When Willingham got fired I thought he was an absolute lock to go to Notre Dame. I can remember these words like it was yesterday - "Urban Meyer will be the new head coach at Florida". I felt like I got punched in the stomach. I wish him well if he goes to Jacksonville but he would have had a statue outside the stadium like all the other great Irish coaches.
Pope Urban has the integrity of an alley cat.
As big a grifter as Trump.
What Urban and Florida did was totally unethical. Florida never asked for permission from Utah to talk with Urban. When Florida fired Zook in October of 2004, they immediately contacted Urban and signed him to a contract that October. But they kept it hush hush, as they planned to announce it after the Utah regular season was over, pretending that they just spoke and signed Urban that December.
However, Notre Dame's firing of Willingham became a fly in the ointment. Urban had constantly made it known in the media that Notre Dame was his dream job and now ND was interested in hiring him. There was no way that Urban and Florida could have Meyer not meet with ND to discuss the ND job - the media would immediately ask how he could refuse to meet with ND to discuss his dream job. Urban and Florida could not let the media start asking questions and find out about the unethical action of both Urban and Florida in discussing/accepting the Florida job in the middle of Utah's season.
So the infamous meeting in December where Father Jenkins, White and other top brass in the administration met with Meyer in Utah. Meyer never intended to accept the job as he already had that signed contract with Florida. So he immediately began making ridiculous demands about allowing numerous exceptions in each recruiting class, demanding that he alone and not the University be allowed to discipline his football players - knowing full well that Notre Dame would walk away. He also made the well-known phone calls to his father, Davie and Holtz asking their opinion on whether he should accept Florida or Notre Dame - another smoke screen, as again, he never intended to accept the ND offer.
When flying back to South Bend from Utah, the Notre Dame contingent spoke among themselves and came to the conclusion that they had been played. Meyer coached at ND and he knew the rules that had to be followed at ND and he had to know that the demands he made would not be agreed to by Notre Dame.
I got this information shortly after this meeting in Utah took place from a couple of people in the ND athletic department who were in a position to know.
Also, he choose not to come. In hindsight, we should have hired him in 2001.
Urban Meyer's run-first, spread option offense calls upon a quarterback to carry a significant load when it comes to the quarterback zone reads.
This works very well in the collegiate ranks, where mismatches in speed, strength, etc., all make it very possible for a quarterback to run through the opposition. A big fellow the likes of a Tim Tebow, for example, can easily clear the trenches, and take on 190 lb safeties for even more yardage, while still being able to match an opposing linebacker.
Unfortunately, in the pros, everyone is fast, strong, and has a good football IQ. They don't get fooled, and can easily catch up to a running quarterback. In addition to this, those 230 lb linebackers in college are now closer to 250 lbs, and those 190 lb safeties are 210 lbs or more. That, plus, they all hit hard and fast. Quarterbacks will get annihilated in a short time period running that much in the pros.
One look at a running QB the likes of Cam Newton, tells you a chilling story about how he became an old man in the NFL at the young age of 31, since all of those hits he took running the ball have wrecked his body. This guy was a superb athlete, complete with excellent size and physical strength, and in the end, his reliance on that is what killed off what could have been a two decade career.
I wouldn't doubt it if he were addicted to painkillers at this phase of his life.
Give it a few more years, and he'll be hobbling around.
Tebow did the smart thing and called it quits.
It will be the same thing that happened with Butch Davis and Bobby Petrino - they see through his bullshit and things start to fall apart.
I will give him three years max, although that depends on the contract Jacksonville hand him.
he falls in that bracket.
others”. Then again either was Kelly up until a copy of years ago.
Dude was lazy & incompetent & his records @ ND & UW prove this.
On the heels of a 5-7 season, with multiple blowout losses (including Syracuse) when we had missed on all but 7 of our first 40 scholarship offers, he had to be called by his boss to cancel a staff golf vacation to get on top of recruiting.
The 11-12 record over 2 seasons was a huge problem, along with 3 straight 31-point losses to U.S.C. Even Davie didn't dip to those depths.
Equally as big of an issue was the recruiting failures. The 2003 class was sparkling, which came along the coattails of that 10-win 2002 season. 2004 may have been the worst class in the history of N.D. 2005 was awful, too. The "give-him-5-years" idea would have put us in a depth hole that we may never have recovered from. No effort being made, no coherent roster plan, far too few linemen.
I'll give Willingham credit for bringing in Sullivan and Harris in 2003, thanks to the momentum from 2002. Both proved to be long time starters and yes, even in the NFL, but never reached their potential until 2005-2006.
His 2004 class, though, had two O-line commitments in the way of John Kadous and Chauncey Incarnato, who never panned out anyways, since they left before the 2005 season even started. They weren't exactly highly sought-after recruits either, where Willingham's passive recruiting almost destroyed the program.
2005's line commits, Paul Duncan and Mike Turkovich, were both brought in by Charlie Weis. They at least turned out to be serviceable starters.
2007's miserable season would have been a rotten one for any coach out there. Even Nick Saban or Urban Meyer would have only gotten us to maybe a 5 or 6 win season with that roster, thanks to the absolute lack of true junior and senior athletes on that team. For that matter, when you put a bunch of still-raw freshmen and sophomores against well-developed teams the likes of that 2007 Michigan team, it was a recipe for absolute disaster.
y to rebuild the two deep. It wasn't just bad recruiting, it was no recruiting.
Tyrone Willingham was someone who took very few active steps to even maintain the program, and certainly didn't take any steps to improve it.
Look at 2004 and 2005's recruiting classes, which were the two absolutely worst classes of all time. If it weren't for Charlie Weis pulling off a last second snag of a few more recruits, 2005's class would have been as bad, or worse as 2004.
In that 2004 class, I can count maybe 6 players who made at least a meaningful contribution. That's it. Normally, you would expect at least 10+ to make some sort of contribution.
Then look at how terrible the offensive line recruiting was under Willingham during those last two years... It was no surprise when 2007 rolled around, that we had virtually zero developed junior or senior talent ready to play. You simply can't even hang in there with teams at their prime.
Charlie Weis at least helped take the right steps to right the ship that was sinking, leaving Brian Kelly with a much better stocked cupboard than what Willingham left him.
Trying to pin the decision to fire TW on anything other than he was an inept head coach denies what really went on.
He is a fine person but that doesn't make him a good head football coach.
He was talked into taking the job by Kevin White for the wrong reasons.
TW didn't want to be in South Bend. His family hated it. He was already talking to Washington about the head coaching job without telling his boss which was insincere at best, a colossal finger in the face to a guy who was a supporter at worst.
Kevin White made several bad decisions: retaining Davie when he should have been fired, failing to do his homework re: O'Leary, swinging and missing badly when it came to trying to hire Urban, the public mishandling of trying to hire Gruden.
He is, and always has been no matter where he was at, a terrible recruiter. While that didn't matter at Stanford, it does matter at ND and Washington.
He was fired at Washington for the same reasons he was fired at ND. Both programs were in disarray after a few years with him at the helm.
Results do matter and he wasn't a very good head football coach. After starting 8-0 at ND, he went 13-15 after that.
I feel like Jacksonville will remain mired in mediocrity even with Meyer at the helm. He is suited to the college game, and I'll be surprised if his success translates to the NFL.
No offense dude, but it's been 15 years, time to move on.
Gruden was simply an administrative failure on our part. I despise Malloy and will never forgive him for squashing that and forcing Willingham on us. Gruden should have coached Notre Dame for a decade.
With Meyer, it was more brutal. Just the timing and the alignment of the stars all coming together to keep that from happening...Florida being willing to fire Zook mid-season, then their Top 6 choices all saying "no," then Meyer quietly starting conversations with Florida with no one knowing it, to the point that our leadership flew to S.L.C. expecting a quick sign and dash. Crushing.
Notre Dame was his true dream school, but he knew academics would prevent him from winning national championships, so he chose the factories.
He abandoned his true love for a hooker.
cyst causing migraines.
For $12 million per...suddenly all is well
What might of been. Could he have won a title at ND? Maybe he didn't think he could. He, as an assistant at ND, knew the culture of the football program. Win at ND within the guidelines and you get yourself a statue and football immortality.
any and all pain into a very happy retirement with a couple of NC’s to go along with the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
There are plenty of high flying thugs in the NFL who are great players, who will be very well covered with protection in the way of high priced lawyers, something that college kids don't have.
Also, they don't have to go to class, at least act like human beings on campus, etc.
"I didn't come here to play skool"
