weis told Omar that if he chose to talk to or take a visit from Urban Meyer, that he would rescind his offer. And when Omar called his bluff, he did just that.

After a 3-9 season when it became painfully obvious that we need a lot more talent to finish rebuildng the Notre Dame mystique, Weis just dumped the player most likely to have the greatest impact on the Irish next year.

And I applaud him for it.

I defy you to point to a coach from another BCS bowl team from the past decade that would have the balls to withdraw an offer from a #1 recruit. They just don't exist.

Except at Notre Dame.

Good luck to Omar Hunter - I hope he finds a better place for himself. I have no hard feelings towards him, it's just that if you aren't 100% sure that Notre Dame is the place for you after visiting, we don't need you. Not that we didn't (or still don't) want him here - we do. We just don't want to trick kids into committing here unless they are ready to bleed blue and gold.

To get a sense of what I mean, read this quote:

"Sitting there and looking at stuff, I just got the feeling that this is the place for me. I didn't get a feeling like that from anywhere else as much as Notre Dame. 'This is the spot for me. This is a place I can have a career and keep going.' It was just a good school for me to go to."

That's the nation's top wide receiver prospect Michael Floyd, who was joined this week by another top receiver in Deion Walker of Christchurch, VA. Add in Goodman (who caught the winning TD in the Army All-American Bowl Saturday), and you've got the best receiving class in the country by a wide margin headed to Notre Dame.

Does losing Hunter hurt? Sure. Are we a better football program today because of his decommitment? Absolutely.

New Blog

With the basketball season now in full swing, I thought I would diversify my blog experience and start writing about my Indiana Hoosiers (currently ranked 13th in the country) in addition to my Notre Dame football blog.

I'll still post here as often as I can, and my hope is that by adding another topic to my blogging, I won't get burned out as quickly, and can post more often.

Maybe I'll even start a Redskins blog someday, who knows?

If you like college basketball, check out my basketball blog here: Hoosier Heaven

Thanks for reading, and I promise (again) that my season recap will be coming soon. I just need a little more time to lick my wounds.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

I'm working on the season breakdown for the Fightin' Irish, but I wanted some distance from the disappointing season before I finish it, to try to make sure my analysis is not tainted by my personal disappointment in our final record.

Lucky for me, it's bowl season, which means the same thing it means every year: BCS controversy. So, I'm setting up my annual playoff bracket which I do every year. It's all broken down below, but the most important aspects are the inclusion of at least 2 non-BCS teams, so that the Hawaiis of the world get their shot at the MNC.

Here is how my system would play out for this season, with my picks (or actual winners) in bold:

Week 1: Championship Week
- require all major BCS conferences to have a championship game
- this is the first round of the playoffs

ACC Championship game: Virginia Tech vs. Boston College

Big East Championship game: West Virginia vs. Connecticut

Big Ten Championship game: Ohio State vs. Illinois

Big 12 Championship game: Oklahoma vs. Missouri

Pac-10 Championship game: Southern Cal vs. Arizona State

SEC Championship Game: LSU vs. Tennessee

Independence Bowl: Independent/BCS at-large Hawaii vs. Non-BCS Boise State

Capital One Bowl: BCS at-large Kansas vs. Non-BCS Brigham Young

Second Round
- played over Christmas

Cotton Bowl: SEC Champion vs. Big 12 Champion
LSU vs. Oklahoma

Gator Bowl: Independence Bowl Champion vs. Big Ten Champion
Hawaii vs. Ohio State

Fiesta Bowl: ACC Champion vs. Capital One Bowl Champion
Virginia Tech vs. Kansas

Orange Bowl: Big East Champion vs. Pac-10 Champion
West Virginia vs. Southern Cal

Third Round
- played over New Year's

Rose Bowl: Gator Bowl Champion vs. Orange Bowl Champion
Hawaii vs. Southern Cal

Sugar Bowl: Cotton Bowl Champion vs. Fiesta Bowl Champion
LSU vs. Kansas

Championship game (played the week after New Year's):

Rose Bowl Champion vs. Sugar Bowl Champion
LSU vs. Hawaii

This system allows the remaining bowl games to remain in place, comprising the teams that are bowl eligible that did not get into the playoffs. Under this system, the only people who currently play in bowls but will not are the losers of the Conference championship games, and a couple of the fringe teams that don't really deserve bowls for a .500 season.

The games are all played during traditional bowl times, except some New Year's bowls are being moved to Christmas. The other bowls could be used to fill up the season between Championship week and the second round.

There are no complaints from non-BCS schools, as they get two slots (from five conferences). There may be some complaints about who gets the at-large BCS slots, but they can't complain too much, because they didn't win their conference.

It maintains traditional bowl matchups in most seasons (SEC-Big 12 Cotton; Big 10-Pac-10 Rose, etc.).

And, most importantly, it gets decided on the field.

Now we just need to make it happen.

ND Heisman Candidate?

I've heard some rumblings on the sports networks lately about the possibility of a defensive lineman ala LSU's Glenn Dorsey or Virginia's Chris Long being considered for a Heisman invitation. A pair of defensive linemen in a year where no offensive player has stepped up to the plate to claim their stake to the Heisman. Intrigued by this possibility, I thought I'd compare some statistics.

Which of these three players would you invite to the Heisman ceremony?

#1:
35 solo tackles, 26 assists, 61 total tackles
11.5 tackles for loss for 48 yards
6 sacks for 40 yards
3 pass breakups, 4 QB hurries

#2:
30 solo tackles, 39 assists, 69 total tackles
17 tackles for loss for 104 yards
12 sacks for 104 yards
1 interception, 7 pass breakups
21 QB hurries
1 forced fumble, 1 blocked kick

#3:
47 solo tackles, 57 assists, 104 total tackles
7 tackles for loss for 36 yards
3 sacks for 23 yards
5 pass breakups, 6 QB hurries
2 fumble recoveries, 2 blocked kicks

Looking at the numbers, it's clear that the second two lineman stand head and shoulders above the first, and the numer of tackles and turnovers by the third candidate are truly impressive for a defensive lineman.

So who would you invite?

The #1 candidate is the highly touted LSU lineman Glenn Dorsey, the leader in support for Heisman votes for s D-lineman.

The #2 candidate is Chris Long out of Virginia, who is clearly diruptive in the passing game, but not exactly dominant against the run.

The #3 candidate is our very own Trevor Laws, who has been shut out of this discussion due to his team's dismal record.

I submit that Trevor Laws is quite simply the most dominant defensive lineman in the country, and that if anyone should be invited to New York off the defensive line, it should be him.

Just a little more support for my contention that the Heisman goes to the best player on the #1 team at the end of November, not the truly best player in college football.

I'm done for the year.

Oh, I'll post evey now and then, and I'll take my lumps from the schadenfreude obsessed ND haters, but as far as this season goes, I'm checking out.

This display of football on the field has been quite simply pathetic, and despite there being some talent on its way up the ranks in the underclassmen and incoming recruits, there is little from this season that shows that the Weis regime is more than a 1-trick pony, great recruiters who can't develop talent.

I hope the offseason shows that that isn't the case, and that Weis and Co. are able to develop this young talent into something that resembles a competitive football team.

However, I hope that the powers that be at this University start examining that short list of potential coaching replacements, because as much as I like Coach Weis as a person and as a representative of Notre Dame, next year is quite simply make-or-break for him. And I have no idea whether he can turn this team around over such a short span.

The delusional Notre Dame fan in myself believes he can, but that nagging realist has some real concerns over being able to compete against the USCs and Michigans of the world anytime in the near future.

Let's review the damage so far:

9 losses for the first time in history

Started 0-5 for the first time in history, having never started worse than 0-3 before.

Lost 6th straight home game to an opponent (MSU) for first time in history.

Worst home opening loss in history (33-3 to Georgia Tech)

Worst home loss in history (38-0 to USC)

I could go on and on, but this list of historical lows is positively Willingham-esque. The only positive I can take from this season is that we have talent coming in. It could be worse - if Willingham were still coaching, this season would probably have gone completely winless, with no positives in recruiting in sight. But I digress.

Now, keep in mind, I'm not calling for Weis' head. And I love the Weis family, and hope it never comes to that. I'm just saying that at 1-9, with what is undisputedly the worst season in Notre Dame history starting to wrap up, maybe we should start thinking about that conversation.

As for this week, I'm going to limit my posting, but I think we squeak out a win against 1-9 Duke. And, yes, I sad squeak out. This Duke team is a team that based on talent alone we should be able to beat by 30 with our second string.

But this year's team is like Humpty Dumpty.

All the king's horses and all the kings men...

Perspective

I needed a bit of perspective to get myself moving this morning, and an e-mail from an old friend provided that this morning. I thought I'd share the bit that cheered me up:

"It took the catastrophic, systemic, once in a generation (and possibly, and God willing, once in a lifetime) IMPLOSION of Notre Dame for Navy to manage to snap that 43 game losing streak--in 3 overtimes."

The world still feels... wrong... but at least the room has stopped spinning.

History Lesson

I just posted this over on NDNation (my first post there in months - I hate their new elitist board system, where you have to become one of the "cool" kids to post on Rock's House). It was in response to someone's question about how past ND coaches who won champonships had fared in their worst seasons. I didn't do an exhaustive research job, but I think I pretty much covered all the bases:

*****

These are the worst records that National Championship coaches have posted at Notre Dame during their tenures, as well as the worst records they posted in their careers:

Rockne: 5-4 (.556)
Leahy: 4-4-1 (.500)
Parseghian: 8-3 (.727) at Notre Dame, 0-9 at Northwestern (1957)
Devine: 7-4 (.636) at Notre Dame, 5-6 at Missouri
Holtz: 5-6 (.454) at Notre Dame, 4-7 at Minnesota (before ND), 0-11 at South Carolina (post-ND)

With Weis staring down the barrel of (at best) a 4-8 (.333) season, there is no historical precedence at Notre Dame of this level of failure prior to winning a National Championship. Only Parseghian has a worse record in his coaching career before ND, during his time at Northwestern.

It took Parseghian almost a decade to go from 0-9 at Northwestern to a NC at Notre Dame.

However, I still hear a lot of folks whispering about 2008 and 2009 like they are some sort of magical talismam that will "return us to glory."

I like Coach Weis, and am willing to give him more time, but I'm not sure if this ship can be turned around that quickly.

For perspective, other turnarounds (by the same coach) from loser to champion include:
Bobby Ross: First year 2-8, then 3-9, then two years later 11-0-1 (1990 Georgia Tech)
Paul Dietzel: 3-7 to 11-0 in two years (1957 LSU)
John McKay: 4-6 to 11-0 in first three years (USC)
Howard Schnellenberger: 5-6 to 11-1 in 4 years (Miami)
Woody Hayes: 4-5 to 10-0 in 2 years, 4-3-2 to 10-0 in 3 years (Ohio State)
Don James: 5-6 to 12-0 in 15 years (Washington)
Bobby Bowden: 4-7 to 12-1 in 19 years (Florida State)

Only Bobby Ross seems to have pulled off a turnaround of this magnitude, and he had his losing seasons in his first two years at the school. Going from winner, to loser, and back to winner has only been done by Woody Hayes.

Sure, there's a first time for everything, but if history teaches us anything, the type of turnaround we are hoping for would be unprecedented in college football (modern era - I was too lazy to go through every single championship...)

*****

So, with that information in hand, do you all think, as I still do (although my confidence is fading fast), that Coach Weis is the right coach for the Notre Dame football program?