I don't understand the hatin' on Ty thing with this forum. He came to ND, was a decent guy, was over-matched, got fired, withdrew decently, went to UW and was a decent guy.
Uh, I just can't find the Hitlerian undertones to justify the bile.
SteveM
It's a number of things, but for me there are two main reasons: 1) he is one of the worst coaches in college football, and yet he doesn't see it and puts the blame on everyone/everything else for his failure. 2) the "racist" claims he made when he left ND.
Ask yourself this, if coach Willingham is so interested in promoting minority coaches, then why has he not had a minority offensive or defensive coordinator at Washington? ND has had two minority coordinators since Willingham left. Coordinator positions are the stepping stones to a head coaching job. For all the flack CFB gets for not hiring "enough" minority coaches (interesting, no one seems to complain that the majority of athletes are minorities, but i digress) interesting that a minority coach isn't interested in promoting fellow minorities (in reality, it should always be based on the quality of the coach and not the the color of one's skin, but since the critics of CFB openly promote affirmative action, why is the sauce good for the goose but not the gander?)
I'm convinced UW's failure to fire him now is the fear he created by claiming ND was racist in firing him before.
Read the stories about his recent firing at UW. He doesn't claim racism with them, but he acts like he doesn't understand why they're firing him. He says he put UW in a place where they could win. He says he wants to keep the "continuity", even though the current trend is losing. So what he means is it's better for him to keep his job and keep losing, prevent the new coach from coming in and work on recruiting, than for him to swallow his pride, face reality and resign. He is the worst recruiter I have ever seen. He has done more damage to UW than the prior two coaches, and unless the next coach recruits exclusively from the JUCOs the next two years, I suspect UW will not turn around for at least 3-4 years (by turn around I mean get to .500).
As the head of the College Football Coaches Association (i think that's it), his biggest accomplishment is passing a rule prohibiting head coaches from visiting recruits prior to a certain point. Now who do you think he was really looking out for there?
Other problems is his Stalinst player-media policy, his refusal to reach out to alumni (at ND or UW), and his constant shifting of the blame to someone other than himself.
Perhaps much of the venom directed towards him is likely due to the media's undying support for him and constant bad mouthing of ND for firing him, even though all the facts support his early termination (you don't wait for CEOs to take a company to complete bankruptcy before firing them.)
Now, I view him only slightly less palatable than other coaches we rail against here; Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, Les Miles, Pete Caroll, and many more. But the only reason people ask why ND fans dislike him so much is because of the history.
If it wasn't for the self-righteous, selfish, arrogant way he is acting right now, I wouldn't have even commented on his firing. After this last weekend, I didn't plan on talking about him anymore; to me the issue is finally resolved. But at the same time, if it involves college football (a topic that interests me), my discussing it is more a by-product of interest in the sport than a burning desire in my heart to bad-mouth him