After Notre Dame’s national drowning to Navy on Saturday; even the planned respite to test all the service academies isn’t working out too well. Is there anyone out there that the Irish can beat? Notre Dame and Cap’n Charlie face more choppy waters ahead. Why? Well, in an article from Slate, Jonathan Chait surmises pithily: “The Worst Football Coach in the Universe? Introducing Charlie Weis”.
We all know Weis as a blowhard and self-serving egotist. Chait goes on to make a more caustic analysis: “In the entire history of American sports hype, has there ever been any fraud more grossly fraudulent than Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis? (Their) record is only the faintest indicator of just how awful Notre Dame is. While Notre Dame has suffered very few injuries, three of its opponents have had to play the Irish without their starting quarterbacks. Two of those teams, USC and Michigan, nonetheless beat Notre Dame by a larger margin than either has beaten any other opponent so far this year; against UCLA, which had been forced to use its third-string quarterback, a walk-on. In that game, Notre Dame compiled just 140 yards of offense, but won with the help of seven Bruin turnovers, five of them hand-delivered courtesy of the hapless walk-on signal-caller.
(Through last week) Notre Dame is averaging 1.09 yards per rush this year. The NCAA statistical archive goes back only to 1999. The worst yards per carry recorded in that period belongs to a 2001 University of Arizona squad that gained 1.46 yards per attempt. So, the worst rushing team recorded by the NCAA in the last nine years was still about one-third better than Notre Dame.
This is not merely bad. This is ineptitude on a staggering, world-historical scale. Such a performance would be prima facie evidence for firing the coach even at a doormat program like Indiana. At a school like Notre Dame, well … it's simply impossible to describe how awful this performance is. It's true that Notre Dame has suffered a dip in its talent level, attributable to poor recruiting by Weis' predecessor Tyrone Willingham. But if you go by recruiting rankings, Charlie Weis still has as much or more talent on hand than most of the opponents who have been beating him soundly.
So, Weis is obviously not a great coach—no great coach has ever underperformed so grossly—and he may well be a terrible one. So, why was he ever hailed as a genius in the first place?
The giant edifice of fraud that is Weis' reputation is actually a series of smaller frauds piled on top of each other. The foundational myth is that he was a brilliant offensive coordinator. Weis came from the New England Patriots, who had just won a Super Bowl. Every player and coach associated with a Super Bowl winner is usually subjected to a certain level of hype, and Weis is no exception. But Weis was actually quite ordinary. During his eight seasons as a coordinator, six of his teams finished in the bottom half of the league in total offense. The Patriots offense has been dramatically better—seventh in the league, on average—since Weis left.
The myth grew after Weis was appointed at Notre Dame and started proclaiming his own brilliance. He told his players, "Every game you will have a decided schematic advantage." After struggling to salvage his first recruiting class, he announced to the press, "Now it's time for the X's and O's. Let's see who has the advantage now."
Having primed the national media to receive him as a conquering hero, Weis enjoyed a tidal wave of publicity in 2005, his first year at Notre Dame. His crowning achievement was a narrow loss at home to a USC team then thought, erroneously, to be among the greatest ever. (The 2005 Trojans, who lost to Vince Young and Texas in the national championship game, had great skill position talent but a weak, injury-riddled defense.)
This first season was seen as the start of a new dynasty. In truth, Notre Dame was bound to improve, given the natural maturation of a couple of excellent Willingham recruiting classes. But Weis' first two teams weren't really that good. The 2005 and 2006 Notre Dame teams had a total of one win over an opponent that finished in the top 25, and they were administered several beat-down losses.
Coming into this year, Notre Dame was still picked to finish in the top 40. Blue-Gray Sky, a Notre Dame blog, polled its nine contributors before the year began, and the average predicted record was slightly better than 9-3. It looks like Weis will fall a wee bit short of that. The difference between that predicted record and Notre Dame's actual record is a good measure of the difference between Weis' reputation as a coach and his actual ability.
Being a head coach in college involves very different skills—motivating kids, teaching basic skills—than being a coordinator in the NFL. Even good NFL coordinators, like Cam Cameron and Dave Wannstedt, have struggled as college head coaches. Maybe Weis did sometimes turn castoff linemen into solid starters in the NFL, but at Notre Dame, he can't turn blue-chip prospects into passable players.
The statistics are mind boggling. I can’t stand Weis, and hope the worst for him, but Gerry Faust didn't do this bad. It’s almost unexplainable outside of the explanation that he is the worst coach in all of college football.
