Ty Willingham out as ND coach

[Sundevils21]

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If UW is smart- they'll hire him in a quick second.

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Which they proved they weren't when they fired Rick Nuehisel(spelled horribly) for doing something he was told in a memo was okay.

[mmbt0ne]

I will greatfully accept a tuition hike if we can get rid of Chan Gailey for Ty Willingham.

[hoyaboy1]

Willingham was no better than Davie and things were going downhill quick.

Meyer has an out in his contract allowing him to go to 3 schools, 1 of which is ND, and they didn't want to lose the chance to sign him.

[PhatTBoll]

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Because Notre Dame hates black people.


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Did you post this just to piss me off?

[PhatTBoll]

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Yeah, this is highly dumb. What's he supposed to do without players?

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Well, that's a big part of the problem. The coach recruits the players. The past couple years Willingham underperformed in that area. The recent deterioration of the offensive line was just disgraceful. ND used to always have one of the best O-lines in college football. Seeing a talented young QB like Quinn get massacred every week is infuriating.

Also, the recent spate of blowouts really hurt Ty. If you watched the USC game, it wasn't just a case of USC being better, or having a good performance. USC was in a class above ND, and that's unacceptable.

That said, I would have liked to see him get another year to turn it around. But I'm not surprised at all by the firing.

[Mano]

Well, being a Utah fan this is not good news. Do you all think Meyer is the no-brainer replacement? I was hoping that they would give Willingham another year and Meyer would wait it out at Utah, but not looking too good.

[J.R.]

They fired ty so as to not lose meyer to florida, its a simple as that. Meyer has a clause in his Utah contract allowing him to opt out for ND, coached there from 1996-2000 and as almost hired last time around. Ty didn't have to go, but Kevin White couldn't risk losing Urban. It deflects the criticism of him as AD to hire a coach the boosters and alumni want.

It also didn't help Ty lost 5 games by 30 or more points (totally getting outclassed) and lost the games he was supposed to win (purdue, BYU). The students were so fed up they aranged for the rally to protest their football team this afternoon.

ND needs passing offense to be able to get kids to want to come to ND, which already has enough recruiting problems given their academic standards and religious affiliation. No top prep kid with pro aspirations who plays a "skilled" offensive position would go play for Ty.

[Boris]

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ND needs passing offense to be able to get kids to want to come to ND, which already has enough recruiting problems given their academic standards and religious affiliation. No top prep kid with pro aspirations who plays a "skilled" offensive position would go play for Ty.

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My understanding was that Willingham is a west coast guy. I don't see why a skill position player would not want to play in a west coast offense. Also the few times I watched ND it seemed like they were pretty aggressive with deep passing routes.

It seems pretty obvious that Kevin White caved in to the boosters and didn't give Willingham the same fair shake (5 years) that every other ND coach has received. Pretty gutless if you ask me. Urban Meyer was a big part of the loser Davie years and has one good season coaching a team that is not exactly playing the top competition in cfb. Urban Meyer is a media darling but he is not a proven football coach.

[J.R.]

Yes, he ran a "west coast offense", a term that is loosely thrown around. Many teams run "west coast offenses", but regardless of what label you put on it, Ty's teams weren't predicated on big passing numbers. IMO Ty wasn't gonna get the big offense recruits anytime soon, and didn't.

But this wasn't so much about Ty being bad (although there wasn't much love for him amongst ND supporters, and although he was mediocre in his 5 years at stanford ND made him (I beleive) the 3rd highest paid college football coach when they hired him), but about losing out on Urban. Was White gonna tie his fate up in an unpopular coach, or fire ty and try to bring in the media darling with a histroy at ND and broad support amongst the boosters and alumni. White's the guy who signed Davie to a 5 year contract and then fired him shortly thereafter, hired george O'Leary and then passed over Urban last time for Ty, and ND supporters haven't forget it.

Urban has won, but he hasn't won with his recruits at BGSU or Utah. He is on record dicussing how difficult it is to recruit at ND with academics and religion, so the onus is on him when/if he gets hired.

[DontRaisePlz]

Not inferring anything about his dismissal, but the fact that you guys think Notre Dame didn't have players intrigues me.

They are chock-full of All-Americans at every position, INCLUDING skill positions. I would bet that 4 out of 5 of their starting line were at least top-20, if not top-10 ranked as high school seniors. Just to name a few off the top of my head; Quinn, Stovall, Walker, Sullivan, Goolsby, and Abiamiri.

It is for this reason that I thought Ty didn't deserve any coaching awards in his debut season.

I hate ND as much as anyone, but all they need is a coach. SC was a huge underachiever before Carroll and OU was almost dead before Stoops.