Willingham out at ND.

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 8:55 pm

QBs who can run may be drafted but NFL teams won't expose their QBs continually by running them as much as a college option team would.

Vick is just a freak of nature. His passes look so effortless. You can tell he's one of the players other players like to watch.

So college QBs with aspirations to play in the NFL should gravitate towards schools with pro offenses. It has been this way for years.

Aikman went from Oklahoma to UCLA after it was clear they weren't going to change from an option offense. Forget his name but they also had a TE who was drafted high and he and Aikman supposedly talked about being at the wrong school.

bdoughty · Post by **bdoughty** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 9:22 pm

Neckthai wrote:How long until someone goes after the "Evil" Mike Leach? After Spurrier, he's most likely to "hang a hundred" on a team.

Of course the way Texas Tech plays defense, any final score will be 100-84 in a game that lasts as long as your average cricket match. So he won't be considered for any Big East job.

Leach would be a nice fit for Florida assuming they had something in the contract that stated the University was allowed to pick his defensive cordinator and the first string defense was required to get at least 15 minutes of scrimmage time.

Murph · Post by **Murph** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 11:31 pm

snaz16 · Post by **snaz16** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 11:37 pm

Willingham's firing was Notre Dame trumping Florida for Urban Meyer. We'll see if Meyer's regard for the ND job overrides loyalty to the man that hired him in Utah, who now happens to be president at Fla.
Willingham will land somewhere, perhaps even back at Stanford.
Actually Willingham getting a hold of Chris Leak would be interesting. The Gators however could be looking at Butch Davis.
Since we are throwing out names,don't forget Rick Nueheisel,now that he has quietly been exonerated by Wash U.

TheFormerBrett44 · Post by **TheFormerBrett44** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 10:16 am

wco81 wrote:
Aikman went from Oklahoma to UCLA after it was clear they weren't going to change from an option offense. Forget his name but they also had a TE who was drafted high and he and Aikman supposedly talked about being at the wrong school.

I believe that TE would be Keith Jackson who had a pretty successful career in the NFL for quite a few years.

Getting back to Ty, this is the first time in history that Notre Dame has "fired" a coach. In the past they just didn't renew a contract, even Faust wasn't fired. The pressure to win at Notre Dame must have gone up a notch or two in the past 5-8 years.

Brett

EDIT: Wait a minute, was Davie fired or did his contract run out and they didn't renew it? I can't remember...

Jackdog · Post by **Jackdog** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 11:32 am

TheFormerBrett44 wrote:
wco81 wrote:
Aikman went from Oklahoma to UCLA after it was clear they weren't going to change from an option offense. Forget his name but they also had a TE who was drafted high and he and Aikman supposedly talked about being at the wrong school.
I believe that TE would be Keith Jackson who had a pretty successful career in the NFL for quite a few years.

Getting back to Ty, this is the first time in history that Notre Dame has "fired" a coach. In the past they just didn't renew a contract, even Faust wasn't fired. The pressure to win at Notre Dame must have gone up a notch or two in the past 5-8 years.

Brett

EDIT: Wait a minute, was Davie fired or did his contract run out and they didn't renew it? I can't remember...

He was fired. http://espn.go.com/ncf/news/2001/1202/1288660.html

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 11:41 am

Interesting scenario here in upstate N.Y. for Notre Dame fans.

The consensus top high school quarterback in the U.S., senior Greg Paulus, is a senior at my alma mater, Christian Brothers Academy in Syracuse. He led CBA to the Class AA (largest class) state title this year even though CBA doesn't qualify for that class in terms of school size. But the state forced CBA, a private school, to Class AA because it beat up on schools of its similar enrollment.

Paulus also is a Top 25 hoop player as a point guard and has made a verbal commitment to Duke for basketball only. The kid was featured in a story in <i>Sports Illustrated</i> a couple of weeks ago.

Here's where it gets sticky. The kid didn't sign his letter of intent with Duke during the signing period last month, as many speculate he's getting cold feet about giving up football. The kid holds just about every New York state passing record and has run a pro-style offense in high school at CBA since starting his freshman year. He's as good of a high school QB as Hart was a high school RB, in my opinion.

Talk in town before Willingham's firing was that Paulus was considering signing with Notre Dame for football and hoops. But there was speculation that he was reluctant to go to ND for football because of ND's West Coast offense and its lack of downfield passing.

If Meyer and his wide-open passing attack come to ND from Utah, Paulus could change his mind about hoop for Duke and head to South Bend for football and basketball.

Irish fans could only hope. This kid is as talented a multi-sport athlete as Central New York ever has produced.

Take care,
PK

icvu42 · Post by **icvu42** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 11:48 am

PK,

It also said in the story that Coach K is suppose to come into town tonight to watch Paulas play his first hoops game of the season and confirm his committment to Duke. This will be an interesting story to watch.

Rick

bdoughty · Post by **bdoughty** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 2:32 pm

Aikman went from Oklahoma to UCLA after it was clear they weren't going to change from an option offense. Forget his name but they also had a TE who was drafted high and he and Aikman supposedly talked about being at the wrong school.

Darn skippy, why change an offense that wins you a national title after Aikman breaks his ankle against Miami.

Pete · Post by **Pete** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 9:42 am

Being a lifelong Irish fan, I was happy when I heard the news of Willinghams release. It is quite obvious that he is a class individual with a lot to offer an institution, but on Saturday's he was in over his head.

BK, I understand and respect your knowledge of football, but I did not see the improvement that you mention. I saw inconsistency, mental mistakes, lack of clock management, lack of adjustments during the game and at halftime, and no real identity on offense or defense with no schemes to attack the quality opponents there were playing week to week. The BC game is a fine example. ND pushing BC around the whole first half at home, after halftime it is a totally different game, BC adjusts, ND doesn't and BC wins. There were many, many instances like this, and if you watched every second of every ND game like me, it was easy to see.

It was also mentioned that he didn't even have his recruits in his system yet, well, in his second full year of recruiting, he signed 17 players when they had many more scholies to give. Usually Notre Dame would be ranked in the top ten in recruiting in all of the publications on name alone, last year, you couldn't find them in the top 30. This years class wasn't looking much better. 9 or 10 verbals, all 3 star and below. It just wasn't happening.

I believe ND does need Urban Meyer. Someone to pump some life into the program. Someone to get kids excited about ND football again, because right now, the excitement just isn't there.