Realistically can't you say Davie, Willingham, Weis and Kelly have all been a failure on the trail. Doesn't that indicate the problem is not with the coaches, but with the University and program as a whole. Or more accurate is the landscape of college football and how Notre Dame will never be able to recruit with the big boys. We all know Notre Dame has the academic restrictions. And unlike even a Stanford Notre Dame's home state doesn't produce talent, Stanford has Cali. Notre Dame is not in Cali, Florida, Texas, Georgia, Ohio, Louisiana, North Carolina, etc. Not to mention the weather is South Bend, Indiana sucks during the winter. Drastically different than Palo Alto.
Davie was able to recruit decent classes, but his teams lacked speed and try difference makers.
Don't even need to say anything about Willingham's lack of recruiting effort.
Weis recruited well. But left many holes on defense, especially defensive line and holes in the offensive line. He also shot for the stars and missed way to many times. He was never able to add the depth due to this.
And Kelly's recruiting failures have been well documented in this site.
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Sherm your first two sentences point out it recruiting is a University problem because the last four coaches had no success. Then you kind of rip those 4 coaches recruiting prowess.
So which is it the coaches or UND?
Other coaches have recruited well and coached well. ND had a location/education disadvantage competing with the football factories then too.
Davie had deep ties to Texas schools from his A&M days and used it recruiting for Holtz and himself. Davie also took to ND into FL and the southlands. By '97 half the roster was from south of the Mason Dixon Line. I wrote an article for the Irish Recruiting Journal on the shift in ND's recruiting base. Davie also made ND brought ND camp's up to major college standards. This had the added benefit of exposing recruits to the ND environment including academics. Regardless of his recruiting abilities, his assistants left much to be desired on the recruiting trail and on the field, Colletto, Rodgers, et al. And after Holtz's confrontations with ND Admissions, with and without Cerrato, Davie made no waves to Admissions. Offers weren't official until Admission gave their Nihil Obstat. Dave deferred. Where Holtz/Cerrato had scraped, finessed, bamboozled, or 11th hour time played Admissions, Davie rolled over understanding Malloy and croonies were backing Admissions to the hilt. Keep in mind that in those days ND required 16 core course hours while the NCAA only required 12. Most kids didn't take the courses ND required. And were told if they wanted to come to ND they had to load up their Senior year with tough courses at the same time improving GPAs. Highly touted WR David Terrell committed to ND but Admissions wanted Terrell to retake a course and improve the grade Terriell flipped to Michigan and became a star. Davie once again proved that ND is no place for OJT, on or off the field.
Willingham had success at Stanford but his lack of recruiting interest at ND was probably the worst in ND history. He did get some questionable recruits in, one had a 800 SAT, excelled on the field and graduated on time. Willingham truly ran the program into the ground, leaving his successor with huge wholes in the OLine and other places. After ruining ND, Willingham went to UW and ruined that program.
Weis never should have been hired. See the OJT comment above. Nobly Weis stayed the course with his then current employers through the Super Bowl. Unfamiliar with recruiting egos he withdrew an offer to a recruit who was upset because Weis couldn't make a home visit because of time conflicts with New England. Foolishly UND let the Patriots come before the Irish. Weis's NFL demeanor did work with a lot of recruits and players. He also made gaffs like Davie did hiring assistants (and we can add Kelly and Willingham to that list). Had Cutcliffe not had a heart attack requiring his withdrawal as a coach things might have been better for Weis but he still made fundamental management and coaching mistakes. Without JUCO's to plug into Willingham's lack of OL recruitment, Weis had to swing at the fences for the top OLs, the one he got was forced to start as a freshman and didn't receive the weight room development nor technique that a redshirt year would have provided. He never reached the expectations set for him. Weis did make a number of inroads with the ND Administration among them as an alumni he understood ND's academic emphasis. Where Holtz had fought Rooney and Admissions, and Davie and Willingham had rolled over in deference, Weis approached Saracino (Rooney's successor) to get an understanding of what ND Admissions looked for in a recruit's transcript, core courses, and character. Weis in turn educated his assistants in Admissions way and instructed them to seek out underclassman and instill in them, their coaches, etc what the recruit needed to do as a sophomore, junior, and first semester senior to enable Admissions to give their OK. No need to rehash Schematic Advantage nor Weis's lack of success in subsequent college coaching gigs.
Kelly did well coaching at several places with the lower rated players those schools and their opponents usually got. Two of the big questions with him when he came to ND was could he recruit nationally and could he compete on the field with the big dawg schools and coaches. I believe he's done better than his 3 predecessors but still made the similar management errors in hiring staff. Where Weis hired people he had never worked with Kelly insisted on bringing his small fish staff from his small fish previous employer. Assistant who like Weis's were a mixed bag in recruiting. It requires all the staff not just some of them. Kelly also exhibited an arrogance similar to Weis in doing the same thing over and over despite it not working time after time. "Get used to it." Kelly did get a training table at ND something Malloy and his predecessors had fought for against generations of ND coaches.
Three of these coaches never should have been hired. The fourth was on the cusp of the winning percentage of the great ND coaches ... till the Frozen Five, ND's retroactive ineligibility, the last drive with MJ and a gun ... none of which were the coaching staff's responsiblity. ND has Du lac, Res Life, and places accountability in the student. But expect the coaching staff to win with reduced numbers and replace them with freshman ... and still win.
Who hired these coaches? Not the location in Indiana. Not the weather, diversity, parietals, small dorms, tough academic requirements and lack of cake courses an degrees. The UND Adminstration is the common denominator.
UND has a similar history for more than 80 years. Rockne's death was sad, yet a relief to the ND Administration. He ran the show and they resented that in spades. They didn't replace him with another successful coach. They threw in a former player with coaching experience but chopped the number of scholarships. When Leahy won 4 National Championship working inhuman hours and his health was compromised he asked for a year's leave of absence to recover. The new ND president didn't care for football once again being bigger than the University. So the president who would be know for his championing civil rights, promoted the Freshman Coach to Head Coach. He was an All-American RB for ND so that obviously qualified him to win at the Winnningest Program in major college football. It had a winning percentage of over .800 in the 50's.
Like Hunk Anderson, Terry Brennan was a good man, was put in over his head, while at the same time ND once again cut scholarships while opponents were adding them. When Brennan didn't hit expectations another former player was brought in and handcuffed. Kuharich had talent but not enough bodies.
Ara initially said no to Father Hesburgh. A couple of days after the interview, Hesburgh who had sacked Leaky, hired Brennan and Kuharich, made the "adjustments" Ara said were needed for the program to succeed. They continued with Devine but after he retired once again UND decided that a proven college head coach wasn't necessary. A great HS coach would suffice. Faust and his assistants recruited well but that success wasn't matched on the field. Once again it was shown that ND is not the place for OJT.
This brings us to Davie, Willingham, Weis, and Kelly and a UND Adminsitration that hasn't learned that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. Over and over again.
For ND to be successful with the big dogs, ND needs a great coach and great recruiting classes year after year. Without the JUCO plugin factor to replace the career ending injuries, academic and student life casualties, ND has to replace 20 year olds with 17 and 18 year olds. ND had to succeed every year in recruiting and every couple of years when hiring coaching staffs.
