Much to the dismay of many Notre Dame fans, earlier this week it was announced by the school that head coach Charlie Weis was not going to be fired following another disappointing season in South Bend. I wasn't sure how I felt about the news at first because although I'm not exactly a Weis supporter at this point, I'm also tired of seeing a college coach fired every three days. I guess what I'm learning about myself is that I don't like coaches getting fired all the time unless they coach the team I like and I don't like them.
Thankfully I'm not the only one learning things about themselves right now, as it appears that all the calls for his job may have helped Charlie learn a thing or two himself. First and foremost he's learned that he's just not doing a very good job right now, and secondly he's learned that he's going to have to make some changes.
In fact, Charlie believes that the reason he is still coach of the Fighting Irish is that he and athletic director Jack Swarbrick see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues with the team.
''I agree that 6-6 is not acceptable,'' Weis said. ''It's important that we're moving toward the BCS discussion. Had there been more discrepancies [about the problems], it might have gone in a different direction.''
The first thing Charlie needs to do is overhaul his coaching staff, particularly those on the offensive side of the ball. Anybody who has watched the Irish this season knows that while the team is fully capable of putting points on the board against bad teams -- though they don't always beat those bad teams -- they have a real tough time doing so against quality opponents. In my estimation the Irish played five quality opponents this season: USC, Boston College, Pitt, North Carolina, and Michigan State. In those five games -- which the team lost -- they managed to score 67 points, or 13.4 points per game. Of course 57 of those 67 points came in the two games against North Carolina and Pitt, so even that stat is a bit misleading.
All I know is that if I'm offensive coordinator Mike Hawwood, offensive line coach John Latina, or quarterbacks coach Ron Powlus, I'd start updating my resume right about now.
