What the fuck are they thinking?

Tyrone Willingham is clearly one of the best coaches in football.

They have a great young running back and nothing else. What the fuck do you expect better than 6-5 out of that lump of crap.

They beat Michigan and they beat Tennessee and were in won 3 of the 5 losses and those idiots won't give him another year?

I smell another Nebraska like 5-6 season or worse next year.

Congrats Irish, you've guarenteed sucking for years to come. Dumb move. Join the Big East, you can win there.

I guess the rest of us should be thanking them. Willingham will certainly have a good job and soon. 21-15 with that talent is damn near amazing.

I agree. I think Willingham did as good of job as anybody could with the talent he had. I never understand how a coach who comes in and plans to totally alter a team's offensive style can't be given at least 4 years. How can you judge a coach without giving him the opportunity to have a team that's all his players. Recruiting is as big a part of college football as anything, and Notre Dame never gave him the chance to assemble a full team of his choosing. They just ruined any of the rebuilding process Tyrone had underway there.

aw this is fucking bullshit. Ty was an awesome coach. Who the fuck could win @ ND with all the academic requirements they have? The great players in college football have absolutely no interest in going to school, which is why the Irish have a great graduation rate and a shitty football team.

They didnt want a black guy in there from day one anyway, so this was just a matter of time i suppose. ND will never be what it once was, sorry to say. I think I might be done rooting for them. Why stick with a team who has absolutely NO chance of ever competing for the Nation Championship?

With all due respect I disagree a bit with the top statement. Certainly there are plenty of Jr NFL kids in the NCAA as well as absolute morons who are passed just so they can play football but, The academic requirements keep one from getting less academically intelligent athletes. Not all great athletes are poor in school. Perhaps one of the best wide recievers in the nation is the Randy Moss like freshman 6-4 225 Calvin Johnson. He attends the ridiculously difficult Georgia Institute of Technology and he joined knowing full well they had ish at QB. He is certainly after an education.

Steve Spurrier won at Duke.

Ty Willingham won at Stanford and graduated damn near everyone.

Notre Dame was 9 points give or take away from 9 and 2 this season and they beat Michigan and Tennessee.

This is without a doubt the most unintelligent idiotic coaching firing in the history of collegiate athletics with the exception perhaps of Frank Solich at Nebraska.

Notre Dame was potentially a year or 2 away from being back in the top 10.

Now they have by thier own accord set themselves back even worse than Bob Davie could.

I can't disagree with you more, this was a brilliant move by Notre Dame, they now will get the best young coach to come along in Football in years, to take over, and turn them back into one of the two or three powehouses in the country.

Urban Meyer is a brilliant coach, his offense can not be stopped, when was the last time ND had a coach who had a clue on offense, again this move took guts by the AD, he pulled the trigger, and now for years to come the fans of the fighting irish will be reeping the benefits.

I am not a fan of theirs, but they just turned their future around today, so for all you fans of ND, get ready to start being an exciting team again.

well PJGuy, almost everyone in the history of their program has won with their eligibility requirements. They cheat, just like everyone else, the word 'graduate' should always be surrounded by quotes when stalking about a D-1 student athlete. If they didn't want a black guy, they wouldn't have hired a black guy. Bottom line, its the coaching staff's responsibility if there is no talent, if you can't recruit, all the coaching in the world won't win a championship, and if you can't recruit at Notre Dame, you suck.

Best young coach in college football in years....brilliant coach...good offensive mind. Hmmm...that sounds much like how they introduced Ty when he signed with ND. Let's see how long the Irish give Meyer before they want to hang him out to dry. He better pull of a 8 win season next year or they'll already be booing him.

Why isn't this in the official YOU'RE FIRED! thread?

But Notre Dame didn't give him the chance to recruit. He had 2 full recuriting seasons with them. You can't expect a coach to turn a team around that quickly without getting a full squad of his own players to run his style of play. I believe you at least have to let a coach get his own senior class through before judging his recruiting ability.

I do agree that any discussion of academic requirements and racial aspects is pointless.

Unless Urban Meyer goes to UF. Yeah, they are going to turn it around just like Nebraska turned it around with that offensive genius Callahan right?




Willingham has only been there 3 seasons and he's beginning to recruit decent talent, so instead of moving foward they take 10 steps back because now recruiting goes back in the toilet and they have to learn an entirely new system so you've essentially wasted any experience you had in your upperclassmen.

Changing coaches every 3 years is stupid.


JS, Recruiting wonderful talent certainly hasn't earned Mack Brown a victory in the Red River Shootout or a National Championship has it?

It's a pity Oklahoma isn't in the Big 12 north. The title game might be interesting then.


Willingham was bringing decent talent to ND. They have an excellent freshman tailback. Until they have some semblence of continuity at that school recruits will continue to pass it up for greener pastures and ND will continue to lose. If I'm a talented non Catholic athlete I have no interest what so ever at the Golden Dome. I can just as easily play in a fun area of the country like Florida, California, or Texas rather than the cold desolate land of Indiana.

Even Rudy would pass up Notre Dame now.

I just believe that at Notre Dame, if you're even an average recruiter, you have a top 5 class in the first year, with kids good enough to get on the field. Lesser programs have been turned around in less time, look at UTEP for christ's sake, Bob Stoopes at OU, Pete Carrol at USC, no school has the name recognition of ND, and he did nothing with it.

He's not going to UF, he has wanted to be the head coach at ND his entire life.

Changing coaches every 3 years is stupid, however every blue moon you have a chance to get someone special to be your coach, this was their only chance, he is as hot as he can get right now, they nearly hired him 3 years ago, but did not because of his age, they had to do it now, or he would be turning another school into a powerhouse.

Young great coaches do not come around often, you can't compare this to Nebraska, Callahan is neither young, nor a college genious, he was in the pro's, so it's not even comparable.

Other than Bob Stoops, this is the best coach to come around in the last 20 years, watch the recruiting explode at ND next year, they will be a top 10 years in less than 3 years with this guy.


Oh and you said it, Willingham has been bringing in decent talent. that does not cut it at ND, it never has, and it never will.

I think that was true 5-10 years ago, but I don't think Notre Dame has that superior recognition anymore. Their shine has plummeted ever since Holtz left, and I don't think they can recruit purely on name anymore. A couple good years, and they'll probably jump back to the top of the heap in recruiting, but who wants to play there now?

Ty started out with a program in disarray and was slowly working on rebuilding it. I think many people don't realize just how bad it had gotten at ND and expected immediate results which just wasn't going to happen.

well ty did let a couple games slip away this year(byu,bc.pitt) by being a little conservative, but he did not deserve this at all. shame on you irish

I'm guessing that Urban Meyer is coming to town

Yep. Huge season at Utah with a Heisman-caliber QB. Out clause in his contract if the ND job opens. Already coached at ND.

He's your new coach. Bet the farm on it.

well that makes a little more sense, I'm still not agreeing but I understand.

The way they wasted Willinghams time and effort is attrocious. 10 more points out of the remnants of Bob Davies kids and he'd be 9-2 this year. I don't see how he's done such a poor job in 3 years that he needed to be fired.
I hope Ty wrings every last dime out of them for his time.

I agree with you, he is not getting treated fairly here, but he will bounce back, he is a good coach, but I think ND had a choice to do something different here, and they are going for it.

I would not be surprised if he goes back to Stanford, if not, probably get a assistant job in the Pros, maybe with Arizona, he and Greene are tight.

The biggest thing Notre Dame can do to help with recruiting and everything else is to suck it up and join a conference. With the BCS the way it is now, ND gets screwed unless they're in the top 10. Willingham, I thought, was a good coach, his recruits that are playing now are stars. Look at the freshman running back.......the guy's a horse!!

I'd love to see ND win 9 next year.....too bad it will be the new coach that gets the recognition for it. The alumni at that school are just too rich and have way too much pull when it comes to the football coach.

I know it's been said that anything racial wouldn't be worth the time, but I'm sure if Tyrone wasn't black, the alumni wouldn't be pushing for him to be fired and he would get to see his first recruiting class play as seniors.

If he was white, I still think they wouild have done this, his color played no part in him getting the job, nor him being fired today, it was about the person they wanted to be the coach to turn around their program, and not letting him go become a coach at some other big time school.