Hello all,
To start this week I want to give big ups to my man Cortland Finnegan for locking T.O. down in the Titans 41-17 beatdown of the Bills this weekend. I actually took the 2.5 hour trek up I-65 (yes, 2.5 hrs- nice work JS) to Nashville and got to watch Cortland battle T.O. for most the day in person. We got to see a little bit of everything: lock down man to man D, T.O. finding a couple of holes in the zone to get some catches (3 for 81 yards on the day), trash talk after almost every play, and T.O. absolutely refusing to run block or run full speed if he wasn't the primary route on a play. Having never seen T.O. play in person before, I was amazed by this part of his game. We watched the DB come from his side to stop the run countless times throughout the day; I mean not only did he not consider making contact on a block but didn't even move enough to get between the man checking him and the ball to at least alter the defenders path. It's a tribute to how great Cortland was to rattle T.O. to the point where T.O. was scared to block him on runs.... I've always thought T.O. was a super competitive guy who didn't know how to control his emotions on the sideline; but, after watching the game Sunday, I think he is just a numbers guy who would rather have a big game and lose than have low numbers and win- because winners throw blocks (which is why Hines Ward has 2 rings and T.O. has none!). Overall, good win for the Titans and great game by Cortland....
So, what do Charlie Weis, Bob Davie and Ty Willingham have in common?? The same winning percentage (.583) as the head coach of Notre Dame... Davie and Willingham were fired; but, so far Weis has kept his job when his record compared to the other two is actually way worse. If you look at Weis' tenure in South Bend, his first two years (9-3 and 10-3) were clearly his best; and as everyone knows, his success during these two seasons clearly rests on the talent handed to him by Willingham's stellar recruiting- in the 10-3 2006 (His best season by far!!!!) Sugar Bowl season, he had 8 pre-season all-americans (Brady Quinn , Jeff Samardzija, Darius Walker , Tom Zbikowski, Ryan Harris, Victor Abiamiri and John Sullivan)- NONE of which were his recruits. Even this time underachieved, ranked #3 in the pre-season polls, the only ranked team they beat was #19 Penn State and they were absolutely blown out it all 3 of their other games against ranked teams (47-21 at home to #15 Michigan, 44-21 at USC- to a team who just lost Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart, and 41-14 in the Sugar Bowl against LSU- which brings up the question why the hell did they get a Sugar Bowl Bid???). So, if you look at his record without the 1st 2 years because none of the players were his, he stands at 16-19 (seriously... and he is still there???)!! His teams have suffered some humiliating losses over this stretch as well- in 2007, a Weis coached ND squad lost to Navy for the first time in 43 years (yes, 43 years, and the game was in South Bend!), and again in 2009- now I'm not knocking Navy because I respect the hell out of every one of those guys, but ND has a such a crazy recruiting advantage over them (average difference up front is 46 lbs) that this game shouldn't be close and losing should be out of the question. In 2008, Weis lost at home on senior day to an 8-loss Syracuse team with a lame duck head coach. His record against winning teams (not even ranked but just winning) is a brutal 8-19, Willingham's was 12-15, Davie's was 18-22. Against teams with a losing record: Weis is 19-2 and just to compare it to a good coach- Lou Holtz's was 47-1, Ty Willingham was 9-1- which brings up another point- Weis has the same winning percentage as Ty Willingham despite playing a much easier schedule (twice as many games against losing teams!!!)... Also, even though Weis was brought in under the "offensive genius lable" because of his time as the Patriots coordinator, he has been shut out 3 times so far at Notre Dame (with 2 Heisman candidate QBs I might add), which is the same total of shutouts they had from 1965-2001!!! Right now they are sitting at 6-4 with two losable games left (they have a chance against UCONN but are going to get steamrolled by Stanford) and despite being picked by many people to go to a BCS bowl and by at least one moron (who works for ESPN) to win the national championship, they'll probably finish at 7-6 with a minor bowl appearance and will lose their QB to the NFL draft after the season. So, why is Weis still at ND?? Because they might not be able to afford to fire him. As you may remmeber, 7-games into his ND career and after a 34-31 LOSS (yes, you read this right, a loss) to USC (remmember the game when Reggie Bush pushed Leinart over the goal-line on the last second sneak play- and he still has never beaten USC by the way), he was given a 10-year 30+ million dollar contract extension of which he still has 6 years at over 3 mil per year left... Notre Dame is still paying Ty Willingham about $700k a year, so if you combine that with the 1.5-2 mil per year Chuck would probably get and the 2-3 mil per year it would take to get a top flight coach- that is getting pretty expensive (yes, even for Notre Dame). But, they certainly can't afford to keep him either...
So who is going to replace him?? I've heard of several names. One being former super bowl winning coach Jon Gruden, who like Weis has no college experience but unlike Weis was a very successful HEAD coach in the NFL and is known as a great motivator. However, Gruden agreed to a contract extension as an analyst with ESPN yesterday, the timing of which seems to cast doubt on his level of interest. But, I'd love to see "Chucky" (I mean look at that picture) at ND and watch him go crazy on NBC. Next is Urban Meyer- I'm not even going to address this one- there is no chance he is going to leave the perfect set-up he has at UF. Chris Peterson has a great record (32-3) at Boise State, is known as a great recruiter and his players love him- but he not known on the national stage and if Notre Dame is willing to eat over 20 mil to fire Weis, I couldn't see them not going after a bigger name... Could that be Brian Kelly who has led Cincinnati to the national spotlight and has a 147-54 career record??
Charlie Weis' futility as a head coach, combined with the flops of Eric Mangini and Romeo Crennel brings up another point- how good is Bill Belichick?? and how much of a role do his assistants actually have? I know many people (including myself) are questioning his move to go for it on Sunday night, but the Pats have constantly contended every year (even last year without Tom Brady) for the past decade which is amazing in a sport with a salary cap...Sir Elton John and Billy Joel have postponed their tour once again due to a medical illness...
Jay-Z has cancelled the remaining dates of his 2009 tour due to "scheduling conflicts". He was supposed to appear in Lubbock and Albuquerque before the finale in Austin, TX. He plans on expanding his 2010 tour... Wow....
Kanye returned to the stage last night in London which marked his first high-profile appearance since the VMA disaster....
The SEC championship with a BCS title game berth on the line will match up Alabama with Florida on December 5th, plenty of good seats availible...
As always, please post any shows, events or news you know of. And be sure to check out the "near you" tab on our homepage, www.roosterfly.com for a list of concerts, sporting events and shows in your area!
Till next time,
MN
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