The World According to Oatney

Willingham to Washington--Charlie Weis to coach Notre Dame

Father Edward Malloy, President of Notre Dame, said he was upset the university fired Tyrone Willingham. "In my 18 years, there have only been two days that I've been embarrassed to be president of Notre Dame: Tuesday and Wednesday of last week," Malloy said. I don't retract what I said about Willingham in this weblog one whit, but I will say that it says something about the integrity of the man that he has such backing. It also says something about how things actually work in South Bend when the President of Notre Dame has no say-so in the hiring and firing of a football coach. There is little doubt that this was an alumni and booster-inspired move. As head coach at Notre Dame, Tyrone Willingham didn't impress many people (myself included), but there were also many who thought highly of Willingham as a human being. One individual I talked to put it bluntly, saying "[Willingham] did everything at ND except win."
Regular readers will recall, however, that I also said I thought Ty Willingham would get another shot at coaching. That happened in short order. He'll return to the Pac-10 to coach the Washington Huskies. Word has it that a lot of people up in the Northwest are excited about the chance Willingham has to be a success at Washington. Considering that he came from Stanford to begin with, this is a bit of a homecoming for him, and he is probably better suited to coach there.

There are some mixed reviews about ND's new coaching choice, Charlie Weis. Much of the sports media is making this out to be a sort of Rudy story, as if Weis is the darling of South Bend today. One ND fan I spoke with today (who also happens to be one of the most well-informed college football minds in this area) said that Weis has "all the charisma of watching paint dry," and said he doesn't think ND boosters and alumni will give Weis much of a honeymoon period. (The same source was a believer that the Irish should have hired Bills offensive co-ordinator Tom Clements.) I don't think Weis will last five years in South Bend...but as my old radio colleague Matt Daley said "considering they couldn't get their first choice, Notre Dame did extremely well, considering he was the offensive co-ordinator for a team that won two of the last three Super Bowls." We'll wait and see. For ND's sake, and for his own, I hope Weis does as well as the press seems to think he will.




ESPN Wire Service contributed some information to this post.

posted by Deacon David Oatney @ 7:29 PM