Ty Willingham: Stay or Go?

[jiggafini19]

Here we are in mid-November and we're crossing our fingers for a berth in the Insight.Com Bowl or Gator Bowl. Look, nothing is wrong with a December bowl game....if you're Northern Illinois or Northwestern. 6-5 is a winning season, yes, but it is also a sign of mediocrity and basic math skills.

I see three things that need to be changed immediately, in this order:

1. Win at home, regardless of who the opponent is.
2. Recruit talented defensive backs.
3. Recruit speed, speed, speed on offense.

Rather than bedtime stories of the Four Horsemen and Lou Holtz, Notre Dame needs to carve a new path in the tradition. The they're on lately is a dead end.

 

[time4change]

Look at what Greg Lee, Pitt's Wide receiver who had a very productive day against ND to say the least....

"We knew that they had flaws in their defense and we just wanted to expose them," said Lee. "Their defensive backs, they weren't that good. They weren't that aggressive and everything. In certain coverages, their safeties didn't get deep enough. When we saw that, we told them that we were just going to expose them. And that's what we did." Source is Irish Today

I guess our coaches didn't feel it was necessary to make any adjustments.

No adjustments at halftime seems like a very common theme in Ty's weekly gameplan.

As much as I'd like to see Urban Meyer back at ND next year, I really think we need to follow in the footsteps of USC, UVA, and Nebraska this time and get an NFL guy (Gruden, I'm looking in your direction).

 

[Vince Young]

Without even getting into the Ty-debate, the clamor for Urban Meyer floors me.

Just look at his career. Boy, our passing game sure was dominant while he was the wide receivers coach at Notre Dame from 1996 to 2000. From there, he was 17-6 as head coach at Bowling Green against the formidable MAC conference, with losses to teams like Western Michigan, Miami of Ohio and Northern Illinois, not to mention getting blown-out by 22 points against South Florida and by 18 points against Toledo. From there, he's stepped up to a 20-2 record at Utah against the mighty MWC conference. (At least the MAC conference had Marshall...) 37-8 career looks shiny, but so does a cubic zirconia.

And Urban Meyer's head coaching experience? A whopping 4 years.

But hey, we've all seen inexperienced guys with questionable careers go on to enjoy long, distinguished tenures with major teams. Just look at Bob Davie and Ron Zook. (Some would add Ty Willingham to that list.)

Sure, Urban Meyer loves Notre Dame. But so did Faust and Davie. 'nuff said.

Urban Meyer may very well be the real thing, but he hasn't come even close to proving it yet. Let him spend some time coaching in a real conference, and then we'll really know what he's capable of. Until then, I'll remain skeptical.

 

[Irish Envy]

No adjustments at halftime seems like a very common theme in Ty's weekly gameplan.

As much as I'd like to see Urban Meyer back at ND next year, I really think we need to follow in the footsteps of USC, UVA, and Nebraska this time and get an NFL guy (Gruden, I'm looking in your direction).

I'm having to agree with this for the sole reason that players want to go where they can get a shot at the NFL. If they pickup an NFL-type system from a coach that has won an NFL title, man... that would be a helluva nice recruiting tool to have at your disposal.

Plus, Gruden is a preparation-o-holic. We could use someone like that.

 

[jiggafini19]

The next head coach of Notre Dame, whoever he may be, must not be conservative on offense. The game plan should be to score, score, score. And by that I do not mean field goals or defensive touchdowns. The West Coast Offense is old and tired. Throw the ball down field. Throw the ball to the backs. Little zips to wide receivers for five yards and hoping for them to run the rest just doesn't cut it for me. Stretch the field. For this to be done, ND must recruit speed, speed and more speed. There is talent out there, but they're simply not getting it. USC, Oklahoma and Michigan have extended their resources on the national level. Notre Dame needs to get their hat back into the ring. Meyer might be the guy to do that, but is he credible?

I watch Tampa Bay's offense and I am skeptical of Jon Gruden's system.

 

[bmf175]

What I think about Urban Meyer and coaching in general

What I think about Urban Meyer and coaching in general

What I think about Urban Meyer and coaching in general.

Its easy to coach a team full of all americans (like ND) and be successful against most of the teams in the college ranks. Having success with teams with equal talent, now thats a different story. That is when a GREAT coaching mind is seperated from a GOOD coaching mind. Its when the talent levels are equal is when a coaching scheme comes into play.

Should Ty Willingham be ousted...Yes, I believe. On the premise that he has greater talent at his finger tips than all the teams he lost to this year. Yes he beat UT but I think everybody can agree It was not by out coaching Fuller. And also his record right now is worse than Davie's record was at the same point in their career. WORSE. If he does worse than the man that was fired from the job he filled, he too should be fired.

Should we look down at Urban Meyer because his coaching experience only includes two subpar teams...No. He was in charge of a subpar team with the same talent level as all the other subpar teams he competed against. Which leads me to belive if the talent levels are the same than the only reason he has such a great record is due to a good coaching scheme. And so what if he has 6 or 8 loses, every coach from Holtz to Shula lost acouple games.

Now the only thing I can say is that Ty Willingham at Stanford, was not very successful. Yes he had bowl appearances but his coaching at Stanford was half-ass I believe it was some where just above .500. And his proven by some of the statements in the past couple of weeks that he is not the aggressive winner that Meyer or Hawkins are. Now that is where TY and Davie are similar, in that they should have never been HIRED in the first place.

I feel a change in coaching staff is warranted and any coach that is in a BCS game has proved themselves as far as Im concerned. :awesomewo

 

[IrishGator]

Spurrier Anyone?

All this talk about Urban Meyer (still a little unproven in my book). Are we forgetting that one of the best football coaches in college football history is available? Next to the NFL ND is the next logical choice for someone wanting to be on the big stage and take on a big challenge. Either way Ty needs to go and we need to get a successor

 

[Irish Envy]

Spurrier Anyone?

All this talk about Urban Meyer (still a little unproven in my book). Are we forgetting that one of the best football coaches in college football history is available? Next to the NFL ND is the next logical choice for someone wanting to be on the big stage and take on a big challenge. Either way Ty needs to go and we need to get a successor

I was just thinking about this today actually when they mentioned contacting Spurrier for a local II-A job and wondered if he could be a possible candidate for the Irish.

 

[time4change]

I was just thinking about this today actually when they mentioned contacting Spurrier for a local II-A job and wondered if he could be a possible candidate for the Irish.

Well, we can put all the Spurrier talk to rest since he's going to be coaching South Carolina after Lou retires at the end of the season.

Jeff Tedford (Cal) anyone?

 

[Irish Envy]

Well, we can put all the Spurrier talk to rest since he's going to be coaching South Carolina after Lou retires at the end of the season.

Jeff Tedford (Cal) anyone?

Nah, I'm not sold on Tedford. I'd want Gruden before Tedford.

 

[Guest]

Yea, Gruden is number 1 on my list, Urban is number 2.

I thought about Jim Fassel the other day, I think he could be a really good college coach, I believe he is currently with the Ravens as a consultant.

 

[s0lewis]

If TY beats USC and wins the bowl game he will stay. ND will not get Urban Meyer their is already rumors he has accepted the Florida position. Kevin White screwed up in 2001 he could have hired Gruden or Tom Coughlin. Mike Shannan will not come to Notre Dame their are too many NFL teams who want him and will pay him more. Notre Dame shouldn't fire Ty and hire some other subpar coach. I think ND's season has been pretty good everybody thought ND would only win 4 games. The offense is getting better every week and it obvious Brady Quinn is stud. I think we can beat USC!! If they do not beat USC Ty will most likely be fired!

 

[bruno1953]

TY MUST GO! For any logical thinking person, this is an easy decision. He's had his chances, screwed them up, now pay the price for it.
Please Kevin White, wake up, pull the thunder from the skies, let this man go and get us Urban Meyer.

 

[bliv711]

My thoughts

My thoughts

OK,

I'm new to this forum, so don't beat me up too bad. Ty should go. The way I see it, we had enough talent/guts to beat teams like Michigan and Tennessee. In fact, we are only one of two teams to my knowledge to beat two teams that were ranked in the top 10 at the time. Auburn I believe is the other. But to lose at home to teams like BC and Pitt and on the road to BYU...when we are obviously more talented, indicates to me a flaw in the coaching or just downright bad coaching. I do agree it takes some patience to get a program back on track, but we should be seeing some results by now. And it makes me sick to my stomach to hear Ty say stuff like if 10 more plays were different, we'd only have one loss at this point. Shoot, you take away three plays (Mich St.- fumble recovery for TD and goal line Mich St. fumble) and (UT - fumble recovery for TD) and we'd be 4-6 at this point. Regardless, I think Ty's with us for another year for whatever reason. Believe me, he will be gone after next season. He just doesn't have what it takes to coach in a major college football program. And we knew this before we hired him. Who do I think will replace him? Meyer? Not sure he's proven enough. Gruden? Who knows. Some say he's not that great of a coach in the NFL. I'm not sure I agree. Take Pete Carroll...he was worthless in the NFL...he took over a Super Bowl Champ in N.E. and they got worse each year...but look what he's done with the USC program. Any other thought?

 

[Guest]

For everyone who says Urban Meyer isn't ready lets see if he beats BYU tomorrow. We lost to BYU with all our talent, lets see if Utah with not much talented players can beat BYU.

 

[irishtexan]

For everyone who says Urban Meyer isn't ready lets see if he beats BYU tomorrow. We lost to BYU with all our talent, lets see if Utah with not much talented players can beat BYU.

BYU freakin sucks. I bet that Utah kills them. When we lost to them It honestly was one of the most pathetic performances for a Division 1 football team that I have ever seen. I wonder if Ty ever goes to any of these sites and reads what the fans think of him. If he does, QUIT COACHING YOU SUCK.

 

[Vince Young]

For everyone who says Urban Meyer isn't ready lets see if he beats BYU tomorrow. We lost to BYU with all our talent, lets see if Utah with not much talented players can beat BYU.

Well, here we go again... the same people who disagreed with the reasons we hired Ty are using the SAME reasons to advocate hiring Urban Meyer.

"Well, Ty beat Notre Dame every time he coached against them, so let's hire him!"

"Well, Urban Meyer is gonna beat a team we lost to, so let's hire him!"

Sound familiar?

If you're gonna fire Ty, AT LEAST hire someone who you know will do better. I'd rather give Ty one more year to turn things around than rush into hiring yet another question mark of a coach. Notre Dame is not a football team to take risks with. We've had enough of that already.

 

[bliv711]

Well, here we go again... the same people who disagreed with the reasons we hired Ty are using the SAME reasons to advocate hiring Urban Meyer.

"Well, Ty beat Notre Dame every time he coached against them, so let's hire him!"

"Well, Urban Meyer is gonna beat a team we lost to, so let's hire him!"

Sound familiar?

If you're gonna fire Ty, AT LEAST hire someone who you know will do better. I'd rather give Ty one more year to turn things around than rush into hiring yet another question mark of a coach. Notre Dame is not a football team to take risks with. We've had enough of that already.

I agree with you. Maybe Urban Meyer is the man. Although I am quite knowledgable about college football, I couldn't tell you much about the man with the exception of this year in Utah and his lackluster time with ND. As is general knowledge in the college football world, the assistant coaches do the bulk of the recruiting. The head coach just closes the deals...especially with the 5-star athletes. I have a tough time remembering our receiver studs during Meyers reign as assistant. I could be wrong. Like I said earlier, maybe he is the man...just make sure hiring him is not based on a great season against generally subpar teams (yes, Texas A&M, you suck) like we did with Ty and Stanford. We desperately need someone who can recruit...one who is a proven recruiter. Obviously Ty is not the man here. How many blue-chip recruits has he let slide through our fingers?

I don't have the answers other than I think we will probably give Ty another year, regardless of how he does against USC and/or a bowl game. Next season, we need to be scrutinizing whether Ty has truly 'returned us to glory' or not. But more than that, we need to look at the upcoming recruiting class. We also need to make the search for a new coach a complete search and hire the best guy. Remember, Ty was hired in a hurry because of the O'Leary scandal...and I think the Political Correctness Police had a role in his hiring.

 

[Guest]

I never wanted Ty to come here. I thought he was very inconsistent with stanford, wasn't impressed with him at all.
With Urban I see a guy that has already turned 2 football programs around in his 4 years of coaching. I remember another guy that could turn football programs around over night, a guy named lou holtz.
As for the argument that Urban didn't do a great job as a receiver coach here, well I'll answer that. The OC coach and HC were aweful coaches, I don't care if you have the best wide receiver coach in football if the OC and HC coaches are calling silly and stupid plays the receivers aren't goin to make the plays, no matter how good the receiving coach is. Look at how good David Givens is doing, Urban taught him how to play the position at ND, but the coaches never instituded him in any of the gameplans.

 

[Guest]

Receiving coaches is an overrated coaching position, just like batting coaches in baseball....

 

[irishjay]

Everybody sign the CALL FOR CHANGE at NDNation.com..

 

[Guest]

Sure did jay, made sure some of my family and friends did as well, of all the people I know that like ND football which is alot, not one of them has told me they like Ty.

 

[Guest]

For everyone who says Urban Meyer isn't ready lets see if he beats BYU tomorrow. We lost to BYU with all our talent, lets see if Utah with not much talented players can beat BYU.

Utah 52 BYU 21

Notre Dame 17 Byu 20

Utah moved the ball at will against BYU, 350 yards rushing. Notre Dame was only able to muster 11 yards rushing.
Notre Dame's coaching staff admitted they were confused by BYU defensive scheme so they had to play conservatively. Urban Meyer sure as heck didn't look confused.

 

[irishtexan]

Utah 52 BYU 21

Notre Dame 17 Byu 20

Utah moved the ball at will against BYU, 350 yards rushing. Notre Dame was only able to muster 11 yards rushing.
Notre Dame's coaching staff admitted they were confused by BYU defensive scheme so they had to play conservatively. Urban Meyer sure as heck didn't look confused.

Urban Meyers team played like they were on a mission. That was an incredible game to wartch. The fake punt was great. You can just tell the players love playing for him. They have confidence, unlike an uncertain Irish team. I would have loved to see Notre Dame play Utah this season. It would have been great to see Ty get outcoached by Meyer. Any predictions what the score would be if they would have played?

 

[AlbuquerqueIrishFan]

Urban Meyers team played like they were on a mission. That was an incredible game to wartch. The fake punt was great. You can just tell the players love playing for him. They have confidence, unlike an uncertain Irish team. I would have loved to see Notre Dame play Utah this season. It would have been great to see Ty get outcoached by Meyer. Any predictions what the score would be if they would have played?

It's hard to say what Irish team would show up, but I think the score would be something along the lines of Utah 35, Notre Dame 14.

Then again, if ND played to their capabilities, we could actually win, but not likely this year.

 

[irishtexan]

OK, I just saw the Irish drive in the #1 team in the country and score. Why cant we play like that all year. I am so confused right now im getting pissed.

 

[Guest]

OK, I just saw the Irish drive in the #1 team in the country and score. Why cant we play like that all year. I am so confused right now im getting pissed.

Look how they later adjusted. Why can't our coaching staff ever adjust late in games. Didn't take Carroll long. he had it fixed in the second quarter. I hope he goes back to the NFL....

 

[IrishMarine03]

NO Question...he is a joke & must go...NOW!

NO Question...he is a joke & must go...NOW!

Come on folks…this is not even a debatable issue any more. He must go and go now IOT allow recruiting to go forward with any semblance of enticing quality talent. The loss to USC on a National Stage, and the way it was prosecuted, has all but killed ND in the eyes of graduating players with any thought of going to ND. This has become a second-tier program with little hope of a rapid return to the national stage. GO GET URBAN MEYER…regardless of the cost and get him now. I have been a die-hard fan for years…however, if no immediate action is taken…ND will never again darken my TV set!

 

[Indyfan]

Everyone is talking about Urban. What about Jon Gruden?

 

[jiggafini19]

The problem here is that Gruden's season is currently in progress, which would make negotiations difficult. Do you wait another 4 weeks for the season to end, then go after him? What about recruits on the fence?

As for Meyer, it is no secret that he covets three jobs and ND is number one on his list. I'm going to guess that if he gets offered the job, he'll take it. Then we wait and see what happens. In two or three years, with either guy, we could be right back to where we started from and we'll be back here demanding another change.

Gruden covets the ND job too and the former NFL coach route is doing USC quite well as of late. Get it done, Mr. White. The time is now.