2. If Notre Dame loses tomorrow against UConn, Weis's departure will be announced by Sunday. This is a little more controversial, and it contradicts Jack Swarbrick's earlier insistence on waiting until the close of the season to evaluate Weis's future, but I think it's true. Swarbrick recently admitted that the "evaluation process" (read: coaching search) began weeks ago, and he has hedged on when exactly the final decision on Weis will be made. Since at least the Pitt loss, that search has to have been moving moving in full gear. An announcement Sunday after a loss on Saturday just confirms the inevitable and allows the program to move on as quickly as possible. Notre Dame has never fired a coach midseason before, but Ty Willingham's midcontract firing was also a first.
3. Bob Stoops will be Weis's replacement. I confess this one is 85% wishful thinking and 15% honest belief, but as long as there's nothing definite to go on, I'm clinging to it. First, the reasonable field of candidates has to be roughly: Stoops, Brian Kelly, Jon Gruden, Urban Meyer, Kirk Ferentz, and maybe Chip Kelly. There's no real reason to doubt ESPN's and Peter King's insistence that Gruden won't be coaching next year, so he's out. I think pure rationality has to count out Urban Meyer, too (despite whatever love he has previously professed for Notre Dame or what Bodog thinks about the subject). I'd want nothing more than Meyer to replace Weis, but I just can't believe he'd leave what he's got working for him in Florida. So that leaves Brian Kelly and Bob Stoops as the next most likely targets. I think Notre Dame can get Brian Kelly if they want him -- no matter what facilities Cincinnati recently built him, he simply can't turn down the prestige of a job like Notre Dame. So I think the search ends there and there's no need to even talk about Ferentz, Chip Kelly, or anyone else really (assuming Notre Dame is interested in hiring Brian Kelly, which without concrete information otherwise, I see no reason to doubt).
That still leaves Stoops, who you have to assume Notre Dame prefers over Kelly. (Hell, they might prefer him over even Meyer.) But can Notre Dame lure him away? By all accounts Stoops has leveraged a massive contract out of OU, so unlike for someone like Kelly, I doubt that Notre Dame can do it on money alone. And the prestige is less potent here, too -- while becoming the next head coach of the Fighting Irish is no small gig, in college football today, it's really just a lateral move from Oklahoma. As long as Texas Tech or Oklahoma State don't start to disrupt the annual divide of Texas's best high school football players between OU and UT, recruiting is probably easier in Oklahoma, too (and you at least don't have to travel as widely).
But why then?
In short, no particular reason, but maybe just because it's time and that's what coaches do. Despite a national championship appearance less than a year ago, the Oklahoma job has probably become a bit stale for Stoops. Since their title in 2000, the Sooners have continued as as a dominant presence in college football, but it's no secret that they've developed a penchant for falling flat in their most important games. So there's that "Chokelahoma" barb to deal with now, and the whole situation reminds me of Lloyd Carr's last years at Michigan or even Mack Brown's early years at Texas. Carr was out at Michigan a decade after winning a national title, and Brown's job was seemingly never secure before Texas's 2005 title. None of this is to say that Stoops will be fired (of course he won't), but maybe it doesn't seem like such a bad time to leave. Losses against Texas Tech or Oklahoma State would make this all quite a bit more interesting as the pressure on Stoops builds in easily his most trying season since his first at OU.
Maybe then it's not so inconceivable that Stoops would welcome a new start, and his recent comments seem to support that. First was his awkward, confused denial of supposedly leaked reports of his interest in the Notre Dame job. Stoops effectively rebuked the notion of discussing his future with any "confidant," but along the way he forgot to deny any interest in leaving Oklahoma. And then just days later, he was quoted in an interview as saying that he's still open to the idea of finishing his career elsewhere than OU. Neither episode is conclusive, and maybe they both mean nothing, but they at least leave Stoops on the table for the time being.
And so yes it's wishful thinking, but for now I'll say the prospect of a Stoops hire is set up nicely, and I'll take a gamble on it. People like to point out that Stoops is Catholic, so maybe that matters (I'm not convinced it does) and helps push things along. But in all events, Stoops is a college football coach, and as nice as it might be to sit on his laurels at Oklahoma, frankly he's done it there, and he may well want to try his hand at was once the proudest program in the country. If he pulls it off, his legend is solidified. And if not, well at least he doesn't live in Oklahoma anymore. Brian Kelly may be the most reasonably likely candidate, but I'm reaching here and calling it for Stoops.
4. No matter who replaces Weis, Notre Dame will return to a BCS bowl (in whatever form they exist) within two years. Honestly, I think it will be in the first year. The Irish are stocked with high school stars thanks to Weis's tireless recruiting, and the upcoming schedules are among the softest Notre Dame has ever put together. Unlike when Weis took over in 2005, the program is set up for immediate success. And if, whether upon the momentum of change or dumb luck, Weis can take those Willingham squads to back-to-back BCS appearances, I have no doubt that an accomplished college coach can work a similarly quick turnaround inheriting Notre Dame's current roster.
5. I'll never understand what happened to the Weis teams. Weis's tenure was such a mystery. He came in like a storybook hero and transformed one of the most putrid offenses into a calculated machine, and took a team that couldn't beat BYU and Syracuse to consecutive BCS bowls. Brady Quinn transformed from an overrated dud into arguably the best quarterback in college, and previously no-name players like Jeff Samardzija became national stars. To be certain those teams had their flaws: an abysmal pass defense, an inconsistent running game, a penchant for scraping out wins that should never have been in doubt, and an occasional tendency to wilt against the Irish's tougher opponents. But they were essentially what you'd expect out of a typical top-15ish team, and in any event they were a marked improvement over what preceded them.
Then the Willingham recruiting glut hit in 2007 (most notably a complete void at offensive line) and the Irish went 3-9. The roster was bad that year, but probably not 3-9 bad, and certainly not as inept as the Irish looked for the first half of the season. The 2007 opener against Georgia Tech, replete with a three-way quarterback controversy, was an embarrassment topped only by a home loss to Navy, and by the end of the season doubt over his and the program's future surrounded Weis. Everything only got worse in 2008: A pedestrian 6-6 regular season record, a complete meltdown at season's end that was capped by a home loss to Syracuse, and wildly inconsistent play all but confirmed the fears about Weis. And at that point, I was convinced that Weis should be fired. By then it was clear that no matter how good of a recruiter (he is a great one), or how effective of a quarterbacks coach (he is arguably even better at that) that Weis is, he was never going to restore Notre Dame to consistent prominence. Maybe with the right mix of talent he would put together some top-10 seasons, and maybe the Irish would hover around the mid-20s every year, but he wasn't going to be the annual 9- or 10-win guy that Notre Dame is looking for. The current season has simply reinforced that reality, exacerbating all the frustrations about inconsistency, poor defensive fundamentals, and lack of direction that the 2008 season raised. By now, it's undeniable: Charlie Weis is not a good college football head coach. But I will never fully understand how it got here so quickly after what happened in 2005 and 2006.
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