All Entries Tagged With: "Notre Dame Football"

Clausen’s choice clouds ND future

The decision that will most impact the future of Notre Dame football will not be made by President John I. Jenkins, athletics director Jack Swarbrick, coach Charlie Weis or the small group of influential alumni who have served as behind-the-scenes power brokers in the not-so-distant past. The player whose right arm has been most responsible for Notre Dame’s resurgence now holds the program’s fate in his hands.

What’s significant about Dayne Crist’s seemingly insignificant injury is that Jimmy Clausen will likely leave for the NFL after this season. If so, Weis will have to rely on an inexperienced sophomore coming off major surgery heading into a season in which the Irish were expected to compete for a national title.

Neil Hayes-Sun Times

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Cred is back?

Before you get too deep in the debate over where Charlie Weis’ Notre Dame football program is after Saturday’s 34-27 loss to USC, consider where it was with one tick left on the clock.

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Spurrier supporting Meyer to ND rumors?

Under the won’t go away file, Urban Meyer to ND was addressed by “the old ball coach”. During a radio interview, Spurrier says it’s plausible that Meyer could seek a new challenge, especially if the Irish job is Meyer’s dream job.

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Weis twittering on Michigan

Charlie Weis is in on the Twitter? Even college coaches are updating the fan base on the popular forum. Weis twittered about the upcoming schedule, preparing for the Wolverines, and Michigan’s changing schemes.

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Weis confirms he mulled leaving ND

Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis confirms he talked with his family about whether they thought he should quit after last season, though he said he never wanted to leave.

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Weis almost left ND

Teddy Greenstein writes that Charlie Weis considered leaving Notre Dame, to return to an NFL coordinator’s job. Weis thought about it after his son Charlie Jr. skipped school for three days after the Irish’s home loss to Syracuse.

“We talked about all that as a family, and we felt that we didn’t want to leave that way,” Weis said during a recent 35-minute interview with the Tribune. “That would have been the easy way out. That’s not why we came here.” They came to set down roots and win football games. They did both immediately. Remember that first season, 2005? Weis’ team started 9-2 with three-point losses to Michigan State and USC. Weis had no trouble winning. Everything else that comes with being Notre Dame’s coach — “all the hats you wear,” in Weis parlance — proved the greater challenge.

Weis, it turned out apparently, could not have been more poorly equipped to appease those other slices in the pie chart — school administrators, former players, alumni clubs and the media. As an NFL coordinator, his success was judged on two numbers — points and yards. And he came from the New England Patriots, a Bill Belichick operation in which coaches barely emerge from their caves long enough to attend practice. Belichick assistants don’t meet with reporters or mingle with the public; they watch film. It’s a different world from the college game. It seems that Weis now sees a bigger picture, but he’s reluctant to acknowledge that.

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ND in battle for Montana’s son

Nate Montana already has walked on the Irish program, however his brother Nick is being pursued by big time programs such as Ohio State, Alabama, and Notre Dame.

Alabama’s football program has officially entered the recruiting race for Westlake Village, Calif., quarterback Nick Montana, offering the son of NFL legend Joe Montana a scholarship late last week. Montana has already been offered by a number of eastern programs, including Florida State, Ohio State and Notre Dame, which of course is where his father played. It’s also where his brother Nate recently walked-on. Nick has said he wants to make a choice soon. It seems a stretch for Alabama to win the battle for a touted QB all the way from the West Coast, but the Crimson Tide is trying.

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Charlie in the box?

Charlie Weis has once again restructured his staff. Weis will re-take over the offensive play calling. Jon Tenuta will call the defensive signals, and Corwin Brown will help Weis with the game strategy. The question was posed to Weis if he would consider coaching from the press box, where he had success with after a knee injury forced him to do so in the Honolulu Bowl. Weis also says he considered hiring former Browns coach Romeo Crennel.

Charlie Weis will serve as his own offensive coordinator and will call plays for Notre Dame next season. Although not unexpected, that was the first bit of news to come out of the first interview session with the Irish coach since Signing Day. 

Does that mean he will call plays from the coaching booth, as he did during Notre Dame’s 49-21 win over Hawaii, or from the sideline, as he has done throughout his career?

“My wife asked me that, as well,” Weis said, laughing. “That’s no kidding. She asked me the same question.

“I can tell you that it’s a subject we’ve addressed as a staff. Although I’d say it’s definitely on the lower end of fifty-fifty, it’s not something that’s a five-percent consideration by us at this point. … I can honestly tell you it’s not a no. … My wife will be very happy that you asked me that question.”

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Gruden preping for college?

Jon Gruden who has been connected with Notre Dame on many rumor fronts, is studying the college game. Gruden’s studies include the spread offense. If Charlie Weis does struggle this year, look for Gruden’s name to top the list of a rumored replacement.

More than two weeks since the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fired Jon Gruden, his alarm still buzzes at 3:17 a.m. Time to go to work. “You have to keep trying to get better,” Gruden said. His old desk at One Buc Place is now occupied by Raheem Morris, but the only coach to lead the franchise to a Super Bowl championship has a new place to hole up in the dark. It’s at the St. Pete Times Forum downtown, where Tampa Bay Storm Coach Tim Marcum of the Arena Football League has given Gruden an office complete with all the computer equipment needed to engage in his passion of breaking down tape. The man has a new mission (and it’s not to lower his golf handicap). “I want to learn the spread offense,” Gruden said. “This is exciting for me.” Whether that means Gruden’s next job ??? and he’ll definitely have one ??? will be in college or the NFL is anyone’s guess.

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Irish recruits overrated?

Andy Staples of SI.com claims the Notre Dame recruiting class is getting too much credit.

Staples said that Notre Dame is given too much credit for its recruiting classes. What happens is the folks who write these things up know that their readers are Irish fans. So they give these kids more credit. And the lore of the program is still a big factor in older writers’ minds. Staples did say Notre Dame did very well by getting Hawaiian linebacker Manti Te’o. Staples was a bit shocked, because Te’o is a Mormon who is going to the Catholic school Notre Dame.

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Gruden to ND?

Notre Dame has had a long time interest in Jon Gruden. NY Daily News Pro Football Talk says they are hearing it’s in the works?

With each passing hour, speculation is mounting that former Bucs coach Jon Gruden could become the next coach at Notre Dame. Apart from the rumors published recently in the New York Daily News, we’re hearing more and more talk pointing to the possibility that something will be going down, apparently right after the Irish’s incoming recruiting class give their binding, written commitments to attend the school, on the assumption that Weis will be the head coach. And so, once it’s too late for the recruits to change their minds, they might find out that they’ll have a new head coach when spring practice opens.

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Meyer wanted to go to ND

Teddy Greenstein reiterates Urban Meyer’s love for the Irish. Meyer claims he wanted to take the Notre Dame job in 2004. His family wanted to look at the Florida position. Could Notre Dame officials come at Meyer again in the near future?

Meyer avoided the topic at BCS championship game media day. He declined to talk about the context of his “dream job” remark. Then, after agreeing that former Notre Dame coaches view the school as a special place, he would not say why.

“Next question,” he said with a small smile.

Meyer, described as devoutly Catholic and named for a pope, grew up in the northern Ohio city of Ashtabula, not far from the Pennsylvania border.

In his authorized biography, “Urban’s Way,” Meyer said he turned down Notre Dame in 2004 because of the timing. With a young family, he didn’t want to recruit nationally.

“I wanted to go to Notre Dame,” Meyer acknowledged in the book, “but my family wanted to talk about going to Florida.”

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