Charlie Weis's signing day press conference

[Vince Young]

Utterly amazed this hasn't been linked yet, so here ya go:

Transcript: http://und.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/020707aac.html
Video stream: http://und.cstv.com/genrel/020607aab.html

Some highlights from the press conference, with responses and emphasis from me...

CW: As we went through this class, we brought in 18 players that are from 12 different states. We have a quarterback, a couple runningbacks, a couple wide servers, a tight end. Then we have five linemen. One is just a defensive lineman. Two are just offensive linemen. Two are either going to be defensive linemen or offensive linemen, as deemed needed. We have four linebackers. Two are more of the inside type, two more of the outside type. We have two defensive backs. One is a corner, one is a safety. We also have a kicker.

8 certain offensive players, 7 certain defensive players, and 2 linemen who could go either way. Oh, and 1 guy at Jigga's favorite position: kicker.

Interesting to note... with all the recent wailing, weeping and gnashing of teeth about Charlie's recruiting on defense, it's entirely possible that, if the 2 swingmen go to defense, Charlie will have recruited more players on defense than on offense. Yeah, the decommits hurt, but this should give some of y'all a reason to take a few steps back from the ledge. Just one or two steps back if that's all your comfortable with, that's fine. But back nonetheless.

---

Loved this quote from Charlie about RB recruit Golden Tate...

CW: By the way, he did have a long as their team punter this year of 62 yards as well. I might have slid into a backup punter without realizing it when we were doing our research. I cannot tell a lie. I just found that out in my research this morning as we were going over that one. (laughter) He's also lined up at quarterback in the past.

Hmm... a RB who can also play QB and kick punts... wonder if Charlie might steal a few pages from the playbooks of Urban Meyer and Houston Nutt.

---

This next quote pretty much confirms that a 3-4 will be a major part of our defense this year, but it'll be different that what you might have been expecting...

CW: ...I'm going to use this opportunity to talk a little football. You okay with that? Can I bore you a little bit?

3-4 defense. This is the big. 4-3, 3-4, what is Notre Dame going to do? Let me explain to you what a 3-4 defense is. There's two different concepts. One is a 3-4 defense, the other is 3-4 personnel. 3-4 personnel means you're playing with three defensive linemen and you're playing with four linebackers. That's what 3-4 personnel means.

A 3-4 defense means you're playing with a nose tackle on the center, you're playing with two defensive ends on the tackles, you're playing with two inside linebackers on the guards, and you're playing with two outside linebackers either on tight end or in space. That's what a 3-4 defense is.

You can count on one hand the number of teams that play that (3-4 defense) as the main part of their defense. What they do is they play 3-4 personnel. Why do you do that? To get more athleticism on the field. That's why they do that. Because as soon as you reduce either one of those defensive ends, which means you take either guy that's lined up on either tackle and put him on a shade on the guard, that has now transferred into an under or over defense. That's all they have to do. All they have to do is move half a yard, that defense has become a 4-3 defense with 3-4 personnel, which is exactly what we're going to do.

Sounds to me like it'll be kind of a hybrid between 3-4 and 4-3, and we'll see situations where Corwin Brown will send out a 3-4 crew, but then bump one of those linebackers up to the line on an audible to turn it into a 4-3. Just one more way in which a 3-4 can f#$@ with the opposing QB's head. I like.

And it doesn't even have to be that obvious. Nudge a linebacker over slightly but hold him back away from the line, and give him the same assignment that a defensive end would normally have in a 4-3.

The more I read about a 3-4 scheme, the more I like it.

---

As the questioning turned to the overall recruiting process, Charlie's mood clearly turned sour. Great stuff coming up here... on a question on whether Charlie was going to make any changes to his recruiting practices, he said...

CW: I think what we're going to do is we're going to spend a lot more time making sure that if a guy wants to commit to us, verbally commit to us, everyone is under a clear understanding of what that means. No soft verbals, no silent verbals, no quiet verbals, okay? Either you're committed or you're not committed.

I'll use an a analogy. It's like you're married to somebody but then you're looking at other women. I mean, either you are or you're not. I don't think there's any in between there. I think one of the things we're going to make sure this year differently than we've done in the past is make sure when a guy wants to say yes to us that there's a clear understanding from everyone they're not going to visit anywhere else, they're not going to talk to anyone else. It's either they're committed to us or they're not committed to us.

When pressed for more detail later on, he added...

CW: The stand has to be, you know, like a couple coaches I know actually have, if they want to go visit somewhere, you got if you're looking, we're looking. That's the way it's got to be.

So, it's basically binary recruiting from here on out. 1 or 0. On or off. In or out. And if you give us a committment but keep talking to other coaches, then we flip your switch from 1 to 0 and we keep looking at other kids who might end up stealing your scholarship spot while you're flirtin' with Urbie.

You may recall Charlie kinda did the same thing last year with one player in particular: Mitch Mustain. Charlie kept pressing Mustain to commit, and Mustain kept playing coy. So Charlie finally said, "Okay, that's fine," and went out and nabbed Demetrius Jones and Zach Fraser instead. By many accounts Notre Dame was at the top of Mustain's list, but because he refused to commit, he may have cost himself his dream school. And instead, he got pulled into the Drama Pit that is Houston Nutt's University of Arkansas. How's that workin' out for ya, Mitchie?

Then there's this little gem:

CW: The other thing is, for all those other people who are silent verbals, silent commits, to me they're fair game, just the way my guys are fair game, because that's the way the game is obviously played.

Translation: want to poach my verbals? Fine. Poach my verbals. Go crazy with it, and enjoy it now... because you won't be enjoying it once I start poaching your verbals.

That's about as close to an open declaration of war as he can get. And I love it.

But lest you think Charlie's aiming all his fire at other coaches... oh no sir, he's not done yet:

Q: You mentioned the game. Following it, it seems like there's a set of rules, then there's a gentlemen's type of rule that coaches have. Seems that is becoming skewed more and more.

CW: We've had a couple incidents, as you know, that happened this year. At first I get mad at the coaches for the other school. Then you sit back and really reflect about it. Rather than saying, "That no good this or that." I mean, they weren't the ones answering the phone. They weren't the ones saying, "Yes, I'll visit." I mean, I'm mad at the coaches because the coaches are going off after other guys' kids, sit there and point fingers. In reality, all the kid had to do was say no, right? All they had to do was say no.

Charlie then gave a couple of examples, but he wasn't very clear, so I'll paraphrase:

The tight end we brought, in Mike Ragone, he got called and visited right till the last moment. He'd tell them, "Why are you even here? I'm going to Notre Dame." That's what a commitment is. Kerry Neal, I mean, you know how many people tried to get him after they realized how good he was? He said, "I'm going to Notre Dame." They're two that are recruited. They would not visit or talk to anyone else.

---

Ah, but Charlie, how will you know if a kid with a verbal commitment to you is talking to someone else? Another good answer.

Q: With the indecision, you mentioned kids talking to other schools, how would you able to monitor whether he was talking?

CW: I just listen to you guys. (Laughter) You say you know where all these kids are going. With the Internet, I mean, you know where everyone is. Sometimes unfortunately that's how you find it out. The Internet is just like everyone else. If some kid is going to go visit to a school that's committed to us, that school wants, for some reason, to get that out, okay? Regardless of how that ends up getting on the street, whether it's the kid saying it, however it ends up happening, once it's out there, then it's an issue. There's nothing to hide in this thing. There's too many people in today's age with the Internet, too many people involved in this where they know things that are going on.

Hey, it isn't like we don't know about them. A lot of times people think we're stupid, we don't know about them. It's just how you're going to deal with them.

---

This one's delicious too. Arrelious Benn, who famously committed to ND then switched to Illinois, recently made public some e-mails and text messages from Coach Vaas, and they ended up in a Washington Post article. Charlie's response?

CW: I think he put Coach Vaas out to dry on that one. I want to side with Coach Vaas on that one. You ask me if Coach Vaas sent him texts. Sure, he sent him texts. You probably could go ask the kid if he committed to us beforehand, too, see what he says to that one.

ZING!!!

---

So, he's taken shots at coaches, and he's taken shots at players. But he still has one target left: himself.

Q: Do you think there needs to be maybe at next year's coaches convention, you said it's on the kid to not answer the phone, but do you think there needs to be some kind of ethics with regards to coaches?

CW: Do I think so? Yeah, I think so. But I don't want to be blaming the other coaches for going after a top line player. I know the breach of ethics we're talking about. What I'm doing then is I'm making excuses. I'm saying, I lost a kid because that coach is sleazy. The bottom line is, today is signing day, you sign your letter, you fax it in. Today is the day when the commitment becomes a commitment. Today they got married, okay? Obviously some people get cold feet.

I'm not one to point at other people. I just think that we just have to define what exactly the rules are. I think that maybe in my case, you know, I have to reevaluate in the big picture, because I'm proud of the way we do it, but in the big picture you might have to evaluate those soft commitments or silent verbals, those guys that are wavering. Maybe I should be doing the same thing. I just have a tough time with that, but maybe I should be doing the same thing.

But right now I'm not downplaying what we have. These kids we have coming right here, we are very happy with them. I'm not saying it just to make it sound good. I love the guys we're bringing in here. They're going to complement who we are.

---

On Minter and Vaas...

Q: You haven't really explained in depth why you let Coach Minter and Coach Vaas go.

CW: Nor will I. I just said we went in another direction. That's what we did. We went in another direction.

It doesn't show in the transcript, but on the video, it's clear that Charlie was HIGHLY annoyed with this question. He cut in VERY quickly with that "nor will I," and clearly had no desire to let the reporter finish asking that question. It was the only question that drew such a sharp, angry response from him.

---

A few other points too...

* Charlie has told Jimmy Clausen he doesn't want him throwing a ball until the end of February. Apparently, Jimmy wasn't just his high school's starting QB, he was also their scout team QB! That's a lot of throwing, and Charlie wants Jimmy to rest his arm completely until spring practice to keep from wearing it out. The upshot of this is that Jimmy is fine medically; Charlie's just being careful.

* Charlie was surprised by Darius's NFL decision because Darius never even asked his advice beforehand! But Charlie wishes him well and says he's still welcome to all of Notre Dame's facilities.

* Charlie waffled on the question of whether or not Travis Thomas will move back to offense. A lot of people on here have assumed that's already a done deal, but to me it really sounded like Charlie has not made up his mind on this one yet. And even with Walker gone, we're still a helluva lot deeper at RB than we are at LB. So watch out, guys: Thomas could easily finish his Notre Dame career on the defensive side of the ball.

* Jeff Samardzija actually called Charlie one last time about 30 minutes before signing his contract with the Cubs and asked him, "What do you think?" Charlie responded, "Give me the numbers." The numbers were pretty high, and while Charlie revealed in the presser what his final answer was, it seems clear to me that he told Jeff to go ahead and sign on the dotted line. "I can't root for baseball or football, I got to root for Jeff Samardzija. That's the right thing for me to do."

One last quote. This was Charlie's parting shot, right at the very end, so I'll leave you with this as well.

Q: Going back to your recruiting philosophy going forward, when you say no soft, silent or quiet verbals, does that affect your philosophy with people going to other schools or does it not affect your current philosophy?

CW: If they're looking, we're looking.

(long, pregnant pause)

That's it.

 

[onenybrother]

Unless he recruited smart speedy guy's on defense I could care less what he say's.

 

[BigIrish]

excellent summary and commentary, VY.

for anyone that doesn't have the time or inclination to sit through the entire presser, this is all you need to know.

 

[johnnd05]

This was a great post, VY -- thanks very much.

(Ignores 1NYBro.)

 

[HereComeTheIrish]

Well done VY. Nicely said.

 

[FleaFlicker]

Unless he recruited smart speedy guy's on defense I could care less what he say's.

.... YOU flat-out, absolutely, hands-down, have no frikking idea what you are talking about... I'm sorry, but this is all I see you say anymore.

We do have team speed, we don't have LSU team speed... yet! Rome wasn't built in a day my friend. You think Michigan or OSU's defense last year had that speed? Nope, and they still did pretty darn well.

We have the speed in the secondary, and then some. We have about average to slightly above average speed in our LB corps. And we have average speed on our D-Line. Get some perspective, and here is a bandaid for your bleeding wrist....

 

[Specnatz]

Great post. I think Charlie was in a way living in the past of someone giving there word and living by it. Which is unfortunate. I also do not see him doing the things that some coaches do, (i.e. cockwad).

 

[Jason Pham]

Excellent read, VY.

 

[seniorle]

VY, thanks for the summary

 

[stonebreakerwasgod]

Great summation! A+

 

[Zorro50]

I feel much better. Thanks, VY.

 

[PADOMERNUT]

that was an awesome

 

[PADOMERNUT]

i meant to say an awesome summary

 

[Vince Young]

Thank you guys! I wasn't sure anyone would want to read all of that, but I figured, "Bah, what the hell. I wrote it, might as well just post it."

 

[IRISHDODGER]

Thank you guys! I wasn't sure anyone would want to read all of that, but I figured, "Bah, what the hell. I wrote it, might as well just post it."

Glad you did! That was a great summation & gives us great perspective at what Coach Weis' thought process has been these last few stressful weeks...not to mention his evolution as a college coach & college recruiter. I love his "The buck stops here" attitude. He doesn't cry, doesn't blame, doesn't whine about everyone picking on him. He takes everything in stride...like a man & learns from mistakes (or being burned by a recruit or other coach) as to ensure that they're not repeated. I'm more confident that ND has the right man as their HC. REPS to you, my friend!

 

[johnnd05]

One thought on all this: G. Little and the UNC coaches evidently worked their asses off to keep things on the DL, and they were successful in keeping ND out of the loop (with some cooperation from the NC Scout.com people, apparently). So this seems to be a case where the "you're looking, we're looking" policy wouldn't have worked, even if CW had his staffers do their darndest to grub up all the rumors they could -- GL would have denied them, just as he did on Monday night.

So, question: should there be a code of ethics among coaches that they not be sneaky in recruiting each other's commits? I don't think that being in touch with commits is out of bounds, but it does seem to me that insisting that things be kept quiet is pretty problematic. I get the sense that we weren't like that with Brandon Walker or Greg Smith (or Gilchrist or Gray, for that matter), and it seems to me that this sort of behavior works to nobody's benefit.

Thoughts?

 

[irishranger]

Guys if you haven't sat and watched one of CWs pressers, you are truely missing out! He handles the press magnificiently, and VY has done an excellent summation to show you that. I highly recommend you watch them, you will get great insight into our head football coach. I rarely miss one, I look alomost as forward to his pressers as I do the games. CW has shown time and time again that he is a stand up guy, who learns from his mistakes, and he basically declared war on Urban Myer (aka the cockwad), Ron (4 and 9 in 2 seasons) Zook, and Butch ( I couldnt get it done in the NFL) Davis. I honestly believe we have the best coach and all around mentor for our players i the coutry.

 

[Vince Young]

So, question: should there be a code of ethics among coaches that they not be sneaky in recruiting each other's commits?

There already is such a code of ethics in place; problem is, more and more people are ignoring it, as Charlie pointed out in his presser. And it's not just a problem with the coaches, it's also a problem with the players. Like Charlie said, all Greg Little had to do was say, "Why are you even talking to me? I'm committed to Notre Dame." Instead, he stayed just as quiet as the NC coaches and Scout.com.

Though then again, see Charlie's "We're not stupid" quote again. It's entirely possible that Charlie was fully aware of Greg Little talking to NC, and he just wasn't able to convince Greg that ND was better than NC. It happens. We pursue a lot of guys who choose another school in the end; this one just happened to be named Greg Little.

But back to the ethics code, let's say they do do establish a stronger one and get 90% of the coaches to follow it. There will be a few backstabbers who say, "Oh, good! 90% of the coaches in NCAA football are suckers! Let's go poach their verbals." And as more and more coaches get victimized by them, more and more of them will reach the point that Charlie just reached and stop following that code, because following that code just gets you screwed by the people who don't follow it.

I like Charlie's idea better: if it's gonna be a dog-eat-dog world, we might as well starting biting too.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

One thought on all this: G. Little and the UNC coaches evidently worked their asses off to keep things on the DL, and they were successful in keeping ND out of the loop (with some cooperation from the NC Scout.com people, apparently). So this seems to be a case where the "you're looking, we're looking" policy wouldn't have worked, even if CW had his staffers do their darndest to grub up all the rumors they could -- GL would have denied them, just as he did on Monday night.

So, question: should there be a code of ethics among coaches that they not be sneaky in recruiting each other's commits? I don't think that being in touch with commits is out of bounds, but it does seem to me that insisting that things be kept quiet is pretty problematic. I get the sense that we weren't like that with Brandon Walker or Greg Smith (or Gilchrist or Gray, for that matter), and it seems to me that this sort of behavior works to nobody's benefit.

Thoughts?

Two things: I think Greg Little used ND as his safety net. Bunting was fired at UNC, so the future was unknown b/c a new hire was yet to be confirmed. In the meantime, he grabbed an ND scholarship offer knowing if the right coach came in to Chapel Hill he'd be all ears, if not he's going to a helluva a university where a great education & national exposure on the gridiron are all but guaranteed. Well, Butch Davis was definitely the right coach, give UNC credit for that.

Second, I don't think Weis was naive enough to think that Davis wasn't gonna take a stab at Little. Since Davis was hired after Little had committed to ND, he wouldn't be doing his job if he didn't at least try to sway Little. It goes back to Weis' valid point of the player not having to take the call or visit by saying they are still sticking to their word & firmly committed to ND.

The great thing about ND football, is the program attracts players from all over the country. Unfortunately, that can also be a detriment in cases like the two Littles. When you're trying to convince a kid from the deep south or the atlantic coast to come to you school in the midwest, there's always cause for worry when it comes to kids getting cold feet on signing day. That's why I am strongly encouraged w/ the hire of new DC. Notre Dame MUST re-establish their Chicago pipeline. That is where the Irish's bread & butter are when it comes to recruiting ground. Granted, they must still aggresively recruit the right players in Florida, Louisiana, Calif., Texas, etc., but Chicago, Pennsylvania & Ohio are crucial.