RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Sports and Wrestling Notre Dame fires Willingham as football coach.

As much as I dislike Irish football, Willingham was jobbed. Here's the story from ESPN:

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ESPN.com news services

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Coach Tyrone Willingham was fired by Notre Dame on Tuesday after three seasons in which he failed to return one of the nation's most storied football programs to prominence.

Willingham went 21-15, including 6-5 this season. The Fighting Irish lost 41-10 to No. 1 Southern California on Saturday.

"We simply have not made the progress on the field that we need to make," athletic director Kevin White said in a news conference. "Nor have we been able to create the positive momentum necessary in our efforts to return the Notre Dame program to the elite level of the college football world."

Players now are considering not playing in the Insight Bowl on Dec. 28, and White said he didn't know who would coach the game. Notre Dame accepted the invitation from bowl officials on Sunday.

The Notre Dame players met Tuesday evening but no decision was made about participation in a potential bowl game. A decision is expected to be made Wednesday.

The decision to sever ties with Willingham was made during an emergency meeting of the univeristy's board of trustees Monday night, ESPN.com's Ivan Maisel reports. At the time, seven assistants were on the road recruiting. Upon learning of the decision Tuesday afternoon, Willingham called his coaches and, according to one source, said to them "come on in, we're done."

Sophomore free safety Tommy Zbikowski told ESPN.com's Wayne Drehs the team had scheduled a meeting for late Tuesday afternoon to dicuss bowl preparations. Instead, the team attended an emotional meeting at 1 p.m. with Willingham and White, who said they "decided to go in different directions."

"I feel bad for the seniors," Zbikowski said. "First they have to go through the [Bob] Davie firing, then [George] O'Leary and now this. Those guys have constantly helped the underclassmen and they've been so selfless, and now they have to go through this again. The other bad part is most of the coaches were out recruiting, so we didn't even get to talk to them.

"The best way to describe it is shock. You hear about this stuff on the message boards, but no one thinks it can happen, and then there's a meeting called out of nowhere and it happens."

Willingham's firing comes after a season in which the Irish pulled off upset victories over Michigan and Tennessee but also were beaten badly by USC and Purdue. Student groups were planning a protest on campus Tuesday evening to call for Willingham's firing; he faced criticism from fans much of the season.

White praised Willingham's handling of the team, especially the Irish's strong academic record.

"From Sunday through Friday our football program has exceeded all expectations, in every way," he said. "But on Saturday, we struggled. We've been up and down and sideways a little bit."

Notre Dame's loss to USC marked the fifth time the Irish lost by 31 points or more under Willingham -- including three against the rival Trojans. By comparison, the Irish under Davie had just one such loss; Lou Holtz and Dan Devine had none.

Notre Dame hired Willingham, the first black head coach in any sport for the Irish, from Stanford to replace O'Leary. The former Georgia Tech coach resigned five days after taking the job because he admitted lying about his academic and athletic achievements on his résumé.

With Tony Samuel fired by New Mexico State and Fitz Hill resigning as San Jose State coach last week, there are now only two black head coaches in Division I-A: Karl Dorrell at UCLA and Sylvester Croom at Mississippi State.

Floyd Keith, executive director of the Black Coaches Association, said he was disappointed with Notre Dame's decision.

"In three years, I think he has done everything, short of winning a national championship and I don't think he inherited national championship talent," he said.

Keith told ESPNews that the firing makes it seem that black coaches are held to a higher standard than their white counterparts. Davie, Willingham's predecessor, compiled a 21-16 record during his first three seasons, but was retained for the duration of his contract. He finished with a five-year record of 35-25.

Willingham had two years left on his contract.

"This sends an alarming message to African-Americans," Keith said.

In his first season, Willingham had many fans recalling Notre Dame's glory days, taking over a losing squad and turning things around immediately. The Irish won eight straight games to start the season before finishing 10-3 and going to the Gator Bowl.

But during his second year, the Irish fell to 5-7, with four of their losses coming by 26 points or more. It was Notre Dame's third losing record in five seasons, the team's worst stretch in 115 years of football.

One coach expected to be mentioned as a possible replacement for Willingham is Utah's Urban Meyer, an Irish assistant between 1996 and 2000. The Utes are 11-0 and ranked No. 5 in their second year under Meyer.

Meyer wouldn't say Tuesday whether he'd be interested if Notre Dame called, but he did acknowledge the clause in his Utah contract that allows him to leave Utah without penalty if he is named head coach at Michigan, Ohio State or Notre Dame. The clause was included in the contract extension he signed last summer.

"I have great respect for that university. That's the reason it's [the out clause] in my contract," Meyer said after Tuesday's practice. "I think a lot of people look into it more than what it is. I'm sure that this is going to spark a lot of discussion, but I'm just trying to get a team ready to play in a bowl game."

Notre Dame has won eight AP college football national championships, more than any other school, with the last in the 1988 season under Holtz. Players from the school have won the Heisman Trophy seven times, also the most in college football.

But the Irish haven't won a bowl game since ending the 1993 season ranked No. 2 after beating Texas A&M 24-21 in the Cotton Bowl. Since then, the Irish have lost six straight postseason games.

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I'd say this job is Meyers' if he wants it. Butch Davis could have had it if Meyer wasn't available. I was hoping Meyer would come to Washington but it looked as though Florida was his until this opening. I think Willingham gets the Washington job if he wants it.

What surprised me most about this firing was that the AD, in public and on TV, sits there and says: Ty did everything right Sunday through Friday. He just didn't win enough games. That's the first time I can recall a college AD firing a coach and saying it's because he didn't win enough. Most ADs couch a coach's dismissal in smoke and fog and other obfuscations. This one comes out and says it.

Is this a turning point in college sports?

The racial aspect of this may have repercussions. Ty's the first black ND coach and he's the first ND coach not to be allowed to finish out a contract. He had a 5 year deal with 2 remaining and he was fired. And fired before a bowl game.

With Florida relieving Zook and now ND relieving Willingham, I think we may start to see more of this in the coming years, and it's all about the competition to get the next "can't miss guy." This year, that seems to be Urban Meyer. In 2002, it was Ty Willingham.

Here is perhaps the most damning racial indictment of Notre Dame regarding their firing of Ty Willingham.

Bob Davie, Willingham's predecessor, compiled a 21-16 record during his first three seasons, but was retained for the duration of his contract.

In Ty's tenure, he was 21-15.

In-freaking-credible.

I'd like to see Willingham take over Army. Just so he could stomp all over Notre Dame.

Looks like Meyer is set to interview for Notre Dame according to Yahoo Sports:

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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Notre Dame began its pursuit of Utah's Urban Meyer, spending several hours in town Thursday to meet with him about becoming the coach of college football's most glamorous program.

A private jet with the Notre Dame logo on its tail carrying athletic director Kevin White and other school officials landed in Salt Lake City around 5 p.m. They were taken in a sport-utility vehicle to a downtown hotel.

It was not clear where Meyer met to discuss the opening created by Tuesday's firing of Tyrone Willingham.

he Notre Dame party returned to the airport, in the big, black SUV with tinted windows, went through a security gate and boarded the small jet without comment. Meyer didn't appear to be with the Notre Dame officials when they boarded and he did not immediately return a cell phone call for comment.

It was no surprise Notre Dame was coming after Meyer so quickly.

``I'm sure they're going to be after him,'' Utah quarterback Alex Smith said. ``They'd be dumb if they didn't. Who wouldn't want him?''

Earlier in the day, Meyer would not directly comment on reports that the Fighting Irish were courting him, but players said their coach acknowledged that Notre Dame and other schools were interested.

``It was nice to hear from him and we appreciate it. Whatever happens with him, we're behind him,'' defensive back Bo Nagahi said. ``He's a great coach and he deserves what he's getting.''

After practice at the Utes' new indoor facility, Meyer said he plans to coach Utah in its bowl game even if he takes another job. The Utes are all but set to become the first team from a mid-major conference to crack the Bowl Championship Series.

Smith said the players all understand what's at stake for Meyer, a former Notre Dame assistant who has a clause in his contract that allows him to leave for the Fighting Irish job without penalty.

``It's an opportunity that's not going to come around often for any coach,'' Smith, a Heisman Trophy contender, said. ``You had to see this coming with how much success we've had this season.''

Utah athletic director Chris Hill told The Associated Press the school would attempt to keep Meyer, who helped make the Utes a high-profile team in just two seasons.

``There's a lot of things we can do, and we'll do everything we can to make this right for Urban, Shelley and their family,'' he said.

Utah defensive coordinator Kyle Whittingham, a candidate for the job when Meyer was hired two years ago and a possible replacement, said Meyer had not mentioned a Notre Dame meeting to his assistants, many of whom were on the road recruiting.

``I just know Urban Meyer is one of the hottest coaching prospects in the country right now. We'll see where he is when the dust settles,'' said Whittingham, who could also be a candidate for the coaching vacancy at BYU.

Meyer was the receivers coach at Notre Dame during 1996-00, leaving the school for his first head coaching job at Bowling Green.

He quickly turned around the Falcons, going 8-3 and 9-3 before moving to Utah in 2003. The Utes were 10-2 last season and are 11-0 this season and ranked fifth in the nation.

Willingham was fired after posting a 21-15 record in three seasons.

Meyer received a contract extension last summer that included a clause allowing him to leave Utah without penalty if he is hired as head coach at Michigan, Ohio State or Notre Dame.

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Here's what Notre Dame's contract offer to Meyer looks like..


Duration (fill in blank) ___________________________________Years


Salary (fill in blank) $___________________________________




_________________________________

Urban Meyer

ESPN's Pat Forde is reporting that UofFlorida has offered the head coaching position to Urban Meyer, who has accepted it.

Wow.

This may make Notre Dame look that much stupider. Rumblings I heard were that the Irish AD et al. fired Willingham in large measure to put themselves into the Urban Meyer Sweepstakes immediately. In fact, Meyer had a clause in his contract that specifically freed him if he wanted the ND job.

Regis Philbin's gonna shit.

Notre Dame is soooo screwed. I bet they canned Willingham expecting Meyer to step in. Now they're scrambling to find a coach. They probably never expected UF to step in and hire away Meyer. Here's the article from ESPN:

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ESPN.com news services

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Florida is getting its first choice this time.Turned down by Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops and Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan three years ago before settling on Ron Zook, the Gators lured Utah coach Urban Meyer away from his "dream job" Friday, ESPN.com has confirmed.

Meyer snubbed Notre Dame, where he worked as the receivers coach for five years, and agreed to coach the Gators, according to his sister, Gigi Escoe.

Asked whether her younger brother had taken the Florida job, she said, "Yes. It was a tough choice for him, but he's happy with his decision. He had two wonderful choices. He couldn't go wrong."

Meyer signed a seven-year deal worth $14 million, according to The Gainesville Sun.

When asked about the report, Utah athletic director Chris Hill deferred.

"My position is to let the other parties in these things -- the schools and the coach -- speak for themselves," Hill said. "Any kind of confirmation would have to come from other sources."

When pressed, Hill offered no further comment.

Meyer's wide-open offense should be welcomed at Florida, where Zook could never satisfy fans who became accustomed to Steve Spurrier's innovative system that was fun to watch and tough to stop.

Meyer will quadruple his $500,000 salary and inherit a program with plenty of talent; the Gators finished 7-4, with three losses coming in the waning minutes.

Why he chose Florida over Notre Dame was unknown.

"He didn't question his decision at all," Escoe said.

Messages left by The Associated Press on Friday at Meyer's office and the office of Utah athletic director Chris Hill were not immediately returned.

"There's too many things involved right now to have any comments," Meyer said after a practice at Utah's new indoor practice field.

Officials at Florida refused to confirm the reports and said there were no immediate plans for a news conference.

"It looks like we're not going to know anything until next week," UF spokesman Steve Orlando said. "The coaching search goes on."

But Meyer's father, Bud, said his son had accepted the job.

"All the reports that are out there are correct," he told the St. Petersburg Times. "He told me this morning that he was going to tell Florida he was coming."

A cell phone message left with Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley was not returned.

Meyer called a team meeting for Saturday morning, but Utah players felt like they knew what was coming.

"We kind of feel like he's leaving," offensive lineman Chris Kemoeatu said Friday. "It's not bad that he's leaving. If it was you, you'd probably leave too."

The Utes went 11-0 in their second season under Meyer and were in line for a spot in the Bowl Championship Series.

Meyer, who also had success at Bowling Green before moving to Utah, has said he planned to coach the bowl game even if he took another job.

Most figured it would be Notre Dame, but the prospect of rebuilding the Irish amid high expectations and tough academic standards may have been daunting. The Fighting Irish fired Tyrone Willingham on Tuesday after three seasons, and immediately targeted Meyer -- whose contract included a clause allowing to leave for jobs at Notre Dame, Ohio State or Michigan.

He met with Notre Dame officials in Salt Lake City on Thursday. But Foley was also in town the last two days trying to work out a deal with the most wanted coach in the country.

The expected hiring was first reported by The Times-Union in Jacksonville, Fla.

Meyer will face equally high expectations with the Gators, but replacing Zook shouldn't be as difficult as following Spurrier.

Spurrier, who won the Heisman Trophy at his alma mater, won six Southeastern Conference championships and the 1996 national title during 12 seasons at Florida.

Zook was 20-13 when Foley and school president Bernie Machen fired him two days after an embarrassing 38-31 loss to Mississippi State in late October.

Machen said then that Meyer would be a candidate, mostly because of their previous relationship; Machen hired Meyer at Utah.

Meyer seemed like an obvious choice, but then Spurrier showed interest in returning to Gainesville. But the Ol' Ballcoach withdrew his name from consideration when Machen and Florida officials said he would be interviewed along with others after the season.

Spurrier signed a seven-year deal worth $1.25 million a season last week at South Carolina, vowing to turn the Gamecocks into the consistent champion he built at Florida.

Utah is expected to consider offensive coordinator Mike Sanford and defensive coordinator Kyle Whittingham to replace Meyer.

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I bet Utah let's Meyer coach the bowl game, but IMO they shouldn't. Once he agreed to leave Utah for another school he became coach of UF. In fact, there's a danger of him taking Utah recruits to Florida. I remember when Washington State had the same situation with their coach when Mike Price agreed to coach Alabama. WSU ended up getting waxed in their bowl game.

I wish the NCAA could institute a rule whereby no coaches can be hired until the bowl season is over. That way, Meyer can morally complete his season as Utah's coach.

From Roy S. Johnson, SI.com

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Notre Dame finally has its national title: the worst job in college football.

No computers were needed to determine this championship. No polls, late-game rallies or controversial calls.

The Fighting (for Their Dignity) Irish earned their place atop college football's role of iniquity when they were spurned in their lame bid to lure Utah coach Urban Meyer to South Bend to replace Tyrone Willingham, the first coach in Notre Dame history fired before the end of his initial contract.

I wasn't the only one who struggled to stifle a chuckle upon hearing Friday that Meyer had stunned the Arrogant Irish by accepting Florida's seven-year, $14 million offer to coach the Gators rather than return to Notre Dame, where he was once an assistant.

In fact, I thought it was mighty funny. Notre Dame, You've Been Sacked!

Meyer's move made me think of the spiritual mantra, with a bit of a twist: God truly don't like ugly. And you can be sure that the ugliness perpetrated by perhaps the most famous Catholic college in the nation was not lost on Him.

Make no mistake: What happened at Notre Dame this week was Ugly.

Notre Dame officials and (let's be real here) its boosters fired Willingham after only three seasons because he could not morph the Irish into USC, Oklahoma, Auburn or even Utah. Willingham represented the Irish with passion and pride. His players, by Irish AD Kevin White's own accounting, were wonderful young men who achieved unprecedented results in the classroom.

But on Saturdays they were, well, Stanford. And at Notre Dame, that simply isn't acceptable. The Irish still fancy the notion that they should be perennial national title contenders (they haven't won since 1988) with an engraved invitation to a major bowl game (they haven't been to one since 1993) each season.

Well, this is the cold, hard truth, Notre Dame fans: Those days are buried alongside Knute Rockne and Dan Devine.

Meyer made the smartest call of his career, because Notre Dame will never again be a regular contender for the national title. And let's stop blaming the school's high academic requirements. Sure, the school's admission standards are a barrier for many of the nation's top athletes, but a surly admissions officer isn't even one of the top three reasons the job is the worst in college football.

The primary culprit is the Irish's schedule. In the BCS era, an undefeated record does not guarantee an invitation to the title game (See: Auburn, Utah and Boise State), and a single loss (Cal, Texas) can make you Team Irrelevant. Notre Dame plays the toughest schedule in the nation, and will do so at least until 2008, the last season for which its schedule is already locked in. Next year, four of the Irish's first five games are on the road, at Pittsburgh, Michigan, Washington and Purdue. Then they'll face USC at home. Season over.

The second reason is the one Notre Dame officials and boosters seem most delusional about: Notre Dame just simply isn't Notre Dame anymore. It's no longer the Holy Grail of college football. Talented young men no longer dream of representing the Golden Dome and following the legacies of the Four Horsemen and the Joes, Theismann and Montana.

Blue-chip players dream of competing for conference titles. That's not happening at Notre Dame. It's happening at places like Purdue, Wisconsin, Cal, Florida, Auburn and even Boise State.

They dream of playing close to family and friends, which helped schools like Virginia Tech, Iowa and LSU retain home-grown talent and achieve respectability. South Bend? Please.

The third reason Notre Dame has come to this place was ignited 13 years ago when the school signed NBC to be its exclusive football broadcaster. Most TV deals are struck with conferences, allowing teams to share the television revenue and the pressure to produce solid ratings. As an independent, the Irish signed a deal that allows them to pocket all the revenue (variously reported to be $9 million annually). But it also puts the ratings burden squarely -- and solely -- on Irish shoulder pads.

It also places another "player" among those pressuring Notre Dame to be winners again: television.

Last December, NBC re-upped with Notre Dame, signing through 2010, despite seeing the ratings for Irish games plummet from an average of 6.2 million households in 1993 to just 2.63 million homes last season. Whether network officials grumbled this fall isn't known, but the potential impact of diminishing ratings could not have been far from the minds of those who decided Willingham's fate last week.

Upon announcing the new deal last year, NBC Sports president Dick Ebersol said: "With Tyrone Willingham, the football program is in the right hands. He embodies Notre Dame's core values, and his leadership, character and drive assure Notre Dame's return to its traditional place among the elite national powers."

OK, Irish, now what?

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