Charlie Weis: A Reflection

Weis' tenure at Notre Dame is about to come to an end, and there's no arguing otherwise. 6-5 (6-6 with a loss at Stanford this week) is a disappointing season for a team with a favorable schedule, a great QB and playmakers on offense. I thought I'd do a reflection his 5 years at Notre Dame before it comes to an end.

The High Point

You could argue the high point of the Weis era was his first game, a blowout victory at Pittsburgh. The following week was a good win at Michigan as well. However, I think the high point was the final game of that season, a 7 point victory at Stanford that clinched a berth in a BCS bowl. Notre Dame went 9-2 that season and played a great USC team down to the wire. I never would have believed at that time that 4 years later we'd be looking at a 6 win season and Weis' removal. I really thought he'd be here a long time.

The Low Point

Again, you could argue for a couple different games here. Certainly losing to Navy for the first time in over 40 years sucked, but in all honesty that was a better Navy team that year. Losses to Navy and Connecticut this year were bad, but I'm going to go with the loss to Syracuse last season. Syracuse was an awful 8 loss team that had fired their coach (Greg Robinson) that week. The fact that they came into Notre Dame Stadium and won is the most embarrassing defeat I've ever been a part of.

Best Positions of Development

There's no question that this all resides on offense. Weis has coached one first round QB (Quinn), and perhaps a second (Clausen). Samardzija, Stovall and McKnight all became much better receivers under Weis than they were under Willingham, and Tate and Floyd have followed in their footsteps. Notre Dame also has a good run of TEs going, from Fasano to Carlson to Rudolph.

Worst Positions of Development

Notre Dame has never had a good group of linebackers as long as Weis has been here. The defensive line and secondary have been a mixed bag. Abiamiri, Laws, Landri, Zbikowski and Ndukwe all play in the NFL, but there have been quite a few players who haven't developed defensively. And much to Weis' chagrin as an offensive coach, the offensive line has ranged from pretty good his first two years, to dreadful the next two seasons, to maybe above-average now.

Biggest Surprise

When Weis was hired, there was a belief that Notre Dame couldn't recruit top-notch athletes. I would say the recruitment of Clausen, Tate and Floyd have proven that wrong. It was also hard to believe that the 2005 offense could be good, after seeing those very same players play so inconsistently for Willingham. I can remember Notre Dame beating Purdue badly in Weis' first year with a near-flawless offensive performance, and most of these players had played the year before and lost badly to Purdue.

Biggest Disappointment

When Weis was hired, there wasn't a lot of speed on defense, and he knew that to compete with the USC's of the world that had to change. I don't know that it has, although sometimes it's tough to tell if these defensive players have the talent but just don't show it, or if they really are as bad as they sometimes look. The close losses have also become a huge thorn in the side for this team. Last season Notre Dame lost a bunch of close games, and this game they haven't lost a game by more than 7 points. It's easy to say "if only this had changed, we'd be 9-2" but of course after awhile something stops being fluky and starts becoming a personality trait. This team can't close games, plain and simple.

Final Analysis

There's no question that the program is in better shape now than when Weis was hired. Willingham had two consecutive subpar recruiting seasons that set up the 3-9 2007 season. Weis has recruited much better, and whoever takes over is not taking over an empty cupboard. Even if Clausen and Tate leave for the NFL, former 5-star recruit Dayne Crist will take over at QB, Michael Floyd will become the top receiver and the talent is still there to score points. What this team really needs is a strong defensive coach to develop the players that are here (they may not be great, but it shouldn't be as bad as it is), and a coach that will instill a killer instinct. Blowing a bunch of late leads is the only thing holding this team back from 9 and 10 wins the past two seasons.

So while Weis has done some good things in improving the overall talent base on the roster, ultimately you're judged by wins and losses and that has been subpar. I'm willing to forgive the 3-9 2007 seasons, which was a perfect storm of a bad season, but the past two seasons should have been better. Willingham's tenure is long gone, and you can no longer kick that dog around. This team is all on Weis, and ultimately he's failed. There's no doubt the man is a strong offensive coach, and some NFL team will be getting a good offensive coordinator. But Notre Dame stretched to hire Weis in the first place after all of their top choices (Urban Meyer, specifically), and at the end of the day, it showed.

Weis got off 19-6 start, and it's hard to believe this is where we're at.