Pete Fiutak= Fool

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There are still media personalities drinking the Weis Kool-Aid and drowning by the cupful.

Charlie Weis just isn't all that bad a head coach.

Weis might not be pretty, he might not be warm and fuzzy, and he might take arrogance to a whole new level, but above all else, for good and mostly for bad, he's more demanding and has set the expectations higher for Notre Dame football than the harshest of Irish fans could ever try to create.

He made it clear from the start of his tenure that anything less than a national championship is unacceptable in South Bend, and he's right.

Money is never a problem for a school with a $7 billion endowment. The spotlight is always on, above and beyond the NBC contract. The history and tradition are second to none, the school has a sweetheart of a deal with the BCS, and after years of rigid requirements, things have eased up just enough to make it possible to recruit just about anyone. Don't let anyone fool you with the garbage that a coach can't win big at Notre Dame anymore. It's the opposite. It's hard for a coach not to win at Notre Dame. And Weis knows this, but just winning isn't enough.

Help me out here, people. Charlie Weis has high expectations. That's wonderful, no sarcasm intended. However, you don't get to keep your job simply based on having high expectations for your team. Every head coach in the country has high expectations for his team. Since when did evaluating coaching prowess become about what the coach expects? But hold up. The foolishness doesn't stop there:

Of course, the USC near-miss only hid the program's major problems which were exposed last year. The overall athleticism is mediocre compared to the top programs. Brady Quinn really was a special player, and when he left, along with Jeff Samardzija and Darius Walker, the cupboard was not only bare, but it quickly became obvious that there was absolutely nothing to work with on the offensive line. While the defense was considered the biggest issue after getting torched by Ohio State and LSU in consecutive BCS games, in fact, everything needed work. Notre Dame wasn't just a player or two away.

This wasn't a case of Alabama this year, where a slew of tremendous young talents were able to blend up with a solid core of decent veterans to create something special. The base that Weis needed to get his era off to a hot start all left, and he wasn't able to restock the shelves right away. That's part his fault, a wee bit the fault of Ty Willingham's recruiting problems, and partly the fault of the program as whole for not recognizing that 2007 was necessary to start relatively clean with a slew of young players.

At least Fiutak didn't go into a full-on "Ty's fault" rampage. However, I'm not sure that it's just "part" Weis' fault. The buck stops with him, and he's the guy that's responsible for making sure that the team has the players it needs to succeed. All I heard the past two years was how great Weis' recruiting classes were, and how Notre Dame would be back because Weis was bringing the talent in by the truckload. He hasn't done anything with it, though; instead, he's followed the worst season in Notre Dame history with a 6-6 one. He might just be 6-7 if they run into the wrong opponent in their bowl game.

Here's the truth, in plain English: Charlie Weis isn't a good college coach. He's not good at developing talent, either. Weis succeeded in the pros because he's good at putting finished products in the best places to excel. In the NFL, the developing and maturing is already done for you; the only thing coaches have to do is put those guys in positions to make plays. That's exactly what Weis did during his first two seasons at Notre Dame, too; he took a group of guys that Ty Willingham recruited, and did what Ty could not: he put them in the best positions to succeed on the field. However, now, he's working from ground zero, and a big part of that is his fault. Instead of giving Brady Quinn's backups some reps during blowouts in 2005 and 2006, the Fighting Irish ended up with a quarterback controversy to begin their 2007 campaign. Their three quarterbacks--Evan Sharpley, Demetrius Jones, and Jimmy Clausen, combined for a total of two pass attempts. Because of Weis' lack of foresight during his first two years at head coach, ND had no clear cut starter at quarterback, no guy with any real in-game experience. The much lauded recruiting classes didn't turn up any impact players in the trenches, and given the Irish's pathetic rushing numbers, along with giving up 20 sacks this year, still hasn't come up with any. Weis is a professional coach trying to survive in a college game, with no idea as to how to interact with a team full of immature, 18-22 year old guys. Trying to convince anyone with a lick of common sense that he's somehow a good coach is akin to trying to sell salt to a slug. Weis is good at moving guys who are already molded for him; he's not so good at doing the molding himself. The crap youth argument Fiutak tries to push later in his article doesn't fly, either; Alabama has a young guys playing all over the place, and they're 12-0. Florida has the youngest team in the SEC, and doesn't have a single senior starting on defense; they're 11-1. This isn't to say that Weis should have done equally well with his crew, because Nick Saban and Urban Meyer are exceptional coaches. However, if Weis were a good coach, or even a mediocre one, Notre Dame wouldn't have gone 3-9 last year, and wouldn't be 6-6 this year. You don't lose to teams like Air Force, Navy, and Syracuse over that span if you have good coaching. Talent alone should be able to get over in games like that. Youth is an excuse for decent teams not being better; it is not an excuse for bad ones.

Really, though, I don't know why it's so hard for the media to admit that it's wrong on this one. Hypnotized by the allure of Weis' four Super Bowl rings, the media tripped over itself to heap unending praise on the guy. Given his swaggering proclamations during his first press conference, I can't exactly blame them. They swooned over his presumed tactical genius, and some even predicted a Notre Dame win over Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl because "Weis with a month to prepare," would lead the Irish to victory over a proven, Jim Tressel-led Buckeye squad. 34 points and over 600 yards later, that theory was shot to pieces. However, it seems that there are still those unwilling to admit to being wrong, so instead, they're still trying to sell the rest of the sane world their brand of crazy. Unfortunately: