Rivals Roundtable

The slamming of the SEC will take a quick hiatus while I take a shot at my other favorite target, Charlie Weis.

The latest Rivals Roundtable asks, "Which fallen power will be the first to rise?"

The candidates are, Alabama, Florida State, Miami, Notre Dame and UCLA. Not surprisingly, four out of the five panelists selected Notre Dame from that group. The Irish are a consensus pick by the national media to be "Most Improved" this year, including by the venerable Phil Steele. That is strictly a combination of 'they can't be any worse' and what appears to be a much easier schedule.

However, what I found curious were some of the comments regarding Head Coach Charlie Weis (and his impressive gunt). First from David Fox (Rivals.com writer):

Say what you want about Charlie Weis, but he's still a good coach. Weis still has a lot to learn about being a college coach, but his decision to give up play-calling and concentrate on the program as a whole shows he's heading in the right direction.

Still a good coach?

Really?

Also from the round table, Olin Buchanan (senior writer for Rivals):

Like him or not, Charlie Weis is a good coach and the problems that occurred in '07 might even make him a better one.

I am a little surprised that people who spend as much time watching college football as these two would consider Charlie Weis a 'good coach'. I am EXTREMELY biased on this one but I just don't see it.

To his credit, Weis went to a BCS bowl game in his first two seasons. Cancelling out that accomplishment is the fact that Notre Dame was crushed in both of those bowl games.

To his credit, Weis' 2005 team nearly beat #1 USC at home in the 'Bush Push' game. Cancelling out that accomplishment is the fact that close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. The sad footnote to Weis' career at Notre Dame thus far is that his greatest 'win', was in fact, a loss.

Also cancelling out anything Charlie Weis has ever accomplished as head coach of Notre Dame is the 2007 season. Straight from Wikipedia, here's the recap:

The 2007 season (3-9) included various negative milestones: the most losses in a single year (9); two of the ten worst losses ever (38-0 losses to both Michigan and USC); and the first 6-game losing streak for home games. Its losses to Navy and Air Force marked the first time Notre Dame has lost to two military academies in the same season since 1944, and the first time in the BCS era that Notre Dame went winless against mid-majors. The Naval Academy recorded their first win over the Irish since 1963, breaking the NCAA-record 43-game streak.

Now, the Weis apologists will insist that they saw this coming. They'll insist that it was Ty Willingham (who'd alread been at another school for several years) who was somehow responsible for this mess. The more specific explanation is that Ty Willingham's lousy recruiting was to blame for a 3-9 season three years after he'd been fired.

Here's my question to those people. The worst recruiting class that Ty Willingham produced was ranked somewhere in the 40's. If you've got a 49th ranked recruiting class sandwiched in between Top 25 recruiting classes, then where does that put your team exactly in terms of talent?

Here's a better question. Where do you think Air Force and Navy generally finish in terms of recruiting rankings? Do you think they pulled in Top 50 recruiting classes? Somehow, I doubt it.

The Weis apologists can piss and moan all they want to about Ty Willingham. You will never convince me for a nano second that TW's lousy recruiting is an excuse for losing to two service academies in the same season.

Anyway, so as not to completely discredit this panel of experts, I'll also include the comments of veteran Sporting News writer Tom Dienhart. He had this to say about Weis:

Charlie Weis is still a work-in-progress as a college coach.

I would say that is the most accurate assessment you could make of Thick Chuck at this point.