Notre Dame's embarassment has been truly enjoyable. They fired Willingham, one of the better coaches in Division I as his Stanford record shows, anticipating that Urban Meyer would be begging to come there. Meyer proved much smarter and chose Florida, a much easier, more appealing program, instead.

THe ND establishment has been totally confused as to what they want. They want to win football games at all costs, and so they bring in a user like Lou Holtz, they then can't accept the baggage that comes with playing winning football. They get rid of Holtz and hire Bob Davie, who proved unable to do anything, seeming to be only a worse Holtz. Then, they bring in Willingham, who re-created the old standards of Ara Parseghian in terms of off-field behavior, but he didn't win enough,only going to bowl games in 2 of his 3 years there. (sarcasm intended)

Meyer appeared to be the perfect replacement, a skilled recruiter, with Notre Dame ties, excellent at Xs and Os, and a reasonably observant Catholic. However, Meyer wasn't stupid. He had the Florida option. In Gainesville, he can recruit easily. Who doesn't want to play in the sun and fun of Florida? And there are lots of Florida athletes among the best HS footballers in the country. Also, he doesn't have to deal with the flak that will result from Willingham's ouster. Every single Black coordinator from other schools will be telling potential Black 'student-athletes' about the racist nature of Notre Dame, and given the bums' rush he got, there is plenty of smoke if not fire. Meyer decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

What's Gerry Faust up to?

Willingham was 10-3 the first year at Notre Dame (with talent he inherited). Mediocre thereafter. The racism charge is absurd.

Florida, itself, is somewhat in turmoil. Zook (at Florida) also got the bum's rush that Bart is referring to. The moral of the story is that when you get paid big bucks you better win. Now who at Penn State is going show Paterno the door.

h:

His first recruiting class just finished their sophomore years, no?

Zook was a terrible coach, and I was against his selection to begin with.

Willingham had a record of success at Stanford, that cannot be sneezed at. I would agree that the Golden Domers would have treated a white coach just as shabbily, but I have my doubts as to whether the Black high school coaches, parents, ministers, and advisers of hundreds of top-caliber Black athletes will share that opinion. The fact that Davie, whose regime was lamentable, got 5 years and Willingham got only 3 is pretty damning.

Paterno goes out on Paterno's terms but the fact that his son lost a House race, as a Republican in a marginally GOP district, should tell him something.

"just finished their sophmore years"

Yes and apparently were adjudged lacking in potential. Wasn't that great at Stanford either. He was 44-36-1 in 7 seasons for 54% winning percentage, in the Pac 12 which I don't rate that high. His 58% winning percentage at was the 3rd lowest since 1913. Don't forget he went 8-0 in his first 8 games and then proceeded to be 13-15.

I don't think Zook was a terrible coach by any stretch, but I wasn't saying he shouldn't have been fired, but firing in the middle of the season seems to meet the definition of "bum's rush"

h,

Stanford was the doormat of the PAC10 before and since. He outperformed even Bill Walsh.

Zook followed Spurrier who spoiled Gator fans. Spurrier had resurrected a moribund program with a serious history of recruiting shenanigans. Zook, who was an uninspired coordinator in both pro and college ball, had seen the program become clearly #3 in Florida. There is no doubt that Gator fans were spoiled. There've been 'Fire Zook' websites since October of his first year.

However, Meyer is going to Ben Hill Griffin, and the firing of Zook must be said to have been done with an eye toward this being a 'done deal.' The UF President was the guy who hired Meyer at Utah.

Where does ND go now? Pete Carroll isn't going anywhere and neither is Nick Saban, unless the NFL comes calling with a lot of money. Butch Davis has health issues. They obviously didn't have Urban Meyer wrapped up and now they are stuck with finding a coach who is seen as being an upgrade from Willingham. Is Bob Stoopes or Jon Gruden looking to come back to ND?

According to a story today Steve Mariucci of the Lions turned them down flat to stay with the Lions. In answer to Bart:

Grudin: Don't see it. He's a pro coach by nature making a lot more $ than ND allegedly offered Meyer. Also, as a former assistant's son he knows the PR responsibilities of an ND coach and has had no patience for it.

Stoopes: Not likely. He has created a terrific situation for himself and his staff at OK, making more $ than ND offered Meyer. Rick Reilly wrote an article about him a year ago about how he runs a comparatively laid back program, not requiring his staff to live/breathe football. Too much to give up.

The next casualty is going to be Kevin White. He has now humiliated the program twice in 3 years and will take the fall even though I believe he is just a proxy for the big money boosters who are now running the University. Somewhere Father's Hesburgh and Joyce are weeping. As an ND hater this is delicious.

Willingham was 10-3 the first year at Notre Dame (with talent he inherited). Mediocre thereafter.

I personally watched Nebraska kick around Notre Dame in Lincoln during Bob Davie's last year; his team, to be blunt, was no good. The next year, ND was one fluke Spartan play away from being 10-0 going into the USC game.

Any coach who gets a craphole program like Stanford into a Rose Bowl can't be all that bad. As OJ said, his recruited players are just finishing up their sophomore years. Willingham deserved at least one more season.

Beg pardon on my last post; I was thinking of the fourth down and ten conversion MSU pulled off two years earlier, when Davie still coached the Domers. If my memory isn't failing me again, ND went undefeated that year until falling at home 14-7 to Boston College. They also beat FSU at Doak Campbell by 10 and were routing them 31-10 early in the fourth quarter. No matter how down FSU might be, walking into Tallahassee and doing that is impressive.

I reiterate: Willingham deserved at least one more year.

Jeff Tedford will make Domers proud.

As an aside, I once wrote something about Notre Dame that was edited by some know-it-all in New York City who changed "Domers" to "Damers" in the final copy. For me, that vignette neatly epitomizes the way in which East Coast urbanites are so ridiculously wrong in thinking that they are intellectually superior to the "dullards" of flyover country.

This is all about academics and lack thereof. ND and Penn State graduate 81% and 86% of their football players (1997 freshman). Now lets look at the "Student-Athletes" of this year's BSC Bowl teams -- we have USC 58%, Oklahoma 40%, Auburn 48%, Texas 34%, VA Tech 58%, Utah 45%, Michigan 57%, Pitt ?? (16% for 1996). I don't care who ND hires or whether JoePa stays or goes, the academically-serious cannot compete w/ the NFL minor leagues

This is all about academics and lack thereof. ND and Penn State graduate 81% and 86% of their football players (1997 freshman). Now lets look at the "Student-Athletes" of this year's BSC Bowl teams -- we have USC 58%, Oklahoma 40%, Auburn 48%, Texas 34%, VA Tech 58%, Utah 45%, Michigan 57%, Pitt ?? (16% for 1996). I don't care who ND hires or whether JoePa stays or goes, the academically-serious cannot compete w/ the NFL minor leagues

This is all about academics and lack thereof. ND and Penn State graduate 81% and 86% of their football players (1997 freshman). Now lets look at the "Student-Athletes" of this year's BSC Bowl teams -- we have USC 58%, Oklahoma 40%, Auburn 48%, Texas 34%, VA Tech 58%, Utah 45%, Michigan 57%, Pitt ?? (16% for 1996). I don't care who ND hires or whether JoePa stays or goes, the academically-serious cannot compete w/ the NFL minor leagues

Sorry about the mutiple posts. Firefox wasn't showing my comment after I posted it...

SV,

Of course you are correct. The football factories simply ignore the academic or law-abiding side of college student life and focus entirely on putting a winning team on the field. The reality is that the ability to play football and the ability to do college level academic work or behave like a responsible adult are pretty much unrelated. So, if you decide to recruit dullards and thugs, you have a much larger pool of potential talent.

Universities that do this violate the spirit if not the language of their charters but if it makes them money, they don't care.

Bart - Right! To counter the greed and hyprocrisy of these colleges and the NCAA, the BCS formula should be altered to include graduation rates