From ESPN.com:
Notre Dame (16) will do whatever it pleases with Charlie Weis (17) -- fire him, retain him, give him another $30-plus million for almost beating USC. Whatever. He should have been dismissed a year ago, after the humiliation in the Los Angeles Coliseum, so any corrective action taken now comes a year too late.
The Irish are only 35-24 under Charlie Weis' watch.
But while we're waiting for the Fighting Irish brass to decide what to do with their football coach, The Dash has to admire how the man has built a five-year, get-rich-quick scheme out of virtually nothing. Look at Weis' record, and there is no substance to it.
His overall record is 35-24. If the Irish lose Saturday at Pittsburgh, his winning percentage will be .583 -- which means he'll still be succeeding at the identical rate that got Tyrone Willingham (18) canned after three seasons. His ability to create a double standard out of recruiting hype got him two more years of fat paychecks.
But there's nothing more to Weis than that.
Whom has he beaten? An endless succession of nobodies. Of his 35 victories, exactly two have come against teams that finished the season in Jeff Sagarin's ELO_Chess Top 30 (the rankings the BCS uses). One of those was against Michigan in Weis' second game as coach, in 2005 -- the Wolverines finished that year No. 24. The other was against Penn State in the second game of Weis' second year -- the Nittany Lions finished that year No. 14.
Since that victory over Penn State in September 2006, Weis' past 24 victories have been against teams ranked 35th or lower by Sagarin -- most of them much lower.
In fact, the average Sagarin ELO_Chess rank of all 35 Weis victims is a 73. Which basically means the Irish would have been hell on wheels in Conference USA over the past five seasons.
And isn't that what Notre Dame football is supposed to be all about?
Notre Dame (16) will do whatever it pleases with Charlie Weis (17) -- fire him, retain him, give him another $30-plus million for almost beating USC. Whatever. He should have been dismissed a year ago, after the humiliation in the Los Angeles Coliseum, so any corrective action taken now comes a year too late.
The Irish are only 35-24 under Charlie Weis' watch.
But while we're waiting for the Fighting Irish brass to decide what to do with their football coach, The Dash has to admire how the man has built a five-year, get-rich-quick scheme out of virtually nothing. Look at Weis' record, and there is no substance to it.
His overall record is 35-24. If the Irish lose Saturday at Pittsburgh, his winning percentage will be .583 -- which means he'll still be succeeding at the identical rate that got Tyrone Willingham (18) canned after three seasons. His ability to create a double standard out of recruiting hype got him two more years of fat paychecks.
But there's nothing more to Weis than that.
Whom has he beaten? An endless succession of nobodies. Of his 35 victories, exactly two have come against teams that finished the season in Jeff Sagarin's ELO_Chess Top 30 (the rankings the BCS uses). One of those was against Michigan in Weis' second game as coach, in 2005 -- the Wolverines finished that year No. 24. The other was against Penn State in the second game of Weis' second year -- the Nittany Lions finished that year No. 14.
Since that victory over Penn State in September 2006, Weis' past 24 victories have been against teams ranked 35th or lower by Sagarin -- most of them much lower.
In fact, the average Sagarin ELO_Chess rank of all 35 Weis victims is a 73. Which basically means the Irish would have been hell on wheels in Conference USA over the past five seasons.
And isn't that what Notre Dame football is supposed to be all about?
