Who Will be the Next Coach at Notre Dame

Gil Lebreton says TCU's coach is off the table.

startelegram.com/sports

 

Patterson just signed an extension that will keep him at TCU until 2016.

That's what the Notre Dame job is really good for: allowing incumbent coaches to extort gigantic extensions and raises from their current employer.

 

Don't take this the wrong way, but how exactly does that extension "keep him at TCU until 2016"? I've never understood why people report that someone is no longer a candidate for a job just because they signed an extension.

 

You're right. It'll keep him paid if they fire him and make other schools think two, three or four times before trying to buy it out.

But he's been there very happily for a decade. He seems like he might be their Bobby Bowden --- raises the program to national prominence and stays a long time because he already has everything he wants. At one point Alabama came sniffing around Bowden's door but he turned 'em down to stay in Tallahassee.

TCU has only missed a bowl once during Patterson's tenure. I can't explain why nobody grabbed him three or four years ago.

 

Meyer asked for that five years ago and didn't get it. That's why he said no thanks and took the Florida job.

If Notre Dame makes the same mistake again they're going to wind up with their 6th or 7th choice again.

 

Why is it a "mistake" to not grant "academic exceptions"?

 

It's a mistake for ND to think it can compete for national championships if it has entrance requirements for football players that are not only higher than NCAA standards but higher than ND entrance standards for non-football players.

And Chris Zorich and Tony Rice proved that these exemptions aren't necessarily going to dumb kids.

 

Bowden really wanted the Alabama job and would have taken it if they hadn't made him go through the charade of interviewing for it with a search committee, rather than just negotiate and offer him the job.

I guess you could technically say he turned the job down, but he didn't do it because he wanted to build a legacy in Tallahassee. He did it because he didn't get a good vibe from the Alabama folks.

Bowden grew up in Birmingham and actually went to Alabama for a semester before transferring back home to Howard College (now Samford). Alabama was his dream job, don't kid yourself.

(Kevin Scarbinsky wrote a great feature, with tons of quotes from Bobby, Tommy and Terry Bowden to that effect, when Alabama played FSU in 2006. But it's no longer available on the 'Net. One anecdote I do remember is Bowden coming back to his hotel room at the Wynfrey Hotel in Birmingham --- FSU was playing in the All-American Bowl that December --- slumping into a chair and telling his wife and Tommy 'Well, I'm not getting the Alabama job.'")

 

OK. Well-articulated.

I don't think you can give blanket "exemptions," though. The coach would be responsible for finding the right kids, subject to admissions' judgment. Kids like Zorich who were bright but underprivileged and just needed a shot.

I'm curious about how the fan base would react to a coach who strung together nine- and 10-win seasons, maybe a BCS bid every other year or every three or four years, a Gator or Cotton Bowl bid some others, but didn't win national championships.

We always say that ND fans unrealistically "expect" national championships. But we don't know, because it's been so feast-or-famine there from Faust onward.

 

I don't think Notre Dame is any higher than fourth right now if they had an unbeaten season. I'd say their schedule was about the same level as Cincy. Their big dogs (Michigan and USC) had bad seasons. Pitt was the highest ranked team they played.

 

If I were to rate the hires based on names bandied about this is how I woiuld term them in no specific order:

Harbaugh Great hire

Kelly OK hire

Stoops Great hire

Dungy Great hire

Paul Johnson Ok hire

 

Paul Johnson might very well be the best of the bunch.