I am almost afraid to think of all the thunder that robertg is busily calling down from his Fortress O' Solitude (aka, the PC in the back right-hand corner of the local library). No doubt he'll have 28 numbered paragraphs to explain how UConn is in on the vast conspiracy that keeps ND from winning against subpar opposition...

PLEASE STOP...This is NOT and upset! ND deserved to get their asses handed to them again on SENIOR day! Again we played soft as cotton! Again I knew exactly what plays were coming and what routes just by looking at personnel, formation, down, and distance. I knew exactly what UCONN would run just from looking at their personnel and formations. If ND defense could not identify that UCONN was gonna run the ball right down our throats than they all need to be walking out that same door the seniors are walking out of. This was pathetic and insulting! I saw lineman for UCONN fire out of their stance fall to one knee and get right back up and stay with their blocks! I saw ND defenseman, every last one of them always on their hands and knees tackling the insects on the turf or ghosts on the field! Why is it our guys can NEVER keep their feet and trip over blades of grass? Why is it Armando Allen albeit gained 100yds seems as if he's always tired after a few runs or if not he's limping off the field after getting tackled? Why can't we get an offensive push on the goalline especially with 6 and 7 offensive lineman on the line at once? Why do we continue week after week to give up sacks when the D is only rushing 4 DLineman? I mean it seems like every D lineman for EVERY team we played this year will be pro bowlers in the NFL with the way they just sack our quarterback time after time after time after time again and again and again! Why does CHARLIE keep playing these bums that are making the same mistakes week after week? I haven't seen WEIS get in a player's face once yet for poor blocking or tackling except for the Washington State game! A game that really didn't even matter! I can put up with losing! I can't handle losing with poor fundamentals, poor adjustments, sloppy play, and every other phrase that describes a horrid team, coach, and staff! ESPECIALLY WHEN THE REFS GIFT WRAPPED THE GAME TWICE FOR US ROBERTG! And for every ND fan who says the reason Charlie should stay is because he's graduating players. I can find a MILLION and 1 reasons why he needs to go ASAP and so could any other logical thinking college football fan even if you are or ARE NOT an ND fan! Last BUT certainly NOT least, to UCONN they deserve the win. I couldn't be prouder than to lose to them and COACH EDSALL! My CONDOLENCES to the HOWARD FAMILY. R.I.P. JAZZ!

I truly do not know what the answer to all this is. quality recruits, quality players, quality coaches, quality program, quality school. I'm totally stumped. I am willing to let Swarbrick and Jenkins figure it out and accept their decision without complaint.

The basic premise of point #5 was that Charlie may not be good coach, but good coaches won't want the ND job. Pretty sad state of affairs.

I'm attaching a link to the best commentary that I have found on the Irish and our football program. You will not be disappointed.

http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/category/daily-domer/

Keith, seriously "trying to find a coach that's better suited for a job that the current coach seemingly fits perfectly." I can't comprehend how you can make any number of accurate and reasonable observations in your articles and yet still end up defending CW. If CW is a perfect fit for ND then ND is no longer relevant to college football. There is no possible set of circumstances under which CW can be allowed to remain as head coach, unless of course ND wants to send the message that WINNING, QUALITY football is no longer part of the ND tradition.

Please put your talents into getting the list of replacements, at least that project will be worth your effort.

Sorry MR. ARNOLD but most explosive offenses put up more than 21 pts. per game! When was the last time ND put a good clean whipping on anybody ie FLORIDA winning today by what, 60pts! I thought we were CHAMPIONSHIP contenders at the begining of the year? Even with key injuries we SHOULDN'T have this many L's! Washington State is NO measuring stick for the IRISH progression chart! Most explosive offenses score TD's in the red-zone! I'm sorry, but ENOUGH is ENOUGH! On a prior blog before today's game I typed that I was hoping the IRISH could win these last 2 games and go to the GATOR bowl and hopefully whoop on MIAMI so we could keep WEIS at least 1 more year. Especially since EVERYBODY and all the ODDS were stacked up against him and he was the underdog but I've lost all my FIGHT for this IRISH team, IRISH coaches, and this IRISH YEAR! Beleive me WE may be stuck with HIGHLIGHT REELS of past IRISH teams because that's all we have! Our past is BRIGHTER than our present and hopefully the FUTURE is brighter than our past but everyone expects excellence and why should anyone settle for less when we can see so many other colleges passing us by on the NCAA FOOTBALL dominance chart! IE BOISE STATE, CINNCINATTI, STANFORD, UTAH, TCU, HOUSTON, PITT, NAVY, SYRACUSE, should I keep going?

Fred..this is absolutely heart-warming and makes this and the last however-many-years of mediocre football soooo much more palatable...I didn't realize this program was part of Make-A-Wish....now I'm satisfied and happy...just wish somebody had told me this program is about making more "Rudys". I thought we were supposed to be competitive. My mistake...Bob Davie, Gerry Faust, Ty W., wherever you are, please come home! All is forgiven and we miss the glory days of .538 winning percentages. What a sad state of affairs. We just lost to team that didn't play 1A football until seven years ago. Thank God we didn't play the women's basketball team..it would have been a blowout.

Keith: How do you defend Weis? I knew we were going to lose this game when we sputtered on that 3rd Q drive. Why? Poor play calling. (At least we didn't see the issues of poor clock mgmt, fumbling to get plays in, Clausen getting pissed because play not in fast enough, etc. etc.) I know also that we are going to finish off at 6-6, barring some miracle against Stanford. We just lost to a UCONN team that is 1-4.....in the BIG EAST. How can this be? This feels worse than the Syracuse loss in '08. It is obvious that the ND players feel for their embattled coach, but did they ever stop to think how he might be holding them back? You noted the perfect timing of the NBC guys in playing the clip of Weis 5 years ago saying, in arrogant fashion, "If you want to have a .500 season, you got the wrong guy." Well, looks like we got exactly that guy as it turns out and he is unable to back up all that talk. Alas, he has been hoist with his own petard. (What do you think of that StephenofTroy? That's Bill Shakespeare). In any case, its another year gone by, full of hope and promise at the beginning and turned to dust at the end. At least I enjoyed a few beers and a nice corned beef sandwich....that's the best I can say about the 4 wasted hours I'll never get back. Aw, who am I kidding, I'll watch even if they re-hire Faust as HC and put Willingham in charge of recruiting. All I ask is one more championship season before all the corned beef I've ingested chokes off some vital artery and starts the big one in motion. Is that too much to ask, really?

the bottom line is weis is a former alumni of the school not just any coach. the astonishing thing is that zac frazier was the first qb that weis recruited when he came to ND in 2005 and now he comes back to ND and beats them in what may have been his last home game as head coach. weis, if he stays, should fire his defensive cooridinator and specials teams coach. how many times this year have the special teams cost them points and i have never seen a ND defense that misses so many tackles. I have been a ND fan for almost forty years and that is worst group of defensive players i have ever seen.

Nothing left to say, period.

Nothing Dame sucks

With all things considered, said, and done....you all should have a modicum of decorum when speaking about Mr. Weis. His time is now over. He certainly wanted to win. It didnt get done and I'm pretty sure he is broken-hearted more so than all. It's over...move on to armchair quarterbacking the future team and coach whoever that may be.

amen

ugetwutuask4: I disagree with you about whether it was an upset (it was: ND was "supposed" to go to a BCS bowl -- UConn didn't even play FBS ball until a few years ago; people on this site are lining up to kiss Tate's/Clausen's/Floyd's collective rear end -- who in the world was pushing a UConn player for a Heisman, much less THREE players?), but I agree with almost everything you said.

I had a pretty good feeling that the Irish weren't going to win when UConn's #23 had that long TD run where 4 Irish players failed to touch him. No, not the kickoff return, I mean his first TD. At home, on Senior Day, that run just signified (to me, at least) that ND's team didn't really WANT the win. I expected them to be flying around all over the field, making solid tackles and pushing a weaker team around. But they didn't.

When ND failed to get a TD in the red zone, instead only making it 17-10, I thought "uh-oh. You cannot let inferior talent on the other team hang around in ball games." And lo and behold, a few seconds later, the game was tied at 17.

But, ugetwut, in Armando Allen's defense, he is probably winded after getting a couple of carries because his usual game day routine is the following: 1. Slouch 3 yards to Clausen's right. 2. Trot out to the right flat. 3. Congratulate Golden Tate / Pick Clausen up off the turf / Look in the stands for people with interesting signs. 4. Repeat steps 1 - 3.

So is ANYONE still saying that Weis deserves another year? Please, step forward and make your case. (Watches while everyone except robertg takes two big steps backward...)

Oh and speaking of robertg, did anyone else take a look at him threatening Jack Taylor over at CFT for supposedly not posting robertg's nonsensical rants? Here's a link that's worth checking out if you could use a laugh:

http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2009/11/17/stoops-calls-irish-report-ridiculous/

Finally, Art: You don't need to source Hamlet for me, but thanks for looking out. Hamlet is my favorite play. Many people misquote that one as "hoist BY his own petard." So, nicely done getting it right.

But, my fellow Seinfeld watcher, something is rotten in South Bend, if not in Denmark. Hamlet also said "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." And I think Charlie Weis is a bad coach. And I thought that several years ago.

Again, is there any disagreement? He may be a loyal ND alum. He may be a good recruiter. But he's a LOUSY coach. Navy, Syracuse, Navy again, UConn, 20 losses in 3 years, what's it going to take, people?

Mr. Arnold,
U r no joke...Coach Weis is the perfect man for this job! However, y is it not working??? I wouldn't mind if he stayed, but I think the fanbase and alumni along w/ the pressure from the media is going prevail...I hope he beats Stanford and then wins the following bowl game...That's all I'm looking forward to right now. GO IREESSH!!

1.keith is absolutely correct.
2. we remain immensely proud of charlie and his staff and of every notre dame student athlete who also plays football.
3. yet again, charlie and his staff and notre dame's student athletes won this game on the field, only to have the win stolen from them by another dishonest officiating crew(this time again from the big east conference still angry with notre dame for refusing to join the big east conference in football).
4. charlie and his staff remain the perfect fit for notre dame football that they have always been.
5. we remember how horrified kevin white was when he was instructed to fire tyrone in that vicious and humiliating manner which violated every principle for which notre dame has always stood.
6. we all know now that, if tyrone had been approached in a civilized manner, he would have resigned in a dignified manner. 7.after all, tyrone already knew that he could not bring notre dame's recruiting network back from the dead and also had an offer from washington in writing.
8. the net results of those horrendous violations of notre dame's code of ethics and values were that notre dame ended up paying tyrone millions while tyrone was coaching at washington, recruits and their families all over the us lost trust and faith in notre dame, no coach, with the exception of charlie weis, who loves notre dame as much as he has shown, would touch the notre dame coaching job, and notre dame ad kevin white quit and became the ad at duke.
9. charlie and his staff have rebuilt notre dame's recruiting network and notre dame has the talent and depth to win every week provided only that the current corrupt officiating, rules enforcement, and rankings systems are changed, something we are doing regardless of what happens to football at notre dame.
10. last season, notre dame ad jack swarbrick kept charlie and his staff and their families and notre dame's student athletes and recruits hanging out to dry in the face vicious attacks in the media.
11. by the time jack swarbrick got around to making his public announcement last season, charlie and his staff had lost a number of key notre dame commits for whom they had worked so hard all season to other schools because those recruits and their families correctly sensed coaching instabilities at notre dame and a failure o protect charlie and his staff and notre dame's student athletes who also play football from vicious attacks in the media.
11. well, jack swarbrick has not learned much from last year's experiences and the immense damage that he did to notre dame football.
12. instead of stepping foward immediately to state his and notre dame's full support for and confidence in charlie and his staff and in notre dame's fine student athletes who also play football, along with his and notre dame's complete dissatifaction with the current corrupt officiating, rules enforcement, and rankings systems and demands for immediate changes, jack swarbrick has kept charlie and his staff and their families and notre dame's current student athletes who also play football and commits(both verbal and leaning heavily towards notre dame)hanging out in the wind to be bashed around viciously by the media.
13. while jack swarbrick is certainly an intelligent man who loves notre dame, jack lacks the knowledge of notre dame college football and the guts to be notre dame's ad.
14. barring jack swarbrick's immediate replacement by someone who does have the guts to do immediately what jack should have done when crooked officials robbed notre dame of the 1st of the 5 wins stolen this season, charlie and his staff will leave notre dame, jimmy clausen and golden tate and other notre dame student athletes who have nfl options will not be back at notre dame next season, and notre dame will lose virtually every 2010 and future verbal commit and recruit leaning towards notre dame.
15. after all, what jack swarbrick has done to charlie and his staff and to their families and to notre dame's student athletes this season and lasst is the equivalent of allowing members of his own family to get beaten up and cheated every day on nation tv and in the media and not stepping up to defend them.
16. for anyone operating under the delusion that charlie and his staff earn some huge salaries at notre dame, they simply do not and that is a matter of public record for anyone who has bothered to look, as we have.
17. for anyone who thinks that there are long lines of qualified coaches and assistant coaches drooling to take head and assistant coaching jobs at notre dame, there are none.
18. the coaching world has seen what harassment jack swarbrick has allowed charlie and his staff and their families to be subjected to.
19. the very few who might be qualified to accept a coaching job at notre dame subject to notre dame's high academic and charcter standards would not subject their families to this type of treatment for any amounts of money. coach kelly of cincinnati has already made that statement in public.
20. if anyone thinks that charlie and his assistants could not be making much more miney elsewhere without the constant vicious attacks, watch where they end up if they leave notre dame.
21. no, the problems with notre dame football were at the administration level when tyrone was hired and fired and jack swarbrick has made the situation even worse.
22. if notre dame football is going to survive and thrive, notre dame requires an ad who understands football as football is played at notre dame( which cuts down the list of ad candidates to a very small number of people, with charlie and his staff being the only people doing the choosing) and who has the guts to get involved in correctly the current corrupt officiating, rules enforcement, and rankings systems that have turned college football into massive and very profitable con operations.
23. if notre dame is going to remain notre dame, climbing into the sewers with the football factories is simply not an option.
24. no, we are not going to sue jack or notre dame.
25. however, as notre dame's former president stated at a speech in new york shortly after tyrone was treated so viciously " i have always been extremely proud of notre dame, except on one occasion".
26. there was no need for him to specify what that occasion was. it was the inexcusable manner in which tyrone had been treated. you see, notre dame's former president wanted tyrone to be treated in the civilized dignified manner in which notre dame's code of ethics and values requires that everyone at notre dame be treated, including jack swarbrick.
27. we will make certain in the civil courts that college football has an honest future.
28. whether notre dame football will be around to enjoy that future is an open question right now.
GO IRISH!!!

Mr. Arnold, your bravery is to be commended. You wrote: "once again the Irish have themselves to blame for this loss. Even worse, Notre Dame has it's best players to blame."

Are you, then, totally unconcerned with the wrath of the esteemed robertg? The man who warned John Taylor of CollegeFootballTalk that "you can fix those problems immediately or end up facing my asociates in the civil courts. sure, you can keep your own website, previously unknown and promote whatever agandas you want, but you will have no relationships with msnbc or with nbc sports and you will be very light on material possessions" isn't going to take kindly to you writing that the Irish have themselves to blame.

Surely, obviously, it goes without saying that the vast zebra conspiracy, working hand-in-glove with dishonest officials from the NCAA and the "football factories" are actually to blame for ND's latest loss, just as they are to blame for all the other losses.

Well, Mr. Arnold, when you find yourself light on material possessions, you can come over to my place and watch games on the spare TV in my garage. Just keep your hands out of my beer fridge.

Again...move on to something that isn't comparable to assaulting a previously expired horse. Who shall lead our program into the future and why?

robertg,
Although it goes against our awful national culture of blogging etiquette, I really much prefer to be kind to people rather than vicous. I am afraid, however, that for you I must make an exception to my rule... because you sir are an idiot. No wait, I'm sorry, and I take that back. I actually believe that you suffer from psychosis, and I am truly and honestly concerned for you. Do you have any family that you trust, and if so, would you consider letting them take you in to see a doctor? You burn on about these ghosts of conspiracies that only you can see, and that none of the rest of us who support Notre Dame can possibly embrace - because they exist only in your delusions and hallucinations.

I do hope that you can get yourself some help. From my standpoint, your views are totally counter-productive to the Notre Dame football progam and do nothing but hurt the progress and change that is now necessary for its future success.

With the massive amount of offensive talent at his disposal, this team can't score in the red zone. The is absolutely no decided schematic advantage on the offensive side of the ball.

The defense is consistently bad, consistently outcoached and as the Navy game demonstrated, unwilling to make the necessary changes to adapt to an opponent's attack.

The special teams have been horrendous missing critical field goals and allowing momentum turning run backs like today.

Poor discipline has resulted in back breaking penalties at the worst times.

The head coach is ultimately responsible for the performance of the team. Explain to me again how Charlie has earned another year?

"explosive" - I once bought that. Not anymore. Not after BC, Navy, Pitt and UConn. Telling stat (via J. Walters) -

"On Saturday both Michael Floyd and Golden Tate eclipsed 100 yards receiving for the fourth time this season. The Irish have lost all four games."

I remember Bob Davie saying in 2006 vs. MSU that we looked "finesse." I was mad at him at the moment, but dammit, he hit the nail on the head. We're too soft. We play hard, yes. We hate to lose, yes. But a ND team that goes 4 wide empty set from the shot gun on 3rd and short is no ND team that I know and love. A team of no-names just lined up and punched us in the mouth all day and when we had the chance to close out the game, we went backwards and backwards fast.

JC is obviously gone. His emotionless post game interview said as much. And honestly, why would anyone with the option of going pro (JC, GT) want to come back to the total dysfunctional, negative mess that is our program.

I am not looking forward to next week's game.

In Swarbrick and Jenkins we trust...for now.

As a lifelong ND fan it hurts to speak the truth. One positive we can take away from this horrible season is the O line showed vast improvement over last season Oh yeah, 4 of the 5 are seniors and they are mediocre at best. My two cents.

Keith, to not understand that a coaching change is needed, is incomprehensible. All the negatives to doing so, that have been stated, ignore one point. Charlie Weis is not up to the task at hand. No one went into this season hoping for a change, but it is glaringly obvious that one is needed. Nice article on Brian Polian the other day. The only thing is, you forgot to mention how abysmal ND's special teams have been since he's been in charge of them. Best coaching staff in years? What on earth are you basing that on? Certainly not results. This will only get better with a new coach, and yes it may take time. To do nothing is to give up. I for one would add the visiting coach today, to my short list of candidates. They played more like ND should than ND. ie Control the line of scrimmage, and make the other team stop the run. Did anyone think ND's D would be able to stop the run in the second OT? Smashmouth football in the red zone, what a novel concept.

So, NOW will NBC quit making us watch this wretched, losing, overrated team? When will the "Notre Dame Broadcasting Company" get it!?! How can NBC justify airing every single game?

Thank god the Home season for Notre Dame is over. If I hear Pat Haden or Tom Hammond mis-pronounce a Notre Dame player and or anything having to do with Notre Dame in general, I'm going to jump off a building, with the intentions of seriously damaging my hearing.
For us die-hard Golden Domers, listening two these two guys makes me sick to even turn on the T.V. every Saturday in the fall to hear, "Great play by Harrison Ford (Smith)" or "great tackle by Kyle McCartney (McCarthy)" or "we'll return to Nitre (Notre Dame) Dame...". Come on! Tom Pagna and Tony Roberts, there's two guys they should hire. Get rid of Pat and Tom, PLEASE!!!!

robertg - Coach Weis, I didn't know you posted on this site. Sorry about today's game. Better luck next week.

Some of you guys need to attend an anger management class.

Who would make a good fit next and why? Meyer is not coming so don't start that BS.

I COULD NOT agree anymore with you. You hit the nail on the head these dudes are way behind and the game has definately passed them by. At least try and see if CHUCKY (GRUDEN) can come and do a game? Yeah, him and TONY DUNGY!

liamg19 pulled out the same stat that I noticed, from the John Walters article. When Tate and Floyd have 100 receiving yards each, ND loses. I agree with everything liamg19 wrote, but I'd like to elaborate a bit as I think I can explain why ND is losing, and why ND desperately needs a new coach.

ND loses because it does not have a COMPLETE, coherent, cohesive game plan. ND loses because it runs a "complex, pro-style offense" without the multiple interlocking parts that PRO offenses use, and it has a defense that does not complement that incomplete offense. ND loses because it does not run the ball and does not kick the ball.

I don't think I have to explain that ND doesn't have a defense. Ditto for not having to explain that the kicking game (field goals and punting) is subpar to put it mildly.

But a lot of ND's casual fans are falling for fool's gold by getting all hung up on the gaudy numbers frequently posted by Clausen, Tate and Floyd. As liamg pointed out, when those two receivers have big numbers, ND loses. Why is that?

First of all, it's field position and turnovers. The numbers ND racks up on offense are misleading. ND doesn't punt or kickoff well, so opponents have a shorter field than ND does. It stands to reason that ND will have to drive a longer distance than average to get its scores, and the QB and WR's get big yardage at the end of the day, but come up short on the only stat that matters. And, as Mr. Arnold has previously pointed out, ND doesn't force turnovers on defense.

Next, those receivers have big numbers sometimes, but they do so at the expense of the running game and (not coincidentally) at the expense of controlling the ball and thus controlling time-of-possession. As you'll see next week against Stanford, Toby Gerhardt will squeeze the air out of the ball on 10, 12, 14 play drives. That eats clock, shortens the game, wears out your defense, and allows Stanford's defense to rest. Since you do not run the ball at ND, you cannot do those things.

And you cannot score in the red zone, since corners and safeties have a MUCH smaller area to cover. They know you're going to pass, so they commit more men into coverage than they otherwise would, which clogs up the field, preventing Clausen from throwing for a score. The way to win in the red zone, as others have noted (and as liamg alluded to with the 4 wide empty set on short yardage situations), is to have the PROVEN ABILITY to have my five guys push your front 5 back three yards, and my fullback knock your middle linebacker on his tailbone, allowing my tailback to carry the ball 4 to 6 yards. I say "proven ability" because you don't actually have to run it every time in the end zone, but you have to demonstrate that you CAN, so that the other team's defensive coordinator is off-balance.

I think it's absurd to run a "pro-style offense" (read: QB is in shotgun all the time, the running back is inconsequential, and the tight end goes out on routes all the time) when you don't have the pieces in place to do so. I'm not talking about Clausen or the wideouts. I mean the O-line, the blocking backs, and the tight end. If you telegraph to the defense that you're going to pass, and you fail to BLOCK the pass rush, what good is the pro style offense? Oh yeah, I forgot, it impresses the people who get distracted by shiny things. I'll trade them my two shiny nickels for my dirty old quarter.

How many times does Clausen have to get sacked before Weis stops using the pro-style offense? How many times do the Irish want to come up empty in the red zone? How many short-yardage situations will you line up in an obvious passing formation?

The other thing you need is a MUCH more fundamentally-sound football team, top to bottom. The defense didn't try as many futile blitzes, but it still lacked the discipline to wrap up and tackle. Offensive linemen still got badly outplayed. I saw the left tackle get BACKED UP into Clausen for a sack, which is inexcusable. ND gave up a kickoff return TD where the ball carrier pretty much ran straight up the field, which is even more inexcusable. Fumbles by Floyd and Allen.

Blocking, tackling, punting, and kicking are all a function of effort. It's what my coaches called "want-to." And when you're at home, walking arm-in-arm with the head coach means a whole lot less than actually playing like you want him to keep his job.

But I don't really blame the players. I blame the coach. He put in a pro-style offense that only has the show pieces. It doesn't have the blockers, either on the line, at tight end, or at fullback, to give the QB time to find the wideouts. It doesn't have a credible running game, so it looks good until it gets to the red zone. And the defense may as well be run by an opposing team's coach, for all the integration with the offense that it shows.

Bottom line, it's silly, in my view, to go around touting the ND offense. I'd rather do what UConn did, and have two different running backs rush for 100 yards in the same game, than have two different wideouts have 100 yard receiving days, if there's no running game to balance out their statistically-significant but otherwise worthless "big" numbers.

But your coach won't ever change, no matter the situation. He said so himself. Which is why you need to change coaches. I'm pretty sure everyone gets that by now. Even Keith Arnold. The jury's still out on robertg. No pun intended. I take it he's now blaming the ND AD, in an attempt to do an end-run around admitting that Weis MUST go. Like I said before, robertg, you never win, but boy do you keep losing. Way to hang in there, little guy!

I'm stunned watching the complete implosion of ND football. We are better than this, at least I keep telling myself that. But I don't know that anymore. Whatever you want to say about top-rated recruits etc., I am pretty sure that Chuck has handed back a program as completely mediocre as the one he inherited from Willingham. Five years - no progress. But Chuck made his millions. Thanks Kev White, you numb nuts.

StephenOfTroy -

"I'd rather do what UConn did, and have two different running backs rush for 100 yards in the same game, than have two different wideouts have 100 yard receiving days, if there's no running game to balance out their statistically-significant but otherwise worthless "big" numbers."

You just described ND from 1987 to 1993. Back then we complained that we didn't throw the ball enough (particularly to the TE) and that we could attract top QB talent w/out a pro-style offense. File under "Be careful what you wish for" I guess.

Sorry for the typos in my last comment. Trying to write while watching ESPN so I can see that Cal-Stanford game leads to embarrassing goofs. I obviously meant I'd trade my shiny nickels for THEIR dirty quarter. (The Stanford loss in the Big Game is small consolation for me after what Stanford did to my boys, but I'll take what I can get. Hey, but at least Tiger Woods brought his kid to see his alma mater lose to a team that didn't even have Best playing, and a team USC beat 30-3.)

JimmyWaaah, you asked who should be the next coach and why. I'll take a stab at it.

ND needs a coach who:

1) Understands Notre Dame and what it means to coach there (high standards of achievement in the classroom, on the field, and in personal life; intense pressure created by alums, media, fans, etc.; national recruiting and what a horrendous travel burden that puts on the coaching staff; tremendous sense of history to live up to and HONOR);

2) Understands today's college players and what it takes to motivate them;

3) Understands the game of college football top-to-bottom. DO NOT bring in another glorified QB coach, like Weis, but instead get someone who grasps how ALL the pieces work together. Do you honestly think Weis respects the running game? Do you think he understands the kicking game? Think he pays any attention whatsoever to the defense?

4) Understands how crucial it is to recruit SPEED on defense and RUN THE BLEEPING BALL on offense. All the top programs in college football have one or both of those things. And the one that doesn't run the ball much, Texas, has scary speed on defense as well as a fantastic QB and receivers who consistently make big plays by the bunches.

In college, as opposed to the pros, there is a huge differential of speed across players 1-11 on both sides of the ball. If you run the ball, there's a window that is open for a couple of seconds. Get someone fast enough to exploit it, and hello, end zone. Not so in the pros; pretty much everyone is fast. That's why Reggie Bush got 9.1 yards a carry in college but in the pros he's best used as a "satellite, out in space," as Parcells put it. But if you put the QB in the shotgun all the time, you're not taking advantage of the "window" I referred to. It applies to running, not passing. People can double-team Tate AND Floyd, because you don't need to put 8, 7, or even 6 men in the box (USC and other teams sacked Clausen with only 4 or even 3 down linemen rushing him);

5) Understands how to coach fundamentals like blocking, tackling, and hustling on every play. I think, frankly, that Weis is too arrogant and has his mind focused on things that don't matter. What good is it to throw 50 times a game if you get sacked or pressured half the time because you cannot block? and;

6) Understands how to do MORE with LESS, rather than the other way around. Someone who can take the talent he inherits and recruits, and find a way to extract the maximum possible from them. ND lost to WAY too many mediocre or outright BAD teams in the past few years. That's poor coaching, and it means the players weren't ready to play.

But the most important quality I think ND needs in a new coach is simply someone who has an obvious and demonstrated desire to win. Someone who seems to be into the game. Someone with passion. It translates to the players on the field very well. I keep hearing that about Willingham, who seemed distant and aloof, but the same can be said of Weis. I may be biased but I think Pete Carroll gets it. His players are into the game. Look at at the sideline during a USC - ND game in the Weis era and on one side you'll see players jumping up and down, into every play, and on the other you'll see 42 glum faces, if they're even watching. Mack Brown, Les Miles, Urban Meyer, Mike Stoops, pretty much the same thing in terms of being able to show their players that they care.

If you wanted a name, I'd say Lou Holtz. No, no, I'm serious. Bringing back Lou Holtz might get the luck of the Irish back on ND's side. He got the shaft, and everyone knows it. We brought back John Robinson. You can bring back Lou. He knows how to coach, he knows how to recruit and develop talent, and he knows what it means to be a Golden Domer. I know they're not going to bring in Lou Holtz. I just wish they would. I love that guy.

People talk about Brian Kelly and Bob Stoops coming to South Bend. You're not going to get either one of them. But you might get a different Kelly and a different Stoops. I think ND could do worse than to bring in Chip Kelly from Oregon or Mike Stoops from Arizona. Both guys are bright football minds who have proven that they can win in what is an increasingly tough Pac-10. And I would actually love to see what they could do for what used to be one of the best programs in college football, notwithstanding the fact that USC is ND's biggest rival. In fact I'd like that. I want my team to face the toughest possible competition in its rivalry game.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Yours? GO IRISH!

liamg19: You guys did fairly well from '87 to '93, if I'm not mistaken. :) Be careful what you wish for, true, but I bet a lot of Irish fans are wishing for the results you had in THAT span again! Good comments, please keep them coming. GO IRISH, and Fight On, Trojans!

Thanks CW for making Faust, Davie, and Willingham look competent. I have instructed my wife to box up all ND gear until CW is back in New England in the coach's box helping their OC make calls. CW Legend.

Did you ever notice Belichick always wears his headgear to overrule bad calls from his coordinators? How many Belichick disciples are going to fail? CW, Romeo, Mangini is Bill the only true coach and the rest his posse?

StephenOfTroy: Good posts. Agree with just about everything you said. Like to add a couple of other things ND needs to do.

Have to let go of the past. Seems people keep wanting to re-live the glory years. It's great to appreciate them, but it is time to move to the 21st century. This leads to the next thing,

Join a conference. Either the Big Ten or Big East.

Lower the academic standards. Lou Holtz was able to bring in guys like Tony Rice, Jerome Bettis and others and these players would never have gotten into ND today. Georgia Tech has done this and their program is winning a lot more now. ND will get better, faster recruits this way. The academics don't need to be lowered than the state schools, just enough to open up the program to more recruits.

I've wanted Weis gone since he lost to Navy in 07. I was in Annapolis the week before to watch Delaware play Navy and Delaware put 59 points on them and walked away with a win. It has been the Navy losses that showed the lack of disipline and tough ND needs.

I'd like to see ND go after Tommy Tuberville. He's had an undefeated season, won a BCS bowl game, Auburn played defense, and he has an AD who always to get rid of him. Plus, he is available.

If you knew so much maybe you should apply for the coaching position

@SOT: It pains me to say this to a Trojan fan but extremely cogent argument. I would only add that this pro-style offense placed by Weis is probably way too complicated for this team. I've said it before, but Fla runs literally 6 different offensive plays and it seems to work and to complement their defense and vice versa. ND's play-calling is far too heavily weighted toward the pass and we telegraph it on every down. I'm surprised that Clausen hasn't been picked more, but that is a testament to his accuracy more than anything else. The red zone woes are surely the result of CW's failure to commit to the run and more often passing in an area of the field where your opponent's defense doesn't have to work that hard to contain your receivers. In addition, I fail to see how robertg can complain tonight when the Big East refs kept trying to drop the game in our laps. Even UCONN wanted us to have another shot and missed that FG at the end of regulation, but we just wouldn't, or more precisely couldn't, close it out. I don't know about you, or your area of practice, but I have never seen, nor have I ever even heard of this group filing anything resembling a civil RICO action over college football, officiating, control of the concession stands, or anything having to do with any of those things. You would think that some clandestine group waiting to blow the lid off some national scandal in college athletics would be all over the media, not squirreled away ranting on some blog site. Lastly, this game put a real damper on my weekend, my wife always knows when the Irish have lost. However, I am looking forward to the season finale of Curb to bring me back around before the week starts. Ah, the little joys in life are what make this whole thing so bearable.

I am not SOT but I agree with 95% of what you said and only 85% of what SOT says.
As long as we have the NBC contract and the sweetheart BCS arrangement, we should stay independent. Right now the BCS takes no more than two conference representatives and we couldn't finish in the top two in either the Big 10 or Big East.That is SAD.
And, I think Tommy Tuberville would be a great choice. If you watch an SEC game, the teams are fast but most of all they are physical. They sometimes have a problem scoring points but they will always make you earn the points you score.

1.obviously, no one else has the equipment or the experts that we have to break down game films focusing on dishonet conduct by officials or the massive amounts of other evidence that we have gathered.
2. this conduct is not, by any means, limited to games in which notre dame is involved, the same patterns exist in every conference with the objectives being to maximize the bowl revenues of each conference since all bowl revenues for conference members flow through conferences.
3. the paterns of civil racketeering activities in the enron and mci worldcom con operations were much more complex than those in college football and fooled everyone, except for us, for many years.to this day, working just with the raw evidence and without our guidelines, most forensic cpas cannot detect that anything was wrong.
4. we ran into the same flack in the enron and mci worldcom cases that we have in these cases with people telling us that the books had been audited and certified by major accounting firms and by the sec and that there could not possibly be anything wrong.
5. however, as the public records demonstrate, we were correct in those cases, just as we are correct about college football.
6. of course, if anyone wants to blame a loss in any college football game on coaches or players, it is always easy to pick out things that could have been done better by players on the losing side of the paper scores, even if the person doing so does not have a hidden agenda.
7. no matter what notre dame does, these matters will all be decided in public jury trials in real courts, not on the internet.
8. we will choose the jurors carefully and they will have full access to the testimony of our expert witnesses, together with the supporting film and other evidence which will include the financial records of certain conference and ncaa officials and diagrams detailing the illegal cash flows.
9. keith has never blocked any of our posts or any of the posts viciously attacking us since he and his staff are paid by msnbc and by nbc and their contracts do not permit them to block any posts to promnote any personal agendas, as john taylor was trying to do before we called him on the issue, even if keith and his staff were inclined to do so, which they are not.
10. we do not expect to resolve anything with our posts. those are all matters to be resolved in the civil courts in public trials.
11. anyone who thinks that he is going to block those trials by statements made in internet posts is sadly mistaken, as were certain members of the financial press who tried to block our posts warning investors about enron and mci worldcom shares.
12. some investors( a small minority) took the information we posted, did their own research, and saved themselves from being ripped off.
13. others( the overwhelming majority) disregarded our warnings, told us we were insane or deluded and kept on purchasing more enron and mci worldcom shares.
14. the same patterns appear in these cases. it is easier to blame charlie and hisd staff and notre dame's student athletes who also play football.
15.we faced even more resistance when we took on in the civil courts and beat certain elements in the roman catholic church heirarchy who kept insisting that there was no coverup of homosexual predators who were priests, a conspiracy of priests and bishops and cardinals( not just zebra college football officials whose identities and backgrounds are currently hidden from the public) reaching all the way up to the vatican in rome.
16. in fact, i have many relatives who are roman catholic priests who were aware of the coverups and horrified, but unable to speak out because of vows of obedience that they had taken.
17. i am a devout roman catholic, just as i am a great admirer of everything that notre dame should stand for.
18. it was not easy for me to accept the fact that such coverups were going on at such high levels of the roman catholic heirarchy.
19. however, once i found enough evidence, it was my obligation to pursue that evidence to help the church that i love and respect in the long run, even though doing so involved hurting some people in the church heirarchy in order to do so.
20. as a result of what we have done, the roman catholic church is a much better organization than it was and substantial amounts of control over church finances have been shifted to lay members of the church.
21. people do get upset during these processes and we consistently get insults and threats of physical violence hurled at ourselves and at our families.
22. we do not get involved in matters like these or make any comments to the public until we already have overwhelming evidence.
23. those who do not want to see what we post are not obliged to read any of our posts. they can simply disregard them. however, everyone has to respect the rights of those who do read our posts, follow up on the leads, and make their own conclusions, as many people have and will as the process goes on.
24. people who think that we are going to stop what we are doing because of some nasty internet insults or threats directed at us or at keith and his staff are simply wasting their time and energy and would be better off just not reading our posts and thinking whatever makes them feel good.
25. with us, these cases are what we have chosen to dedicate our lives and resources until we have cleaned the corruption out of college football and college sports, with information internet postings occupying a very small percentage of our time.
GO IRISH!!!

Art, I'll return the favor and compliment your comments. Well-said.

I couldn't believe the ridiculous holding calls that nearly cost UConn the game. The refs sure held up their end of the deal they made with robertg, didn't they? :)

I have done complex civil litigation involving anti-trust, earlier in my practice. It's not so different from RICO cases. You don't need to take my word for it, but robertg is full of hot air (and whatever he digested from dinner, let's put it that way). You'll never see ANY trials about college football officiating or other conspiracy nonsense. Courts don't have jurisdiction of such things. Another poster has pointed out the need for an actual controversy within the court's jurisdiction.

Oh, and did you see where I complimented you on another thread for your "Office Linebacker Terry Tate" suggestion? Great work, Art! THAT's using your Golden Dome!

mrrandolph: I'll take 85% from you. Charlie Weis would give his right hand for an 85% winning percentage right about now! :)

One of the first lessons in Civ Pro is the definition of a justiciable controversy, which an athletic contest is most assuredly not. I have tried pointing that out to robertg on a couple of occasions. I am now content to sit here and watch you bang your head against a wall. Be careful...you can be sucked in by his crazy talk. I note one of your posts above deftly utilizes numbered paragraphs. I'm watching you and hoping you don't go over the edge a la Col. Kurtz:
1)And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead.
2)And I thought: My God... the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we.
3)Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that.
4)If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly.
5)You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment. 6)Because it's judgment that defeats us.
Oh, the Horror!

robertg: I need your help. Here are some problems I cannot solve without the benefit of your razor-sharp legal mind and cutting-edge technology:

1. My feline associates inform me that the birds in the neighborhood are avoiding my birdfeeder in favor of my neighbor's birdfeeder, which is an outrage. But for the crooked and corrupt process by which these birds make their decision, our research confirms that my feline associates could be looking at 42% more birds per day.

2. The traffic signal closest to my house is allowing North-South traffic to use the intersection 54% of the time. But I most often want to go East-West. There's obvious collusion between the North and South to the detriment of us East-Westers. There's a red-light-violation camera that your associates can use, and all manner of compelling video evidence for the very public jury trials that are soon to follow.

3. The Indian food place I like has recently started reducing its portions, but they have not reduced the price. They also have failed to hire a single solitary soul of Irish descent. I have many witnesses who will corroborate my findings.

4. The other day I was in a bookstore, looking at a book, and a person walked by and told me how the book ends. This person, who was wearing a NAVY sweatshirt, is obviously a spoiler who is out to deprive me of my God-given right to learn things at my own pace. I, incidentally, was wearing my IRISH sweatshirt at the time, so his motive was clear. This should be, in George Tenet's famous phrasing, "a slam-dunk case" for someone of your caliber.

5. My favorite contestant on Top Chef keeps drawing ridiculously hard dishes in the Quickfire Challenges they have. It's so rigged I am almost ashamed to admit I need your help. But my DVR is full and I need access to your terabytes of available storage so we can bring these scoundrels to justice.

6. I was at the grocery store today and a woman sneezed, and another person in the store said, and I quote, "bless you." Not even "God bless you," which I admit would be speaking for the Lord, but at least it wouldn't be appropriating HIS power to bless people. He's not the Pope and wasn't wearing any sort of clothing that would indicate he is allowed to confer blessings. There's got to be some sort of cause of action for impersonating a blessable religious figure. Help me out here.

7. A female soccer player for the University of New Mexico was playing rough against BYU. She has yet to return my friend's calls asking for a date. He's a good guy. What right does she have to ignore him? On his behalf, I want all of her material possessions.

robertg, don't tell me you don't have time to help me, my feline associates, my fellow townspeople, and my dateless friend out. And don't be stingy with your array of technology. And whatever you do, don't keep all that legal talent to yourself. You have a moral obligation to help those less fortunate.

Thanks in advance.

Art, not sure if you picked up on my Kurtz reference from another thread ("we train young men to drop fire on people...") but, nicely done! In a high school class I had, one of my less-able classmates actually thought that Kurtz said "the ho! the ho!"

Don't worry about me vis-a-vis robertg. I've learned that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Hence my comment above seeking his assistance in the many weighty and pressing controversies that take up my time when I'm not telling the ND Central world what I think is wrong with Charlie Weis.

@SOT: And there it is; you've lost it. A full 7 numbered paragraphs which have wandered over into crazy land. I tried to warn you.

Of course I saw the Kurtz reference. Give me some credit. It is now apparent that I have to go up river and terminate your command.

Now I agree with you 100%! #45

Bring it on, Art. If you show up, I'll tell you that you're an errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill.

mrandolph: I'm glad to make it out of the 85% range. In the words of Charlie Weis, a B "just isn't good enough!"

I lost focus for a second. It's Weis' command that needs to be terminated (with extreme prejudice).

Why are people so worried that if CW is fired we can't recruit? You don't have to recruit to be 6-6. And, another thing, this year's team should follow the lead of the '96 team (Lou's last). They voted not to play in a bowl game because they didn't reach their goals. They finished 8-3.

Robertg, seek counseling and medication.

@mrrandolph: You know, the more I hear about Holtz, the more I'd like him to come back. Let him be interim coach for awhile so the search committee has some time to get this right. He was on ESPN earlier today complaining that his salary at ND was $140K a year (at least I think that's what I heard him say). Hell, we could triple that and help him pad his retirement a little bit. He coached the Blue Gold game a year or two ago and he was still pretty feisty along the sidelines in a game that didn't even matter. Imagine what he would've done to Sergio Brown today. He learned under Woody Hayes and is imbued with that same "why did I go for 2, because they won't let me go for 3" logic of his mentor.

Oh, and I called robertg's 28 numbered paragraphs perfectly! Look at comments 1 and 17...

Seriously, robertg is the poster boy for why I think all drugs should be legalized. I want some of what he's on. But I don't want to have to be all secretive about it.

Let's start the Lou for Coach movement! There has never been anything finer than watching Lou pace the sideline with the caption: Yards rushed Notre Dame-206
Yards paced Lou Holtz -295

If we can get Lou to come back, do you think we can get Mark May to be O-Line Coach?

Mark May? If he ever takes a real job, what will we have to laugh at?

I like Charlie Weis because he is a good and decent man. I also think he knows football, I feel sorry for him.
Notre Dame is not the Notre dame of yore, and is unlikely to ever be again because it has lost what it was that made it great. It was once the conduit for minority assimilation into this great country; The Irish and Polish, Italians and African Americans.
Now it is a country club for social engineering and political correctness. How can a school dedicated to the Virgin Mary serve as a bastion of Progressivism; Feminism & Reproductive Rights, Gay Rights & Naturalism?
You cannot serve both God and Mammon. Notre Dame must humble itself in order to find that spark of Godliness it once held.
Stand for a minute in front of the lowly chapel first built overlooking the twin lakes of Mary and Joseph and you will sense the vision that those French Fathers had long ago, when Indiana was wilderness. I doubt that football was part of that desire, but God works in mysterious ways. What is happening to Notre Dame is what will happen to the United States.
God bless you Charlie Weis for the courage of trying. Notre Dame would do well to keep you and spend some time at the Grotto.

Sorry SOT robertg only answers questions that he recceived through his fillings.

Notre Dame will never come back to relevance until it brings in players like Rice, Zorich, Bettis, Browner et al, none of whom could play for this school today.Brian above has it right.

Hesburgh started the trend that ultimately traded away the best brand and greatest heritage in college football to be just another pretty good academic school, which it was already, when I attended in the early 60's.

Sad thing is, the school could have both, BCS contending football and very good academic credentials, but is too arrogant to realize it. Urban Meyer is a realist. The other big time coaches are too. They know what wins games. This school doesn't care enough about winning to do what it takes and won't get the top tier coach the boys at ND Nation are sure we will land.

By the way, as for explosive offense and gaudy numbers, Clausen is a pretty good QB but is more about stats than winning. As an example, 4 shots from inside the 5 vs USC and no points. I guarantee you Monatana scores in that situation.I've seen people post that Clausen's the best QB ever to play at ND. Not if you've watched for as long as I have.

At least this year's team was in every game and it was exciting. That's likely the best we can ask for nowadays unless ND management gets real.

I am so tired of hearing about ND's high academic standards impeding their ability to recruit. that is total BS. UCLA and Cal have much higher admissions standards than ND has ever had, for example, but that doesn't seem to keep them from recruiting who they want. And it doesn't stop ND either. All schools have different,read lower, requirements for their players and ND is no exception.

Their problem is their coach. Their problem is they cannot recruit the players that Florida, Alabama, USC, Texas, and the other elite programs get. their problem is they are no longer the attraction they once were.

I would like to say UCONN KNEW they could wear the d-line down.
Being at the game, I saw the SIZE diff. UCONN got 0-14 , maybe a little nervous ???, but that personal foul in the first half was HUGE for the momentum swing. A great game for the all New England to be proud of!!!!!!!!

The only delusion robertg has si his stats. When Ty left Dough Boy had his 2 best seasons with Ty's players, now the recruiting truth comes out...Dough Boy cant recruit. There is no conspiracy against the Irish, its just teams are better on the field then the Golden Domers...plain and simple...there is no easy fix, no mhigh priced coach who can fix your mess in one year...take your beatings and build a proper program...and schedule some high profile teams to get your players motivated...

weis is a gone....but all this talk of claussen going pro? he is not even close to being ready. the speed alone in the nfl along with the claussen stare-down and wind-up throwing style wont cut it. and why couldnt he be productive with a different coach. the only player that could play right now on sundays is golden tate. i hope all the juniors stay and play their last season
heres a novel thought.......weis, being the caring alumnist he is, should tell swarbrick thanks for the oppotunity to coach and im such a cocky guy who couldnt back up my words so forget about the rest of the contract....give it to charity

5 Things We learned against UCONN

1. We are OVERRATED.
2. We SUCK.
3. We will NEVER contend for a National Championship.
4. If Urban comes, we will SUCK with a 10 million dollar coach.
5. We suck.

I like robertg but I must say 'THAT WAS FUNNY'!! You Surprised me there. I guess it's good to get in a good laugh during these days of depression!

Imagine the offensive numbers ND would have if they could hold some of the opponents to three and out a few times. We need some "thugs" on D. Yes thugs.

As long as NBC is funding ND athletics, mediocrity will be accepted by the Athletic Department.

Let's get Lou to step in as interim coach until a replacement can be named.

Where is your proof on that? I bet you don't have any proof at all. I bet you support the awful news network called foxnews. Which i remember your name now. Yup you never did like about nbc or msnbc. How about you go back to your foxnews spreads lies there like foxnews does anyway.

N.D. will come back in time. Once they do look out. if i am not mistaking coach came from NE Pats. Which was a big mistake. ND will be on top again very soon.

Hey, Brother! You do know that NBC only televises Notre Dame games. It is called Notre Dame Football Saturday.

Solution.... Water down the schedule a tat bit more and Weis will be fine.

Mike (58): I really don't see what's so wrong with a college teaching progressivism, feminism, gay rights, or naturalism. College is supposed to be a place where young people learn, are exposed to the most current thinking, and expand their horizons. It doesn't mean they have to agree with everything they are exposed to. But they should learn about the world around them. College also, in my view, should be as inclusive as possible. I'm not a woman and I'm not gay but I support feminism and gay rights. Full disclosure: I went to college at USC, on the left coast, a school that is not quite as liberal as Berkeley, but is tolerant and celebratory of all and certainly is not religious.

Think about Pastor Niemoller's famous poem:

"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a communist;

Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a socialist;

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist;

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew;

Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak out for me."

And while I agree that God works in mysterious ways, I don't think that what is happening to ND will happen to the US. Unless Sarah Palin runs for President on a ticket with Charlie Weis, thus sewing up the Irish-Catholic vote.

grandpashyena: that comment about robertg's fillings was HILARIOUS. Nice work.

Art: Your comment re terminating Weis's command reminds me of the following Seinfeld exchange, from "The Little Kicks" where Elaine danced at the company party:

George: "So this Anna called me out of the blue."
Jerry: "Really? I thought you were rebuffed?"
George: "With extreme prejudice!"

mike ford, thanks for the compliment. That's heady stuff coming from you. We CAN all use a laugh these days.

I'm with you, mrrandolph. I've been beating the "bring back Lou" drum for quite some time now. Like, since the day they announced his retirement while they had two hands pressed firmly into his back as they shoved him out the door.

Keith is still kissing Charlie's ass to the bitter end. Mark my words, once Weis has been fired, Keith will start fawning over the new coach and he will be referring to Weis as a bumbling idiot like he does with Willingham and Davie.

Please, what makes any of you think you have what it takes to condem or even praise ND foot ball program? How many of you played collage ball? How many of you have ever cosached collage ball?
I suspect none, all of you are just blowing you're own horn. GIVE IT A REST.

robertg - WOW!
what will become of you if Notre Dame actually starts winning? what new conspiracies will you make up then? you are an amazingly oblivious little man. Or perhaps you're sick and twisted.... we should take a poll..... any voters out there?

erik, can we vote twice? I'd mark the box next to "amazingly oblivious little man," AND the box next to "sick and twisted." Hey, South Bend is only 90 miles from "vote early, vote often" Chicago. This should be permissible.

oh, and fed up, the point of this entire blog is for people to make comments. You know, either praising or condemning ND "foot ball." "You're" vitriol is out of place. Whether we have either played or "cosached" "collage" ball is irrelevant. Each of us is entitled to his or her own opinion.

And my opinion is that you should turn your ire upon whoever taught you basic spelling and grammar, rather than begrudging us our right to express our variously-informed views about ND's college football program (or, in robertg's case, his delusions of grandeur about Enron, WorldCom, or the Roman Catholic Church's pedophile scandal). If you're not going to do your remedial English homework, at least run along and play. Children should be seen and not heard.

Notre Lame = LOSERS... Oh my God you nomers...you SUCK...take my picture of that building. I want no part of this losing dynasty.

GO HUSKIES 33-30 LOL LOL LOL LMAO

Have any of you bloggers considered that just maybe the quality of the ND players is just not as good as they are purported to be? Same with the coaches? People have been whining for decades about bad coaching, bad play calling, missed assignments, referee conspiracies, inferior O lines/D lines, lazy players, and on and on, when ND is not the national champs. Recruiting the best players and coaches has become increasingly competitive in college football and sports in general over the years so it is no wonder that the power rankings shift over time. Just look at the pro sports where the best teams are purchased for a time (excluding the NY Yankees who have a consistent high expenditure to field a team)only to drop off when the team breaks up or ownership expenditures dry up. ND is just not that good, plain and simple. The hype of recruits hasn't panned out. The arrogance of Weiss hasn't matched the performance. All one need do is watch other games across the country and see the talent on many teams and you quickly realize the lack of talent on the ND squad. The ND community needs to come to terms with it's arrogant, holier-than-though attitude and realize that they just aren't all that anymore. Coaching changes, new seasons, fresh teams - none of that is going to matter till the cycle turns again. Get over it.

Oh what fun it is to rip on the local sad sack i Iwish fans. What a bunch of pukes. I remember when Clausen rode into town on his white train of hummers and promised us not one, but four national championships. While he was flappin his piehole wunderkind Charlie ate all the pie in town. Well Jimmy turf toe we're still waiting, and waiting and waiting.............

SOT: Great touch on Pastor Niemoller's poem. It needs to be remembered and quoted often. And, since I live in Tenn, not Indiana or Chicago I feel like I should be entitled to three votes.

I thought on college admissions. Anybody that wants to learn should be admitted and if they can't learn, then they can be discharged.

Another thought. What kind of numbers would Montana, Theissmann, or other QBs of days gone by put up throwing the ball 45 times against this level of competition.

I got an idea.... keep Weis as the offensive coordinator, and have him up in the booth. Get rid of the defensive coaches. Bring in Gruden as head coach, who can get the most out of everyone's talent... then maybe Clausen and Tate stay another year and we can build a little before Crist has to take over.

I got an idea.... keep Weis as the offensive coordinator, and have him up in the booth. Get rid of the defensive coaches. Bring in Gruden as head coach, who can get the most out of everyone's talent... then maybe Clausen and Tate stay another year and we can build a little before Crist has to take over.

I agree with alot of what you are saying.
b4 the game yesterday
I had it on ESPN and their draft guru Todd McShay had his draft projections and he had:

QB
Clausen #4
WR
Tate #5

I bring it up because I watch pieces of other games and all of the ND game everyweek. I thought without a doubt that both players were no worse than 2 or 3. I was shocked the were not higher and I know they are Juniors. I just thought they were higher. #4 & #5 could go as low as the third round depending on team needs.

Crot, I agree with much of what you wrote. ND is and has been MASSIVELY overrated for quite a while now. Most of their players wouldn't start, let alone be featured, for many elite programs.

The constant HYPE being given to them by their in-house media company (NBC) and its announcing shills (who apparently are too busy looking at the sun shining out of Golden Tate's and Jimmy Clausen's rear ends to see any games in the SEC or Pac-10) really does a disservice to the ND fans, who are told nothing except how great the Irish are...yet they keep losing. This results in a vicious cycle, where Irish fans are literally at a loss to explain the failure of the team to live up to (unrealistic) expectations. See, e.g., sharkey's comment at #3, above, which is typical of many fans.

You're right about recruiting parity across the top college programs. Each of the top teams has at least a handful of really good players. This is why coaching skills are paramount; what matters most is not who you recruit, but what you do with the players you get. Over the course of a 60 minute game, average players who are used to the best of their ability will almost always prevail over above-average players who are incorrectly used (or incorrectly motivated).

I've said it before and I'll say it again: since Lou Holtz, ND's coaches have done a subpar job. Weis has been the worst by far. He gets less out of his supposedly stellar recruits than anyone I can think of gets out of average players.

And that, huie13, is why I don't see the value of keeping Weis on in ANY capacity, least of all as offensive coordinator. His play-calling has been a disaster, as has his inability to design offensive schemes that work for the team he is PRESENTLY coaching, as opposed to the one he used to coach in the pros (with a lot of help from the cheating by videotaping defensive signals), or the one he will someday coach in the future that only appears in his mind's eye.

Weis doesn't respect the run and apparently doesn't understand how to make in-game adjustments. When what you're doing isn't working, you cannot afford to be arrogant. Weis famously "never changes" and that is why Navy and other inferior teams beat Weis's teams.

Oh, and one other thing. I'm a fan of ND and a bigger fan of USC. A lot of you Irish fans may not like having me here. But I bet you'd rather have me here than the people who show up just to make bad puns about "iwish" fans, call you "PUKES," or tell you that you "suck." I'm a "rival." THEY are "haters." They have no skin in the game. Am I right?

mrrandolph: as to your last point about what kind of numbers... Let's just say I'm very glad Montana and Theismann were watching this year's USC - ND game from their couches. I have a pretty good idea of what they could have done with 4 shots from inside the 5 yard line. :)

Mark May should throw his hat in the ring, this guy knows Football better than any! Plus it would be awesome seeing nd fans and alum kiss his !@# when he brings the golden prize to SB!!!!!8-)))))))

Mark May should throw his hat in the ring, this guy knows Football better than any! Plus it would be awesome seeing nd fans and alum kiss his !@# when he brings the golden prize to SB!!!!!8-)))))))

Well said. "No need to beat a dead horse when it's down."

I'm sorry I lost track, which excuse are we on now?

Is it coaching...

or the refs...

or academic standards...

or a "Da Vinci Code" type conspiracy...

or did the sun reflect off the golden dome, then off touchdown Jesus and into someone's eyes?

Like I said I lose track sometimes!

StephenOfTroy - I'm with you. Bring back Lou....for all the reasons you mentioned. It will never happen. However, it would stop all the incessant whining about bringing in a coach with 'championship experience'. It would be utterly hilarious to listen to all the talking heads...and idiot bloggers...collectively lose their freaking minds in unison the following day. Lou, Lou, Lou!!!

Hilarious.

Everyone's comments are cracking me up. Sounds like we are all glad this disappointing season is coming to an end. At least us Domers have a great sense of humor. Hey, at least we won't have to watch Paul Duncan get called for holding anymore!

Let's put in perspective......depressing and disappointing....but I will weat my Green #3 jersey on Saturday...GO IRISH

I truly agree with those who talk about fixing the defense. I am one of those "the glass is 1/2 full" guys and, yes, maybe I am just too darn patient and believe me I have sat there many late Saturday afternoons ticked off with the rest of fellow Irish fans but in the end - we should stick with Charlie and with his staff - lets use this down note to recruit strong again - We need to maintain focus - THE IRISH WILL PREVAIL

Nelson

1. if charlie and his staff leave notre dame, there will simply be no future seasons for notre dame football as we have known and admired notre dame football in the past.
2. anyone who wants to see and hear what notre dame football is really about need only go to und.com and watch and listen to charlie's connecticut wrapup.
3. with eric hansen and brian hamiltion and the usual media vultures trying to go for charlie's jugular and get him to thrown notre dame student athletes or anyoner under the bus, charlie responds with the honesty and dignity to every question, including the questions about whether or not jack swarbrick or anyone else at notre dame has informed him that he has been fired-the answer to which is still no.
4.because of the conference and ncaa level so called sportmanship conduct rules( aka keep quiet about the crooked officiating, rules enforcement, and ranking systems or you will be banned from ncaa college sports for life) neither charlie or any member of his staff or any notre dame student athlete can state the obvious-that dishonest officiating crews have robbed notre dame of 5 wins this season and tried hard in other games which are currently listed as notre dame wins.
5. they cannot speak out about the dishonset officiating which had encouraged injuries by opposing team's players of notre dame student athletes throughout this season.
6. you all know that kyle rudolph has been out due to an injury sufferred during the notre dame/navy game. have any of you seen the film of several of the many illegal chop blocks by navy players who intentionally caused that injury as we have? we highly doubt that anyone else has. except for kyle, notre dame's student athletes, and charlie and his staff, who cannot speak out about such matters.
7. is a 6-5 record at notre dame good enough? certainly not, if the current officiating, rules enforcement, and rankings systems were not as completely dishonest and corrupt as they are.
8. whatever happens at notre dame, we will put an end to crooked college sports enterprises in the courts and we will punish, with extreme economic prejudice in the civil courts, every person and entity involved.
9. is a notre dame ad and administration that sits back quietly and fails to speak out publicly and defend charlie and hios staff and their families and notre dame's student athletes acceptable at notre dame? no.
10. after all, with very few exceptions, which include me, who will not be a plaintiff or attorney in any of those civil actions, the other attorneys know nothing about notre dame or notre dame football.
11. they just detest con operations, as i do, and have exposed and brought down many big ones before, including enron and mci worldcom.
12. we sense fellings of delight and relif among many of notre dame's enemies. they actually think that they have destroyed notre dame football and that we will go away as a result.
13. well, as the con artists at enron and mci worldcom found out in the civil courts, they have all made fatal errors.
GO IRISH!!!

If the offense was that good, they would not have any problems in the red zone. Both sides of the ball must be fixed and the special teams are not that great either. If Charlie can't fix that in five years, how could he possibly do it in 6?

As far as recruiting goes, I don't see Charlie's great recruiting classes doing anything beyond ordinary. I don't expect that with top 10 classes. Not all recruits are what they are cracked up to be, but it is clear their talent has not been developed properly. Another clear knock on the head coach.

I can see no reasons to keep a coach that is at best mediocre. Time to get a good coach who can ensure this team is tough, can tackle and block.

robertg - It is time for you to take your meds. If you have to blame the refs and the NCAA for Notre Dame losing, you are most likely the biggest Notre Dame loser out there. Notre Dame is losing because their opponents are playing harder, tougher and with more heart than Notre Dame. That is what Charlie Weis needs to be accounable for.

Charlie needs to stay. Period. If willingham didnt suck ass at recruiting 3-9 would have never happened. If anyone wants notre dame to have a shot at a title they will agree with me. if he stays so will clausen and tate. if they leave look for 3-9 again because honestly crist doesnt have the talent to ever win a championship.

1. i do not take any medications. i am in excellent physical, mental, and spiritual health and always have been.
2. we have never seen the take your medications defense tried in any court cases, but we highly recommend that you and your friends try asserting such a defense at the many civil trials the dates and locationms of which we will post right here at nd central, but make certain to bring a lot of money with you for the fines and contempt of court charges that the judges will hit you with. we all know that not one of you has the guts to show up in a real courtroom. you take you cheap shots anonymously on the internet only.
3. we have received the officiating report from our experts(who are not fans of any team)on the notre dame/uconn game.
4. as always and following the rules of occam's razor, as a public service, we are posting a few examples of the dishonest officiating which took place throughout the game and which altered the outcome on paper for the time being.
5. keith and his staff have posted to tv feed right here at und.com for everyone to watch.
6. we suggest that anyone who actually has an open mind watch the entire game film and focus on just 2 obvious areas.
7. the 1st area are the mandatory 15 yard penalties required for all out of bounds hits on players in all college football games. 2 such penalties were called against notre dame players and, while uconn players committed many such personal fouls throught the game against notre dame players, not one was called by this dishonest big east officiating crew.
8.then, watch the entire game again and the phony fumble calls which have been a great favorite of dishonest officiating crews in cheating notre dame out of wins this season.
9. 2 notre dame players did lose the ball after their knees were down. in both cases, the officials awarded the balls to uconn. uconn players commited real fumble 2 times also which were recovered by notre dame players, but given back to uconn by these officials.
to get the real score in the notre dame/uconn game, add a minimum of 21 points to notre dame's score and subtract a minimum of 14 points from uconn's score and forget about overtimes. yes, we know that the officials did call back 2 uconn tds for actual penalties which uconn had been committing throughout the entire game but not being called for.
the officials get paid off for the outcomes and often call such penalties at the end of games to try to cover up what they have been doing during the entire games to fool the viewing public.
but for us, they would continue getting away with these con operations and making fools out of the public.
that is why we hired so many people who used to be honest college football officials and turned down the payoffs, only to find themselves wrongfully terminated by the conferences which hire and pay all of the officials at every game.
10. of course, these officials will have to get on witness stands in very public civil jury trials under oath and try to explain these calls and non calls. they will, quite correctly, be exposed to laughter and derision, in addition to losing all of their material possessions.
11. taking as the gospel truth what the officials do, without knowing anything about their backgrounds, finances, or anything else is exactly what notre dame's enemies and the proprietors of crookled college sports enterprises and the crooked officials want notre dame fans and alumni to do. along with savagely attacking charlie and his staff and notre dame student athletes who also play football want.
12. while they may just succeed in their objectives od destroying notre dame, we will destroy each of them economically in the civil courts no matter what happens with notre dame football.
GO IRISH!!!

As an ND alum, I would have to say that robertg is so delusional and distorted in his perspective that I am beginning to think he's a phantom--someone striving to make ND fans look even worse than they already do in this pathetic situation. In any case, SOT is mostly reasonable. Keith is irrational for defending the indefensible. Mike, who argues for traditional ND values, is spot on. Stephen, the issue isn't with ND being a place where people can learn ABOUT other worldviews. The issue is ND violating her own principles as she drifts towards abject secularism, actually teaching faithless worldviews as truth. Other schools can be true to their own identity and do that, but not ND. As "Chariots of Fire" described Eric Liddell as the "true athlete" whose prowess on the track was an extension of his faith, and the two could not be separated successfully, so was Notre Dame once. Can she field a team successfulyl as a purely secular school? Sure--others do. But that will require an even greater shift. And for those of faith, perhaps success under such circumstances would be more expensive than all the buyouts and network contracts combined.

1. although these sats are available online for confirmation, we post them here to make things easier for those with open minds.
2. although his severely talent depeleted cleveland team lost by one point to detroit, notre dame own brady quinn threw 4 td passes and no picks to earn the highest nfl qb rating of this week and one of the highest of this season at 133.1.
3. a few comparables are tom brady of new england at 98.3, carson palmer of a cincinnati team loaded wsith taslen at every position, except for qb, at 75.4, with 0 tds and 1 pick in cincy's loss to hopeless oakland, matt leinart of arizona at 83.6, with zero picks and zero tds, during junk time, not as starting qb, and mark sanchez of the jets at 27.1 with 1 td and 4 picks( yes, in new york, sanchez is now the word for turnover).
4. did charlie weis have something to do with training brady quinn and tom brady? he most certainly did.
5. are the others all products of pete carroll's crooked usc football program whom petey sold to nfl teams, along with many other nfl busts at grossly inflated prices? they most certainly are, along with nfl bust and con artist reggie bush who has done bupkis for the saints in achieving their current undefeated nfl record.
6. officiating in ther nfl? by no means perfect, but with more than sufficient safeguards built in so that not one of the college officials cwho have been cheating notre dame this season would still have a job.
GO IRISH!!!

As an ND alum, I would have to say that robertg is so delusional and distorted in his perspective that I am beginning to think he's a phantom--someone striving to make ND fans look even worse than they already do in this pathetic situation. In any case, SOT is mostly reasonable. Keith is irrational for defending the indefensible. Mike, who argues for traditional ND values, is spot on. Stephen, the issue isn't with ND being a place where people can learn ABOUT other worldviews. The issue is ND violating her own principles as she drifts towards abject secularism, actually teaching faithless worldviews as truth. Other schools can be true to their own identity and do that, but not ND. As "Chariots of Fire" described Eric Liddell as the "true athlete" whose prowess on the track was an extension of his faith, and the two could not be separated successfully, so was Notre Dame once. Can she field a team successfulyl as a purely secular school? Sure--others do. But that will require an even greater shift. And for those of faith, perhaps success under such circumstances would be more expensive than all the buyouts and network contracts combined.

David86: Good post. I appreciate your rationale re: ND violating her own principles. As I've said before, to other posters who rationally and in good faith articulated views I do not agree with, reasonable minds can differ.

Also, I previously considered and discarded the notion that robertg is an anti-ND person who is trying to bring the operation down from the inside, by making ND look worse than it is. If someone wanted to do that, I doubt they'd go to the fanatical extreme that robertg goes to. And they wouldn't be nearly as petulant. You'll notice that he tries his best to respond to every little perceived slight, and he tries to incorporate phrases being used by others (e.g., "extreme prejudice") but he's so immature that it just comes off as more whining. Add 21 to ND's score, subtract 14 from UConn. Why? Because otherwise ND loses, as they did. Hitting a player out of bounds in college football equals a late hit penalty except when an ND player tackles Joe McKnight of USC after McKnight took four long strides out of bounds.

Now he's trying to say that Reggie Bush isn't responsible for any of New Orleans's success. Hello? Earth? Two touchdowns last week. Inconsequential? Six yard leap into the end zone? Ho-hum. But if it was one of ND's running backs, he'd be telling us how New Orleans would be 0-10 without him. Yawn.

And I agree with you that Keith is defending the indefensible. But I don't think he's irrational for doing so. He doesn't want to bite the hand that feeds him in any way. Coming out against Weis could put him in an untenable position with his bosses. But I'll bet you that he comes out in support of the decision to fire Weis, and that he cheers loudly for whoever Weis's replacement will be. He apparently thinks he needs to be the rah-rah guy but he's losing his credibility in the process. ND already has enough NBC cheerleaders. Oh well. As I said initially, good post.

1. we have had the delusional and distorted comments thrown at us before by people hiding behind phony internet identities and claiming to be notre dame fans or graduates.we also got the same trash thrown at us by the con artists at enron and mci worldcom.
2. we invite you to put your real names and addresses on these comments and send them, via us mail, to your local ap headquarters. we will get them and respond in the civil courts since such statements constitute libel per se.
3. to the extent that any real nd fans or graduates have fallen into the weis and staff and notre dame student athlete bashing traps set for them by notre dame's enemies and refuse to look at the facts, then yes, it is our intent to expose them as the mindless idiots that they have been.
4. however, our primary intent is to present the evidence and links therto to real notre dame fans so that they can educate themselves and stop allowing themselves to be used as tools of notre dame's enemies.
5. now, we already know that no one is going to put his or her real name and address on any such comments and send them to ap headquarters through the us mails.
6. on those issues, we have no additional comments.
7. we find it amazing that our posts have brought so much traffic to nd central which, until, as we promised we would, we got rid of the jerks who ran nd central before this season(with eric hansen of the south bend tribune being one of them and, in fact, the key player).
8. before this season, nd central was an internet dead zone.
GO IRISH!!!

Libel, robertg? Ahem. People who live in glass houses and don't know jack sh*t about law shouldn't throw stones. Truth is a defense. Thus we have nothing to fear from you.

What would YOUR defense be if someone from the NCAA, or someone connected with collegiate officiating or one of the football factories, or the Roman Catholic Church, or Enron, or MCI WorldCom, or, following David86's theory, someone who hates to see how you've tarnished the ND name with your asinine ranting, decides to sue you for the various and sundry gibberish you post here?

And, holy schizophrenia, Batman! You keep telling us, via the royal we, that "we" will do so-and-so in the civil courts, but then you go and tell us that you "will not be a plaintiff or attorney" in any of the cases you're threatening. Make up your mind, doofus. (Hint: We already know you're not going to be a plaintiff, because there won't be any cases, and we know you won't be an attorney in any of the non-existent cases, because you're not an attorney.)

1. so, now back to the old desperate you are not an attorney and do not know jack about the law defense. anyone who has the guts can try that one in a real court and find out what happens to him or her.
2. yes, i am an attorney with a long and very successful record in civil trials and have never been defeated in a jury trial in over 30 years. i graduated from the nation's no.1 law school and did extremely well there, as i have in the courts for over 30 years.
3. since i have acted as the internet point man for these cases and have been so deeply involved in the discovery process that i will be a factual witness at every single trial invlving these matters, i will not be acting as the attorney of record in any of these cases, but the other attorneys who will be have the same levels of expertise and success that i do.
4. everyone who has posted here at nd central has agreed in writing that"You are posting this comment to a publicly viewable discussion."
5. each person has had to submit a name and a valid email address and, by law, keith and his staff cannot destroy any of that data or sucessfully resist any subpoenas for all of that information.
6. we are not going to target for civil lawsuits any innocent individuals who are simply victimes of other fraudulent information received from other sources.
7. however, for the people who have posted comments at nd central this season who are just shills for notre dame's enemies or connected in any way with crooked college sports enterprises thinking that their identities could be kept from us, start thinking about brazil.
8. none of you can erase or delete your posts. we have printed them all out.
9. for those who deserve what they have coming in the civil courts, this post will serve as a well earned and very painful rude awakening.
10. if anyone has used a phony name to obtain access to this website or an email address which you think we cannot track down the true owner of, you are each very very wrong.
11. for the innocent people who have simply been the victims of fraudulent information from other sources, you have nothing to fear from us.
GO IRISH!!!

robertg, if you were old enough to do any sort of critical thinking, you'd probably feel guilty. If your family canceled its internet access, they'd have the money to get you the medication you need. And present-day you is cheating future-you out of the chance to be employable in a job that has a dress code.

Instead of pretending to have printed out every post, just print this one out and put it in a safe place. When you reach the age of majority, take it out and read it. Then you'll finally be old enough to understand that I heard your desperate cry for help in time to do something about it....and laughed my ass off at you for being such a tool.

stephen of troy,
1. we thank thank for for being the 1st at nd central foolish and stupid enough to put his material assets on the block.
2. we have printed out your post and you will be seeing us in the civil courts.
3. if you had checked with a competent attorney in this area of law, you would know that the laws and rules of jurisdiction and venue covering actionable conduct on the internet allow us to bring the civil actions against you and others in whatever court we want.
4. we do not have to bring such civil actions in the local courts near which you currently live and will not do so.
5. although we know that your attorneys' fees alone will force you into bk long before your case ever gets to trial, in the unlikely event that you do get that far, you will see me in person at your trial( i am an extremely healthy 63 year old) both selecting the jury and as a factual witness.
6. in your case, i will also be the plaintiff. we will let a relative rookie attorney handle your case and we could care less if we end up getting none of your material possesions if yopu choose to pay them all out to some attorneys who taske up your defense until you are broke.
7. you remind us of ken lay of enron and bernie ebbers on mci worldcom. they also laughed on their expensive chairs in their expensive houses until we took all of their material possessions away in the civil courts.
8. you may have heard of the lsat test, a type of iq test which is taken by every applicant to a us law school. very few people get perfect scores. a few more get scores that indicate that they were one or two questions away from perfection. i scored in that second category and was heavily recruited by every law school in the us, especially since i had the college grades to match my lsat score.
GO IRISH!!

Who needs football when you've got this? Robertg, Barnum and Bailey have also generated some pretty decent traffic in their day, so... Keith, can't you work out a way to sell some 'dogs, popcorn, and soda while we observe all this? Stephen, I guess I have to buy your position on the identity thing: You just can't make this stuff up!

1. stephen of troy is a very bad choice for an internet name.
2. rather than being low profile,this internet name tag stinks of being a shill for the crooked usc football program.
3. an analysis of the postings made under the name stephen of troy( in addition to printing out every internet post, we scan every post into an offline data base which allows us to sort by poster name and content, words and phrases used, and by other criteria.
4. the posts of stephen of troy reveal a split personality with some posts attempting to create the impression that stephen of troy is really a notre dame fan or alumnus and others revealing a real hatred of notre dame and even more of us.
5. we will report on the progress of our civil action of stehpen of troy who may very well be a collection of different individuals sharing the same special purpose internet identity and special purpose email address which they think they incorrectly think that they can hide behind.
6. keith and his staff do not block or delete any posts from nd central per the contracts with msnbc and nbc sports.
7. there are quite a few other posters who have a lot in common with stephen of troy, both in the choice of words and in their wavering claims to be notre dame fans or alumni and expressions of real hatred of notre dame.
8. the objectives and tactics of stephen of troy and those posters like him are quite simple. they are enemies of notre dame and will post whatever they think will cause notre dame fans and alumni to start bashing charlie and his staff and notre dame's student athletes and directing their venom, with particualr ferocity at posters such as us who refuse to back down and keepp on pumping out those true facts about charlie and his staff, notre dame's student athletes, and about the extremely serious and ongoing corruption problems at pete carroll's crooked usc football program.
9. for anyone who thinks that bushgate and usc's many problems with illegal conduct in usc's athletic department are over, try the official website of the california court of appeals, 4th district, div one, enter the names bush reginald on the 1st page under party search and you will find the the lake vs bush case is still alive and well with the california court of appeal ready to bounce bush's completey frivolous appeal and send the case
to the san diego superior court for a very public and very expedited jury trial.
10. we understand that bush has offerred lake and his attorneys millions in hush money, but that lake and his attorneys have turned down all offers. we understand why that has happened.
11. since our big disclosure win over the ncaa on 11/15/2009, the coverup and delay scams petey and mikey and the usc athletic department have been running with the ongoing ncaa investigations have been blown open by us and panic has set in at the usc football program and has reached the usc full time football players, accounting for the very minimal efforts and blowout losses to oregon and stanford( upcoming stanford was defeated by lowly cal this past week and has a record of 7-4( with zero wins or losses attributable to dishonest officiating crews), as opposed to notre dame's 6-5 paper record, which is really 11-0.
12. the fact that there will be yet another big east game crew does not inspire much confidence. however, as we have already learned, charlie and his staff and notre dame's student athletes just never give up; no matter how many times they get shafted by dishonest officiating crews. a number of big east conferenve officials have already been served with our civil lawsuits and expressed desires to fes up, tell the truth and settle out of court and more will be served this week. the attitudes of the big east crew who will be at the notre dame/ stanford game are still unknown. however, word does get around.
13. our process servers have also already served civil lawsuits on a number of other individuals, each of whom has expressed a desire to fess up, tell the truth, settle out of court, and preserve some of their material assets to try to make honest livings after college football.
14. so far, each such person, unlike stephen of troy, does fall within our settlement possible category.
15. this is how all of these projects work. 1st, we hit with civil lawsuits the people who are likely to settle and provide useful evidence against the real bad guys with whom we will never settle out of court under any circumstances.
16. having fihished with that settlement stage, we then proceed on the the really bad players at the tops of the scams.
17. our tactics always result in total victories.
18. notre dame and charlie and his and notre dame's student athletes had 2 key recruits and their families visiting notre dame for the uconn game.
19. one recruit is currently a usc conmmit and the other is a recruit whom usc has been very actively pursuing.
20. each recruit and their familues came away very much impressed
with charlie and his staff and with notre dame. having played football in high school. each recruit knows dishonest officiating when he sees it and each saw plenty of that going on during the notre dame/uconn game.
21. however, like many key 2010 recruits, they are waiting to see if the notre dame ad and admiistration can be trusted.
22. if charlie and his staff leave,notre dame can forget about those recruits and most other key 2010 recruits, along with jimmy clausen and golden tate and many other current notre dame student athletes.
GO IRISH!!!

robertg - Which law school did you got to? What was your LSAT score? I have to admit, at least your posts are entertaining. They might be long winded and convoluted, but still entertaining.

The last time I checked, Notre Dame playing soft is not a conspiracy.

Oh big Bobbie G. What's a hyper-intelligent, super-wealthy high-powered attorney with a guaranteed lock of a case doing posting in the comments section of a sports blog? Where's the media coverage? Where's the press release? Where's the press conference announcing these findings? If you are free to spill the beans here, why nothing official? Point to your practice's web site where I can read your press releases announcing your success against WorldCom and Enron and your successful action against the PAC 10 that resulted in changes to their officiating oversight.

While I agree the ND has been screwed by officials in a some cases (awarding a dead ball to Pitt to end ND's final drive was a horrendous call) but ND lost to UConn and Navy, plain and simple. ND's defense has been consistently outcoached and outplayed. ND's offensive line (packed with experienced seniors) has underperformed against smaller 3 and 4 man defensive fronts.

Sorry Bob, but until you can produce something more official than your anonymous rantings on an internet comments board, I'm reduced to relegating you to the crackpot bin for categorization.

robertg-
1. we have printed out all your posts

2. we have turned them over to the appropriate authorities at the Department of Mental Health

3.We have captured all the frequencies that your fillings receive and are controlling what you receive

4. Since your intretation of the rules of jurisdiction allows you to pick the "any court we want" please consider traffic court on Queens, New York. It's in a nice building. Please note that they hold night court, so we can all attend and see how a real legal team operates.

5. If you consider leaving Ken Lay with "only" 20 million dollars taking all his assets, I'd like to say that it was a hollow victory. especially in the light that his criminal case was dumped when he croaked.

6.In reference to posting 109, #7, you remind us of Baron von Munchhausen.

7. Who cares about your test scores. That's history. Most normal folks leave that sort of "this is my identity" garbage behind when the grow up. You have not gotten past this and are mired in some sort of college aged nexus that has locked you into your twenties. Grow up, by your own admission you are 63. Get rid of the ole university rah, rah. and move on. It's o.k. to like your old school and to root for it, but you are obsessed with ND. Get a hobby, travel,build a grotto, garden, but chill.

JLT, you might add to that the very nature of the ravings. RG, by accident or design, is something of a strawman, but for the sake of the argument I'll go along with it to address one thing "he" keeps bringing up: enmity. For all the rah rah about "waking up the echoes" (and for the record, my decision to attend ND was sealed after staring up at the Dome one night, sentimental fool that I am), let's remember how all these rivalries began. Navy? ND's best friend, keeping her doors open in the dark days of WW2. USC? Friendship between coaches' wives. Michigan? Made a road trip way back when to help teach the ND boys how to play this new game--more friendship. Not only is all this talk of "enemies" and lawsuits tiresome and churlish, it's definitely not the ND I was weaned on.

A real ND lover would never talk that way.

Very well said. If more people understood why ND and Navy played, they would just congratulate Navy and move on. It hurt no doubt, but I am not upset over Navy. They may win 11 games this year. I am more upset that after five years it is doubtful we could beat any top 20 team.
And, we need to go back to a more challenging schedule.

robertg,

Take some time off, man. Go somewhere isolated, no computer or contact other than a simple non-smart phone to reflect on things. Stay for a while until it really doesn't matter what happens in ND football, that even if it were to go to hell, YOU would be ok.

Take it from a guy who was at the game. Defense was slow off the snap. They looked like 5 year olds playing their first game and not knowing what to do against the pass. The offense played way to conservative. Floyd and Tate should have been going down field the whole game. I feel like Charlie just does not trust his offense like he did with Quinn, Samardzija, and McKnight. Clausen did not throw deep one time. He has got a cannon and the best one-two punch from WR position in college football. Wise made the mistake of being too conservative and in a do or die situation that he is in, he should've pulled the trigger and let the ball fly. Running three times in the red zone and then kicking a field goal is not going to lead the irish to a victory. They are 80% in the red zone this season. Unfortunately, 80% of those scores have been field goals. It's embarrassing to watch the powerful offense of the Irish get stuffed by a mediocre at best UCONN defense. Stupid plays also killed Notre Dame. Sergio Brown's personal foul on 3rd down turned an upcoming punt into a first down and then a touchdown for UCONN. The kick return was pathetic. Notre Dame's kickoff team was 20 yards away when the ball reached the returner. Everything was slow and sloppy Saturday. Even Lou Holtz picked against the Irish and he turned out to be right. Hopefully they can turn it around next season.

Why would we go to a more challenging schedule when we cannot even beat the teams that are on our schedule now?

ONCE AGAIN THE WOLVES ARE HUNGRY. LETS FACE IT ND WILL NEVER BE THE POWER HOUSE BECAUSE 1. THEY HAVE HIGH ACADEMIC STANDARDS FOR THEIR ATHLETES AND RIGHTFULLY SO. THEY GRADUATE THEIRS. THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE THERE TO DO. SPORTS ARE AN AVENUE TO ACHIEVE A DEGREE. I REALIZE ALUMNI WANT TO GIVE $$$ TO WIN GAMES BUT THEY HAVE LOST FOCUS. MOST OF THEM DID NOT PLAY SPORTS, HOWEVER THEY DID RECEIVE A DEGREE. BE HAPPY WITH GRADUATING THE ATHLETES NOT TRAINING NFL PLAYERS. 2. THE SCHEDULE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A MAJOR PROBLEM. EVEN THOSE FOOTBALL SCHOOLS SUCH AS FLORIDA-MIAMI-ALABAMA ETC PLAY TWO TOUGH GAMES, SEVEN NOT SO TOUGH AND TWO AA TEAMS WHILE ND INSISTS ON PLAYING A TOUGH SCHEDULE EVERY YEAR. IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT ND TO BECOME? I PRAY NOT.

WE HAVE DESTROYED THE IMAGE OF THE OLYMPICS BY FOLLOWING THE RUSSIAN LEAD AND ALLOWED HIGH PAID PROS PLAY. BY THE WAY WE BEAT THE RUSSIAN PROS IN HOCKEY WITH NON PROS AND OUR PRO BASKETBALL TEAM LOST SO WHY ALL THE FUSS?

CHARLIE DID NOT DRAW THE 15 YARD PENALTY THAT REALLY WAS THE BEGINNING OF THE END AGAINST CONN. HE DID NOT FUMBLE EITHER. STOP LISTENING TO ALL THESE MEDIA JERKS, WHO REALLY WANT ND TO FAIL SO THEIR FLORIDA-MIAMI-ALABAMA-LSU ETC PREVAIL. WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND IT IS US. GET BEHIND THE PLAYERS/COACHES AND SUCK IT UP. WE WILL BE BETTER THAN 6&5 SOON. I GET UPSET AT THE PLAYERS AND COACHES BUT IN THE END THEY ARE HUMAN LIKE ME.

LET WEISS STAY AT LEAST TWO YEARS MORE DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE THE THIRD TIME BY GIVING IN TO THE MEDIA BULL SHIT. WHO KNOWS IF DAVIES OR WILLINGHAM WOULD HAVE PRODUCED A WINNER, IF THEY HAD BEEN GIVEN TWO MORE YEARS.

Because if you are playing against a more challenging schedule atleast you are getting beat by a superior team and not superior coaching.

The Sergio Brown personal foul was just one play. I would be more concerned that Connecticut was able to make the necessary adjustments to hold ND to 6 points the last three quarters (2-a quarter).

robertg, so you're the latest person to think I'm more than one person? Wrong again. I'm one person. At least you don't think I'm Keith Arnold...yet. But I bet he wishes he was free to tell you what he really thinks of you. And no, it's not your absurd threats against writers you disagree with, like John Taylor at CFT, that keeps him from being honest with you. First off, he doesn't want to be seen as picking on a commenter. Second, he doesn't want to wound your hurt inner child's fragile psyche. Third, he's way too busy pretending Weis doesn't need to get the Lou Holtz shove-out-the-door to be able to spend time telling you what your major malfunction is.

And while you think I "very well may be a collection of different individuals," I'm certain that you have a collection of different personalities trapped inside your head. Luckily, since you have no brain, there's ample room for them all to co-exist, if not peacefully, then at least without much jostling.

You may not like the moniker StephenOfTroy. But at least I'm not pretending to be someone I'm obviously not. *COUGH* 63 year old famous law professor *COUGH* robertg, you're a phony AND a doofus. My earlier post was incomplete. Spare us the nonsense about your LSAT scores. grandpa was right.

ND's football team will win more games when it starts playing better. It has nothing to do with any conspiracy. Its team will play better when it hires a better coach. You blamed the ND AD for not sticking up for Weis, but the AD is the only reason Weis is still around.

You're confused and befuddled, Mister Impersonator. You have a better chance of convincing us that you're jazz sax player Kenny G than you do of convincing us that you're G Robert Blakey. For God's sake, you don't even understand the most basic rules of venue, let alone whether an athletic event is a justiciable controversy.

When you go to junior high school today, robbie-the-lying-doofus, try not to daydream like you always do. Your remedial teacher really wants the class to finish its work on the letter "A" this week. (Nod to the Simpsons)

stephen of troy,
1. you claim to be one person.
2. the whole world will find out everything about you at your civil trial or at your pretrial deposition if, as we suspect, you are forced into bk before trial.
3.as keith well knows, keith is free to post anything he wants at this site and he often does and runs into many scathing attacks,including some very vicious attacks from stephen of troy, but not from us.
4. are you claiming to be keith's spokesperson? if keith or anyone else wants to join with you and adopt your posts and share your fate in the civil courts, then anyone who wants to is welcome to post away.
5. however, we doubt that you can find anyone foolish or stupid enough to join you in the civil courts.
6. i do not have to convince you of anything. i just have to convince a judge and a jury and i have all of the documents required to do so while you have zero defenses.
7. keep digging yourself into an even deeper hole. at this point, what more do you have to lose?
8. no doubt, you were expecting a mad rush of stephen of troy defenders to join in your posts.
9. so far, there have been none at all. perhaps you really are all alone.
10. based on your posts, we can fully understand why very few people would want anything to do with you.
11. i do not believe in vacations nor do i need any time off. however, statements like those, unlike the stephen of troy trash do not contain grounds for civil actions.
GO IRISH!!!

robertg: Wake me up when you learn to count, let alone when you learn to tell the truth. Half a dozen people on this thread alone have told you that you need to take your meds, or that you're delusional, or some variant of that. I don't need anyone to come to my defense. The worst thing that's been written about me is that I'm "mostly reasonable" or that someone agreed with 85% of what I write.

And I don't see ANYONE telling you that they agree with what you write. They just say you're entertaining. Which, of course, I have never disputed.

You lie. I've never attacked Keith Arnold, viciously or otherwise. Nor have I claimed to be his spokesperson. YOU, on the other hand, claimed to have brought the Roman Catholic Church to its knees, which you did after you claimed to have sued WorldCom and Enron. And you made that claim after you claimed to be someone you're not. But you claimed to be someone you're not before you claimed to have done exceedingly well on the LSAT and to have been heavily recruited by law schools.

Tell me, robertg, what color are the monsters that live under your bed, hidden by the dust ruffle? Is your fear of those monsters the reason you spend all your time posting numbered paragraphs of repetitive gibberish? If the Irish promise to win a game at some indefinite point in the future, will you promise to make it through the whole night without sneaking downstairs to sit up in the computer room? I'll put in a good word for you on the "can-I-have-a-nightlight-at-least" issue. But only if you eat your vegetables.

I don't see that I have anything to lose by continuing to hold a mirror up to your idiocy. But I may be gaining something: a sense of pity. Not for you. You're a tool. But David86 got me thinking. You ARE bringing down the collective credibility of ND fans. Shame on you. If ND's punter was any good, I'd have him boot you out of here. But he'd shank the punt and you'd just end up 10 yards away, and we could still hear you alternately furiously pecking at your keyboard and rubbing your hands with delight at the delicious prospect of getting even with your imagined enemies.

SOT, we'll be OK. If Notre Dame carries herself with class, the inevitable ravings of the few won't matter. If she doesn't, all the class her disaffected sons could muster won't matter either. I do appreciate the sentiment, though.

SOT, we'll be OK. If Notre Dame carries herself with class, the inevitable ravings of the few won't matter. If she doesn't, all the class her disaffected sons could muster won't matter either. I do appreciate the sentiment, though.

Can't comment about UCLA but Cal no longer holds to high academic standards for football recruits.
I believe Stanford does and struggles the same way Notre Dame does even though I'd give Stanford the nod for a tougher schedule.

robertg - I love your posts and they're the only reason I visit ND Central. I'm wondering if you've been banned/censored from NDNation.com's message boards. If so, a civil jury trial to take away their material possessions is in order. The truth is out there.

"Ma, the MEATLOAF."

robertg:
Ummm... you dont own any automatic weopons, do you?

Robertg slobbed my knob today. It felt great.

ND will return to her former glory when the coaches get their act together and learn how to teach. They are as much at fault for Notre Dame playing like chumps instead of Champions.
They should change their sign at the bottom of the stairts to read,
'Play the game like you've been on the field before'. Maybe that will stop some of the inane celebrations penalties and personal foul penalties that ND loves to incur at the worst time. Spme of them play like they've never played the game before with some of the most absolutely, head shaking stupid things they do.
They take a SAT test to enter Notre Dame. Well, I think they should be required to take a test to check out their football IQ.

So robertg, you are Bob Gillian? or something to that matter ehhh? Hmmm, alas we know the alias, thanks to other posters in other threads...robertg, you can run baby, but like Clausen, we will sack you sooner or later....

For the record, ND got bushwhacked by a very good football team. UCONN's 4-5 record was totally deceiving. They had played 5 ranked teams down to the wire and came up short in literally the final minute (seconds) of each game, includng Pitt, Cincy, North Carlina and West Virginia. They are hard nosed and have a huge O line that will run the ball down your throat. With a historically weak passing game, they have learned to live off the run even when the D is stacked with 8 in a box. As was the case at ND, the UCONN running game can wear down defenses and break them by the 4th Q.

ND fans should not feel too bad. Next year with a basically the same matured line-up, Mighican better be ready to play or it could be another "stunning" upset.

Weis is a class act, as is the University, and ND ought to give him one more year with Clasussen and Tate, and a chance to shore up its Defense. Notwithstandng their record, the Irish are only a few plays away from having a completely different season.

Robert G just sucked me off. It felt great.

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