New Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick gave Charlie Weis a curious vote of confidence Wednesday. It’s curious in that we hadn’t heard much from Notre Dame this year. It was as if the team you either loved to hate or loved to death was hiding in the shadows, enjoying its anonymity in a season filled with Big 12 quarterbacks, SEC defenses and midseason firings.
The Irish started 4-1, and everyone figured if Weis hadn’t completely awakened the echoes, he had at least deadened the cries for his job. If you weren’t a subway alumnus, Notre Dame had fallen off your radar.
Well, pay attention, folks. The Irish are in trouble. Again. Weis is putting out fires, the running game is a joke, the quarterback is a mess and Irish Nation is furious. That little leprechaun is turning red.
Notre Dame is 5-4, but look behind the record and you’ll see some similarities to last year’s 3-9 pratfall, its worst mark in 44 years. Its five victims are a combined 12-37, and Notre Dame has lost three of its past four, topped by Saturday’s 17-0 loss to Boston College, the Irish’s third shutout loss in two years.
They committed five turnovers against the Eagles, four on Jimmy Clausen interceptions. Weis announced he would take over play- calling duties Saturday against Navy in Baltimore. He said it’s because offensive coordinator Mike Haywood went to Texas for his 24-year-old cousin’s funeral, but you wonder if that would’ve made a difference.
“I think if you look at last week’s game against Boston College and the game against Pittsburgh,” Weis said at Tuesday’s weekly news conference, “you’d sit there and you’d say, ‘Well, we’re sitting (5-4). Why aren’t we better than that?’ ”
The offense doesn’t resemble the cast from “Night of the Living Dead,” like it did last year when it allowed an NCAA-record 58 sacks and looked up at all 118 other Division I-A teams with only 242.25 yards a game. It has upped its average to 375 and scoring from 16.42 points a game to 24.33.
But the Irish line still couldn’t run block St. Mary’s College down the street, averaging only 115.56 rushing yards a game, good for 95th nationally. Clausen, the plum of Weis’ highly ranked recruiting classes, has a healthy arm this year and an improved line. But the four picks, plus the pick-six he threw to open the second half against North Carolina, has people questioning Weis’ offensive guru status.
Weis, who, when hired from the Patriots, arrogantly said Notre Dame would have a “decided schematic advantage,” is tired of playing the cool, calm NFL veteran. He ripped the team after the home loss to Pitt. He’s leaning harder on Clausen.
“The bottom line is, where is the program going to go?” Weis said. “I’m confident that the program is going where we all want it to go. And that’s as honest as I can be.”
Swarbrick, a former Indianapolis attorney and 1976 Notre Dame alum, says he agrees, although you wonder about his athletic acumen.
“It’s really dangerous to evaluate midyear, but clearly we are better this year than we were last year,” Swarbrick told reporters Wednesday. “Look at the Colts of the NFL. The year they won the Super Bowl, they had lost to Jacksonville and everyone had written them off. Then look at the New York Giants. There are dangers in midseason evaluation.”
Did he compare the 2008 Irish to the 2006 Colts and 2007 Giants? Yes, he did. Weis is 1-15 against his last 16 opponents with winning records. His .587 (27-19) winning percentage isn’t much better than the .583 of Tyrone Willingham, the man he replaced.
Well, it doesn’t matter what Swarbrick’s evaluation would be. With seven years left on a contract that pays an estimated $3 million to $4 million a year, Weis might take out the men’s and women’s tennis teams with his buyout.
Then again, this is Notre Dame. A second straight loss to the Midshipmen, which had lost to the Irish every year since 1963 and whose quarterback is questionable, and priests may be passing a helmet around the pews on Sunday.
The Irish host Syracuse (now 2-7) next week, so they’ll make a bowl game. But it may not be long before the shadow they’ve hidden in this year becomes a black hole.
4 black coaches the fewest in 15 years
And then there were four.
The recent firings of Tyrone Willingham at Washington and Ron Prince at Kansas State have left the Football Bowl Subdivision with only four African-American head coaches out of 119, the fewest since 1993.
“In the world of college football, the facts and statistics reflect an unmistakable bias and a systemic problem that has yet to be fixed,” said Floyd Keith, executive director of the Black Coaches Association. “My deep concern is, why are the college football hiring practices out of sync?”
The BCA gives letter grades for schools’ hiring methods, and 16 of the 31 schools that hired coaches in FBS and Football Championship Subdivision, formerly I-AA, received “A” grades, including Colorado State. Three schools received an “F”: Mississippi, West Virginia and Dayton.
That’s way down from the 10 who flunked the previous year.
The four remaining African- American head coaches are Randy Shannon at Miami, Mississippi State’s Sylvester Croom, Houston’s Kevin Sumlin and Buffalo’s Turner Gill.
Said Richard Lapchick, co-author of the study: “It stands in such contrast to the optimism a few days ago when America elected its first African-American president.”
John Henderson, The Denver Post
Games of the week
South Carolina at Florida
Florida has already won the SEC East, but at No. 4 in the BCS, the Gators have a legitimate shot at the BCS title game. South Carolina is a 21-point underdog but is ranked 24th in the AP poll. Led by linebacker Eric Norwood, right, it has the top defense in the SEC. A Florida win would certainly look good to the computers.
Big 12: No. 4 Texas at Kansas. The reigning Orange Bowl champion Jayhawks have lost three of their past four games but can salvage the season with a home upset of the Longhorns.
Mountain West: BYU at Air Force. Can the Falcons catch BYU looking ahead to Utah? A tale of opposite offensive philosophies, but AFA can throw the ball and BYU can certainly run it.
Colorado connections
Shining in San Diego
John Matthews continues to light up the Football Championship Subdivision receiving ranks at University of San Diego. The Regis grad this season has 1,130 yards on 75 catches, 18 for TDs. He ranks No. 1 nationally in receptions per game (8.3 per game), receiving yards (125.56) and is No. 2 in total receiving yards. With 3,267 career yards, the senior needs 216 yards in his last two games to set the school mark; his 47 TDs are a school record. He is up for Pioneer League player of the year.
Isaac Stockton, Chadron State: The junior from Colorado Springs’ Mitchell High leads the Eagles’ receivers into playoffs with a team-best nine TD catches and is second with 56 catches for 670 yards.
