Wish Granted: Domers Wanted Weis Out

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Surely those within several punts of Notre Dame Stadium wish to shed a tear for Charlie Weis.

Well, I guess not.

If such delusional folks actually exist around here, I couldn't find them. That was before and after the priests who run the University of Notre Dame did the right thing by giving Weis at least $10 million in buyout money to just go away.

Since many around campus light candles at the Grotto and everything, maybe this wasn't a coincidence: a dreary morning filled with sleet gave way to a bright moon over the Golden Dome by early evening. Not only that, this transformation happened after word of Weis' firing was confirmed.

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"It's about time," said Molly Conway, a Notre Dame marketing and English major, strolling away from the mural called Touchdown Jesus with Lauren Cook, a fellow senior, who is a political science major. Added Conway, "The general sentiment among the students is that it is definitely time for him to go."

After nodding nearby, Cook said, "I'm not surprised that this happened so quickly following the end (of Notre Dame's regular season). I think we all saw this coming, especially after they lost to Navy."

Notre Dame never loses to Navy, because Notre Dame isn't supposed to lose to Navy, but Weis did so twice in three seasons. He was fired for that, and he was fired after suffering more losses during a three-year period (16) than any of his Notre Dame predecessors. He was fired after always having a clueless defense. He was fired after owning more signature losses (plenty) than signature victories (zero).
Mostly, Weis was fired after five years with the Fighting Irish as a career NFL assistant coach masquerading as the next legend at his alma mater.
Mostly, Weis was fired after five years with the Fighting Irish as a career NFL assistant coach masquerading as the next legend at his alma mater.

With much help from Weis' inability to turn his New Jersey cockiness into a return to glory for Notre Dame, he did the improbable: he became even less memorable than Bob Davie and Tyrone Willingham, his predecessors who also were whacked for shaking down more misery than thunder on game days.

So there I was, standing between the statues of Knute Rockne and Frank Leahy, and first-year Notre Dame law student Spencer Durland came along. He gave his thoughts on the guy who is now the Irish's fourth ex-head football coach since Lou Holtz retired after the 1996 season with the last of those glory days.

"I never was much of a Patriots fan, so I guess you can say that I haven't liked Weis for a while," said Durland, laughing, as a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan from Rochester, N.Y. His reference was to Weis' prolific stint before Notre Dame as New England's offensive coordinator. Added Durland, "When he came to Notre Dame, he made a lot of promises, and he hasn't been able to keep them. It's time for a new direction. I think a lot of people think that probably was the right move (to fire him), especially since Ty Willingham, for one, was given a lot less slack."

Yes and no. Yes, the Notre Dame priests allowed Willingham to keep the Irish mired in mediocrity for only three years compared to the five such years they gave Weis. But, no, Willingham wasn't dismissed without cause. After he started his Notre Dame career at 8-0, he went 13-15 in the aftermath, including five 30-point losses and eight overall by more than three touchdowns.

Weis' Notre Dame coaching career was worse than that. Among other horrors, his Irish managed a come-from-ahead loss last season on Senior Day to a 2-8 Syracuse team that already had fired its coach.

No wonder, Francisco Fernandez shook his head near the statue they call first-and-10 Moses around here. It features Moses pointing upward, where Weis' teams rarely went in the national polls down the stretch of a season.

"To be honest with you, it kind of sucks to see the football team, at least the way it's been playing under Weis," said Fernandez, a senior philosophy major from Boston, speaking with emotion. "We, as students, care about this team. We respect the fact that it's not full of criminals and that it has players who can compete academically. But the thing is, we also want a team that can compete for the national championship. They should be able to compete for the national championship at Notre Dame.

"If a coach can't deliver that, we've got to let him go."

The Notre Dame priests did just that after the Irish ended their regular season at 6-6 with a 45-38 loss Saturday night at Stanford. It was another "almost" victory for what had evolved into an "almost" program under Weis. As a result, Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick said during his news conference on Monday that he made official the night before what already was obvious. He said he called Reverend John Jenkins, Notre Dame's president, to recommend Weis' termination.

The fact that Jenkins accepted Swarbrick's recommendation was just a formality. To hear Swarbrick tell it, Weis was gone long before that.

"Yeah, well. You know, Charlie and I met regularly and talked regularly throughout this period, and it's fair to say it was a bit of an evolution over time," said Swarbrick, Notre Dame Class of '76, He left his law practice in Indianapolis to become the Irish's athletics director in July 2008. He inherited Weis' contract (a 10-year deal that was slated to expire in 2015) from his predecessor, Kevin White, but he was willing to give Weis another chance this season after last season's 7-6 nothingness.

You know the rest -- more nothingness.

Despite a Heisman Trophy candidate at quarterback (Jimmy Clausen) and other talented players throughout the roster, the Irish were such a mess near the end that even Weis said he could understand if the Notre Dame priests made a coaching change.

"(Weis) knew in advance of the recommendation that I made on Sunday (to Jenkins) that I was going to make that recommendation," Swarbrick said. "We confirmed it on Saturday after the Stanford game, so he knew it then."

So did Weis' players, the only folks in northern Indiana who actually wanted the guy to stay a while longer. Said left guard Chris Stewart, speaking for himself and several of his teammates who were a part of Monday's news conference: "The stigma of what Coach (Weis) is and how he really is, are really different. If you know him personally, you would know what I'm talking about. If not, you really wouldn't know."

What should we know about Weis?

"It's just like with anything." Stewart said. "They're going to notice the things that are newsworthy -- the negativity. But you've got the charities he's involved in, and you have the people that he's helped that he didn't want any notoriety for. I know people who knew people who were involved in some of these situations."

Very touching. It's just that Notre Dame icon Ara Parseghian, for instance, was a wonderful philanthropist and a wonderful coach.

Notre Dame can have it all.

That's why Weis is unemployed for the moment.

Terence Moore is a national columnist and commentator for FanHouse. He is a frequent panelist on "Rome Is Burning," an ESPN show hosted by Jim Rome, that is seen Monday through Friday at 4:30 PM ET. Moore spent more than three decades working for major newspapers, including 26 years as an award-winning sports columnist for the San Francisco Examiner and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He resides in Atlanta.