Charlie Overrated?

[SillyIrish]

http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=202898

 

[IrishCalves]

If it were me writing that article, I would have thought that Ralph Friedgen and Charlie Weis were accidentally switched up.

I think Weis may have been over hyped as a coach, but two BCS bowl games in his two seasons at the helm, a little difficult to say "overrated".

 

[portlaNDgal]

It's pretty apparent that ND was over hyped at the beginning of last season, but I don't think that means Weis is overrated. 2 years ago, most analysts went on and on about how ND couldn't possibly be competitive with their current schedule and entry restrictions. Yet, we were invited to 2 BCS games under Weis. He's not the infallible robot genius that he seemed to be as the the New England OC, but he has a clear track record of working hard to learn from his mistakes.

Edited to add: Besides, anyone who lists the Purdue coach in any top 5 isn't that smart IMO.

 

[onenybrother]

With the guy's Charlie ( The Mad Scientist ) had he shown me he's the one to right this ship.

Let's Go Dame !!!

 

[UNTITLEDPROJECT]

Sportingnews.com??? Cant be. Unless this jock sniffer writes for Espen.

 

[notredomer23]

Give me a break Charlie was playing with Tys guys. Wait till his whole team is all his recruits. The dienhart guy is obviously an sc fan

 

[stonebreakerwasgod]

Agreed. Besides..there IS a learning curve. Afterwhich, CW will be throwing his own curves.

 

[portlaNDgal]

Totally agree there's a learning curve. I wouldn't want anyone else at the helm of ND. I agree that the journalist has forgotten how un-special everyone was saying ND was, only 2 years ago. He had a couple of highly talented players and made stars of them. He took a very average team and put them in the top 10/top15. I've said before that one of the things I like about Charlie is his willingness and ability to learn. Previous coaches blamed everyone else for their mistakes, if they acknowledged them at all.

I think the one flaw that I've really observied in him is a difficulty in motivating the players in the big games. Not sure why the team had trouble with this in 06--we were obviously motivated for UM and USC in 05. That said, I'm confident he'll learn improve his motivational skills and learn quickly.

 

[stonebreakerwasgod]

I think our guys played pretty decent against LSU, but their defensive scheme and lack of quickness caught up to them in the second half. Here's to next year.

 

[ColonialHead]

People love to bash Notre Dame.
I'll never forget Mark May talking to Kirk Herbstreit 2 years ago on College GameDay about ND saying "I'm from Missouri, I'm old school.... you gonne have to show me."
ND wasn't supposed to do anything and then they shocked the world and this past season the pendulum did a 180 and they were completely overhyped.

If you really think about what ND has had to work with over the last 2 years, they never should have been as successful as they were. I agree with the above poster who mentioned that Weiss is only now getting "his team". He's an outstanding coach in a great line of them for Notre Dame and a far cry from each of the last two predecessors.

 

[Junkhead]

I think our guys played pretty decent against LSU, but their defensive scheme and lack of quickness caught up to them in the second half. Here's to next year.

Yep. It was a close game in the first half even with our offense having to use max protect. It was painful a few months ago, but its easier to see the positves now, and I honestly think Weis has learned a lot and the results will show starting in 2008. This coming up season, I think there will be moments of greatness mixed in with mistakes. In short, I don't think he is overrated, and we are on the right track. I knew Weis was serious when Minter was let go. Good guy...but changes had to be made......

 

[stonebreakerwasgod]

While on the LSU track..Darius had a strong game. I think that played a part, going out on a good note. (george castanza- quit while your ahead).

 

[ColonialHead]

serenity now!

 

[rontdtarchala]

just another hater pure and simple...screw em

 

[leprechaun4life]

Weis knows how to develop talent, or at least, bring it out and focus it. At the beginning of the season everyone said we had the best WR corps, and backfield etc. Then the draft came and only Quinn was drafted (of course Samardzija left, but I think his stock would have fallen to 2nd round). This shows that our backfield (WRs and RB) weren't overly athletic, and they were not bursting with talent like LSU, USC etc., but Weis knows how to bring the talent that's there out, and highlight all of the attributes. When he gets althletes that have less holes and weaknesses, he will have more to work with, and with be able to be more flexible. Even after FU's NC last year, I mcuh happier with Weis than I would be with Urban.

As far as motivating the players, I think Weis is still learning the ins and outs. Remember, this past year all of teh players were in a position they had never been in, they had expectations. I think Weis purposely had them take a business-like approach to the big games, because he wanted them playing with cool heads and wanted them to play smart. Now, I think he realizes how important the excitement level needs to be for the players to perform.

 

[irish4ever]

Any true ND fan that's dissatisfied with what Charlie has accomplished thus far ... W-L, BCS game appearances, recruiting or whatever, just think back the 8 years pior to him coming on board. Would you ever want to live thru the Davie-Ty days again!?! If the communistic sports columnists want to label him as overated .... then I'll take the overated coach any day of the year!

 

[philipm31]

I agree with most of these points so far, but I was at the LSU game and I just felt that Charlie was going to go for the fake punt. Now, I have not seen ND in person in over a year and I could see it coming. If I could see it coming without having any games on TV or in person, I think that Charlie had become fairly predictable in situations like that. Of course, special teams not be all that special factored into that decision, most likely, but still, he should have punted, bc you already know the crowd is against you and they are just going to use a stop as major momentum...which is what happened.

I hope that Charlie learns that you can't always just take chances like that unless you are absolutely positive it is the right call at the right time in the right situation. None of those were true, and I think that Charlie has bought into his own hype a bit, too.

My biggest example of this is how he was supporting Brady right after the draft by saying that Quinn was ahead of Russell because he had two years with Charlie--as if to say that other OC's and HC could not ever prepare their players for the NFL as well as he could. That sounded pretty arrogant, to me, and I realize that he is a brash, outspoken guy, but everyone is just gloating over the fact that Brady fell so far; and now he says that BQ is a combination of Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, because he had Charlie as his HC for the last two years?

BQ already has enough scrutiny and now Charlie adds to it by making this comparison. Not only that, it puts more pressure on Charlie and the Irish to start churning NFL-ready QBs simply based on the HC. The target on ND players is big enough as it is, and now Charlie has painted even bigger ones on the Irish, BQ, and himself all before end of April.

Let's hope this does not come back to haunt us, though I think it will because Clausen, Jones, Sharpley or whomever wins out is going to instantly be expected to awesome because Charlie is his coach...which is an image that Charlie has cultivated before he has even coached 3 years at ND.

Let me say, I have a lot of confidence in Charlie, but sometimes he needs to bite his tongue a bit. He has the Irish headed back to where I was accustomed to seeing them under Lou, but I'd expect that it'd be better to get a little more of a pedigree as a HC before he starts saying things like this. It takes time and I feel that he can learn from his mistakes, but it takes time and he needs to worry more about that than propping up his own legend, before he has even made one for himself at ND. The days of being a coordinator are done and everything that he does and says is magnified tenfold because he is the ND coach. We need someone that can come in an change the culture of mediocrity that had set in, but we also need to see some better results in the bigger games. Maybe playing possum like Lou was so adept at doing would serve us a little better because no matter how little depth we have "thanks" to Ty's lackluster recruiting, the target on ND is bigger than ever and we need to make it smaller by winning the bigger games and shutting up the talking heads and haters a little more consistently, in my opinion.

 

[irish4life99]

Don't listen to anything Tom writes about ND. He's a well known ND hater. We busted him so bad last year when he quoted a USC coach and it was not true. We caught him dead to rights cooking a story. We (don't want to mention names) sent him an email, and he responded having a total melt down that we forwarded it to his editor. There was no retraction, and Tom still has a job so that alone tells you how ethical Sporting News is. Before that he just hated ND, after we busted him he bleeds to slam ND.

 

[Stalking_Eagle]

Yea Charlie is as overrated as the skid marks in my under-roos.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

I agree with most of these points so far, but I was at the LSU game and I just felt that Charlie was going to go for the fake punt. Now, I have not seen ND in person in over a year and I could see it coming. If I could see it coming without having any games on TV or in person, I think that Charlie had become fairly predictable in situations like that. Of course, special teams not be all that special factored into that decision, most likely, but still, he should have punted, bc you already know the crowd is against you and they are just going to use a stop as major momentum...which is what happened.

I hope that Charlie learns that you can't always just take chances like that unless you are absolutely positive it is the right call at the right time in the right situation. None of those were true, and I think that Charlie has bought into his own hype a bit, too.

My biggest example of this is how he was supporting Brady right after the draft by saying that Quinn was ahead of Russell because he had two years with Charlie--as if to say that other OC's and HC could not ever prepare their players for the NFL as well as he could. That sounded pretty arrogant, to me, and I realize that he is a brash, outspoken guy, but everyone is just gloating over the fact that Brady fell so far; and now he says that BQ is a combination of Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, because he had Charlie as his HC for the last two years?

BQ already has enough scrutiny and now Charlie adds to it by making this comparison. Not only that, it puts more pressure on Charlie and the Irish to start churning NFL-ready QBs simply based on the HC. The target on ND players is big enough as it is, and now Charlie has painted even bigger ones on the Irish, BQ, and himself all before end of April.

Let's hope this does not come back to haunt us, though I think it will because Clausen, Jones, Sharpley or whomever wins out is going to instantly be expected to awesome because Charlie is his coach...which is an image that Charlie has cultivated before he has even coached 3 years at ND.

Let me say, I have a lot of confidence in Charlie, but sometimes he needs to bite his tongue a bit. He has the Irish headed back to where I was accustomed to seeing them under Lou, but I'd expect that it'd be better to get a little more of a pedigree as a HC before he starts saying things like this. It takes time and I feel that he can learn from his mistakes, but it takes time and he needs to worry more about that than propping up his own legend, before he has even made one for himself at ND. The days of being a coordinator are done and everything that he does and says is magnified tenfold because he is the ND coach. We need someone that can come in an change the culture of mediocrity that had set in, but we also need to see some better results in the bigger games. Maybe playing possum like Lou was so adept at doing would serve us a little better because no matter how little depth we have "thanks" to Ty's lackluster recruiting, the target on ND is bigger than ever and we need to make it smaller by winning the bigger games and shutting up the talking heads and haters a little more consistently, in my opinion.

You make some fair points but I'd like to see how '07 pans out before I fully judge Weis. I liked the fact that Lou played possum too, but a lot of players from his '93 team believe that his possum playing finally caught up to him as the sportswriters &/or coaches used that as one of the reasons to not crown ND w/ a share of the NC w/ FSU.

He would make cracks about how his team would be lucky to compete w/ a team like Rice University & then blow them out by 40+ points...the press finally took him at his word (out of spite of course) in order to throw it back in the old man's face (ex. "you're right Coach Holtz, maybe your team is not that good...so you'll understand when I give FSU the national title outright"). I think Weis is pretty media savvy, my fear is that the media takes what he says out of context sometimes & it appears that he's cockier than he actually is. Being HC at ND is similar to being a national politician in that you're always being sized up & the press analyzes every word you utter.

 

[MirageSmack]

I always love reading the comments on these type articles, where they rate the response. It never fails, whenever someone is positive about ND, regardless of the comment, they are rated really low. I looked thru a few, mostly 60% plus, then you see a remark (page 3) about how CW is turning things around, and it is rated at 9%. People crack me up sometimes.

 

[RichardRiot]

Yeah, according to the Rivals power rankings for HC, Charlie Weis is 19th; WTF is up with them....they think this guy is Rockne or Bryant???
http://collegefootball.rivals.com/viewCFSE.asp

Seriously, he should be behind????

-Paterno: a guy that was on coaching 'life-support' until a stunning 2005 season; fell off in 2006, and not particularly burning up the recruiting trail
-Bowden: there was much speculation that he may disappear last year; not a great '05 or '06 season (for Bowden and Paterno, this must be some 'Lifetime Achievement Award')
-Grobe: nice to see Wake win the ACC last year, but come on....we're talking about the ACC in '06; this triumph may be the least inspiring since Nigel won Upper Class Twit of the Year in Monty Python's "And Now for Something Completely Different"
-Bielema: great STYLE points for his mocking the new clock rules; good season, but other than Michigan, not sure the Badgers had a schedule
-Beamer: Started out '05 as a high pick to get to an NC game, not sure anyone has seen anything from the Hokies since then. Did they play last season???
-Spurrier: done okay since he returned from the NFL (did nothing IN the NFL), but there is more hype about him with less substance over the past 2 year than there is for CW