Notre Dame Can't Afford Another Misstep
Posted 12-04-2009 at 06:35 PM by illestdomer2005
We all know Lou Holtz was the last homerun hire, but why? It's easy to understand why the choices were slim and none -- bad pun -- when Weis got the nod. After 2 coaches and 8 years of mediocrity, the ND job had lost a lot of its luster, but how did it get to be that way? It's a pattern of settling.
I saw this article on O'Leary from back in the day, and it still stings. How did we go from Lou Holtz and NC talk every year to an internal promotion of Bob Davie, hiring of a mediocre candidate who lied on his resume, and then the hiring of a totally unqualified candidate in Tyrone Willingham? Man oh man did we ever fall asleep at the wheel! Here Malloy, White, and the BOT were driving a Rolls Royce, and paid no attention that there was a detour...I mean we had ALWAYS driven this way...why should we have to change now?!?!?
We need higher standards, higher standards for the football program. Graduating players is great and important, but that's only one half of the student-athlete goal. Certainly, we shouldn't sacrifice the student part for the athlete either, but we don't have to. What we MUST do, however, is hire an elite coach because that is the only roadblock in our way now.
Malloy always justified raising tuition because ND had to keep up with the Harvards and Stanfords of the world. If we wanted to maintain a premier level of education, we had to have better facilities and offer competitive wages to elite faculty. Well, if we want to have an elite football program, we have to do the same.
Fortunately, it sounds like Swarbrick and Jenkins understand this. Lou Somogyi argues that finances shouldn't be the driving force for accepting the ND job, and while I agree, it seems that it might have been a hindrance in the past. Furthermore, the attitude that money shouldn't play a factor reeks of the kind of arrogance (or incompetence) that put us in this ditch to begin with. Gone are the days when a Lou Holtz or Ara Parseghian will come to ND for a pay cut. The Notre Dame job comes with more scrutiny than any other in the country, and we need to offer compelling reasons to take that challenge, compelling reasons other than (or in addition to) Notre Dame lore. Notre Dame is an attractive job, and we have to believe that if we're going to sell it as such!
So, let's not settle for an affordable hire like Randy Edsall or Skip Holtz. Notre Dame football can't afford it!
I saw this article on O'Leary from back in the day, and it still stings. How did we go from Lou Holtz and NC talk every year to an internal promotion of Bob Davie, hiring of a mediocre candidate who lied on his resume, and then the hiring of a totally unqualified candidate in Tyrone Willingham? Man oh man did we ever fall asleep at the wheel! Here Malloy, White, and the BOT were driving a Rolls Royce, and paid no attention that there was a detour...I mean we had ALWAYS driven this way...why should we have to change now?!?!?
We need higher standards, higher standards for the football program. Graduating players is great and important, but that's only one half of the student-athlete goal. Certainly, we shouldn't sacrifice the student part for the athlete either, but we don't have to. What we MUST do, however, is hire an elite coach because that is the only roadblock in our way now.
Malloy always justified raising tuition because ND had to keep up with the Harvards and Stanfords of the world. If we wanted to maintain a premier level of education, we had to have better facilities and offer competitive wages to elite faculty. Well, if we want to have an elite football program, we have to do the same.
Fortunately, it sounds like Swarbrick and Jenkins understand this. Lou Somogyi argues that finances shouldn't be the driving force for accepting the ND job, and while I agree, it seems that it might have been a hindrance in the past. Furthermore, the attitude that money shouldn't play a factor reeks of the kind of arrogance (or incompetence) that put us in this ditch to begin with. Gone are the days when a Lou Holtz or Ara Parseghian will come to ND for a pay cut. The Notre Dame job comes with more scrutiny than any other in the country, and we need to offer compelling reasons to take that challenge, compelling reasons other than (or in addition to) Notre Dame lore. Notre Dame is an attractive job, and we have to believe that if we're going to sell it as such!
So, let's not settle for an affordable hire like Randy Edsall or Skip Holtz. Notre Dame football can't afford it!
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