Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) — Charlie Weis was fired as football coach at the University of Notre Dame, ending a five-year tenure in which he won one bowl game and had a lower winning percentage than predecessors Tyrone Willingham and Bob Davie. Weis’s dismissal comes two days after Notre Dame’s 45-38 season-ending loss at Stanford. The Irish fell to 6-6, the third straight year they’ve ended the regular season without a winning record. Weis finished with a 35-27 record at his alma mater, and was unable to restore the luster to a program that ranks third in college football history with 837 wins and won national championships under coaches such as Knute Rockne, Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian and Lou Holtz. “We have great expectations for our football program, and we have not been able to meet those expectations,” Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick said in a statement on the school’s Web site. “As an alumnus, Charlie understands those goals and expectations better than most, and he’s as disappointed as anyone that we have not achieved the desired results.”

While this was news earlier in the week only in the sense that “December Follows November” or “Jets Player Says Something Idiotic” are news, I couldn’t let this moment pass without chiming in.  I have to confess I was one of the people who bought into the Notre Dame hiring Weis.  And I mean completely in.  I slid my chips into the middle of the table like Matt Damon against Teddy KGB, 100% confident that the 9s full of aces Weis gave the Irish couldn’t lose.  I saw the job he did in Foxboro, knew how much everything about Notre Dame meant to him, listened to his arrogant, Jersey swagger and thought for sure that once he got his recruits in place, it would be the Lou Holtz days all over again.  And while I may be stupid, I’m not stupid enough to pretend I wasn’t 100% wrong.  Even Weis himself isn’t pretending he wasn’t an epic failure.  He was given every chance, extra chances, way more chances than his predecessors, and if he had 20 more years of chances, we’d all still be sitting here in 2029 at 6-6 waiting for the Emerald Nut Bowl to call.  For all his supposed ability to attract recruits by waving his Super Bowl rings, in 5 years he couldn’t build a defense that could compete in the Missouri Valley Conference, much less for a championship.  For all his braggadoccio, his coaching legacy will pretty much amount to this in about two weeks:

Skinny kid: “Say coach, what kind of advantage would you say you get from drinking a cold Coors Light?”

Weis: “A decided, schematic advantage…”

So the window continues to close on any chance the Irish have of returning to power and it’s going to take a dramatic, USC-hiring-Pete-Carroll type miracle for it to happen any time soon.  And it will in all likelihood require them to loosen up their admissions and bring in, if not actual bad people, some true badasses.  Actual tough guys, which they’ve been lacking.  There are only so many Chemical Engineering majors carrying 3.8s who are big enough and tough enough to play championship caliber football.  If that means giving the new coach a longer leash and the chance to bring in some jucos, you do it.  Or you risk becoming Stanford or BC (whom right now they’re looking up at).

Anyway, the much more relevant point I actually intended to make here this: Should the Pats rehire Charlie Weis?  Bear in mind that for all their offensive records they’ve set, they haven’t won a Super Bowl since he left.  And Weis left under the best possible circumstances.  He took the Irish job only with the proviso that they allow him to dedicate himself full time toward the Pats Super Bowl XXXIX run.  Also, the Pats don’t have an Offensive Coordinator right now.   Furthermore, they’re still running the exact same offense Weis developed here; same schemes, same nomenclature, same everything.  And I tend to agree with my brother Jack’s theory that Brady is not a fan of Bill O’Brien’s playcalling, witness the odd time out during the infamous last set of downs in the Colts game.  A timeout Brady explained by saying they had a problem with “personnel groupings” in spite of the fact that the same 11 guys took the field.  Lord knows Belichick has done more unorthodox things in his time, but I for one would love to see Charlie Weis back on the Patriots sidelines with a laminated, color coded play sheet in his hands.

What do the rest of you think?  Rate the hare-brained scheme to bring Charlie Weis back to Foxboro:

 

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Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) — Charlie Weis was fired as football coach at the University of Notre Dame, ending a five-year tenure in which he won one bowl game and had a lower winning percentage than predecessors Tyrone Willingham and Bob Davie.

Weis’s dismissal comes two days after Notre Dame’s 45-38 season-ending loss at Stanford. The Irish fell to 6-6, the third straight year they’ve ended the regular season without a winning record.

Weis finished with a 35-27 record at his alma mater, and was unable to restore the luster to a program that ranks third in college football history with 837 wins and won national championships under coaches such as Knute Rockne, Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian and Lou Holtz.

“We have great expectations for our football program, and we have not been able to meet those expectations,” Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick said in a statement on the school’s Web site. “As an alumnus, Charlie understands those goals and expectations better than most, and he’s as disappointed as anyone that we have not achieved the desired results.”