Coach Weis on the hot seat as Notre Dame looks to 2008 season

Winning is not only a tradition at Notre Dame, it’s a way of life. For the Irish head coach, winning is a job requirement. When things are going well, there’s likely not a more rewarding job in college coaching—professionally or financially. On the other hand, if things aren’t up to the expectation of the demanding Notre Dame stakeholders there’s not a more pressure filled position in sports.

Charlie Weis obviously has some goodwill in the bank, or else he’d have been pink slipped after Notre Dame’s brutal 2007 season. Any way you slice it, the year was a disaster—and particularly by Notre Dame standards. The Irish opened the season with five straight losses, all by double digits, en route to a 3-9 record. It was the program’s first losing season since 2003 and the worst overall record in 45 years. It was also only the 13th losing season posted by a Notre Dame football team. Ever.

Were that not bad enough, there were few statistical bright spots or even “moral victories”. Notre Dame was horrible on both sides of the ball, with the nation’s worst scoring offense and the most QB sacks allowed (58). Freshman QB Jimmy Clausen—the man on the receiving end of virtually all of those 58 sacks—constantly threw under pressure due to the pass protection from his pitiful offensive line. Not that they were any better at run blocking, with the Irish averaging a woeful 75 yards per game rushing—the first time in over 60 years that a Notre Dame team didn’t average more than 100 yards per game on the ground.

Weis may think that things are looking up and that he’ll be able to salvage a winning season and save his job. The best thing he’s got going for him right now is a weak schedule—six of their opponents posted losing records last year—along with a year of maturity for his young team. On paper, there should be some improvement, with 16 starters returning including QB Clausen. However, even this ‘silver lining’ may have a ‘dark cloud’: most of the teams with losing records are from strong conferences and might relish the opportunity to beat up on a young and, frankly, not very good Notre Dame team.

Fearing the worst, Weis is apparently taking some tactical moves to change things up in the coaching and playcalling. Not incidentally, this move is also serving to spread around any potential blame for a disastrous season. Weis’ “party line” is that he wants to relinquish some of his play calling and tactical strategizing duties to assistants in order to “spend more time with his players”. This year the offensive plays will be called by head coordinator Mike Haywood, who’s never called plays full time before in an arrangement that has “fall guy” written all over it. He brought in a new defensive coordinator, Jon Tenuta, to coach the linebackers and install a new defensive scheme.

The result is that should the team improve, Weis can take the credit for “making the changes that were needed”. If they struggle again this year, he’s cleverly installed lightning rods to deflect blame onto someone else. When Richard Nixon surrounded himself with scapegoats willing to take the blame for his misdeeds, he called it “plausible deniability”. Charlie Weis calls it “becoming the kind of coach this team needs to be successful”. Clearly, he’s hoping the comparisons to Nixon end there and he doesn’t find himself in a situation where he’s forced to resign to avoid being impeached…er…fired.

Notre Dame begins play against San Diego State on September 6th, but with the rest of the month’s schedule consisting of Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue we may know by the beginning of October if we’ll have Charlie Weis to “kick around anymore”.