Report: Notre Dame To Retain Weis

General NCS Football Tom O'Brien24

WNDU and Irish Eyes website are reporting tonight that Charlie Weis will return next year. (Links through The Big Lead)

We didn’t want to alarm the Wolfpack faithful when we floated this entry earlier in the day; but, as with much of what we report here there was a lot more going on behind the scenes than we were at liberty to share.

SFN has heard rumors from multiple sources that Notre Dame officials used the last few days to gauge the potential interest of a short list of coaches before making any decisions regarding Weis.

As we indicated today, Tom O’Brien was one of the coaches on that list. In addition to TOB, we have reason to believe that the Irish may have used surrogates to float correspondences by Florida’s Urban Meyer, Cincinnati’s Brian Kelly, East Carolina’s Skip Holtz and a fifth potential target that we have not yet been able to identify but may have had strong NFL ties.

If WNDU and Irish Eyes are correct, this will now become a non-story.

If you love the college football coaching carousel, then you should click here for more on this and other jobs today.

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General NCS Football Tom O'Brien

24 Responses to Report: Notre Dame To Retain Weis

  1. TOBtime 12/02/2008 at 10:26 PM #

    What? “ol butch-slap not on the list? Dang, no raise for 2009!
    To say this caught some WolfPack faithful offguard would be the understatement of the day.

  2. tobaccordshow 12/02/2008 at 10:27 PM #

    To tell you the truth, I was a little nervous about this.

    I consoled myself to the fact that if ND wanted O’Brien and O’Brien was motivated by money, then there was likely nothing that could have been done but hope that, somehow, Fowler would’ve have messed up somewhere just as one more reason why there would need to be change at the top of Athletics. I’ll put up with Fowler for a while longer if I can retain TOB.

  3. MrPlywood 12/02/2008 at 11:39 PM #

    So they all said “thanks but no thanks”?

  4. blpack 12/02/2008 at 11:42 PM #

    I wonder if anyone is interested in that job right now. Maybe not making a change is the best move ND could make? We’ll see what happens at UT and Clemson.

  5. SnowFlak3 12/02/2008 at 11:56 PM #

    I don’t think TOB would have left to go to ND. He seems to really have some hope for this football program and we need to do anything to make sure he would stay. Skip can go coach ND.

  6. Wolf Dog 12/03/2008 at 7:58 AM #

    So they wait a year to fire him. I don’t see them winning 9 or 10 games next year.

    That means TOB has a good year and looks even better to them a year from now. Which means our AD needs to get off his ass give TOB and his staff raises and extensions so we don’t have to worry about it. TOB is a proven commodity and I am proud of how he handles the kids on and off the field. He is a great asset to NCSU. We need to make sure he is happy and calls this home.

    Remember when Sheridan called a press conference to announce he was staying. AD Valvano showed up with flowers and got him a raise. Our AD should be doing the same.

    Going to game this weekend. I think we take out Davidson. Yhey not as good as last year. Glad to see Sid bring his team to Charlotte. Great exposure.

  7. Alpha Wolf 12/03/2008 at 8:09 AM #

    “Our AD should be doing the same.”

    Instead of worrying about the finer points of the Texas Rig versus the Carolina Rig, or improving his mid-iron accuracy?

    Lee is busy in his bunker at an undisclosed location, lemme tell ya.

  8. SEAT.5.F.2 12/03/2008 at 8:33 AM #

    I can see Lou counseling his son to steer clear of this, I can’t exactly remember the circumstances sorrounding the program when he retired but it seemed to me there were issues internally. Certainly the hiring of Davies showed they had some serious flaws.

    On the other hand I can’t take word of mouth from these media sources and fan based web sites anymore. They do sloppy work of not verifying “hot” news breaks and I beleive agents and search firms do excellent work (something that went clearly over the head of a dear someone..)

  9. BJD95 12/03/2008 at 8:33 AM #

    Weis is white and Catholic, which probably bought him an extra year.

  10. packbackr04 12/03/2008 at 8:43 AM #

    O’Brien is white and catholic, which was one of the reasons i was so worried.

    So is there any rumor that Fowler IS IN FACT working up a raise for TOB and Co? If not, Fowler absolutely has to be the worst AD in the history of Div I athlectics. The coaching job done by TOB and his staff this year was top notch. They took a group of walk-ons, put them on the 2 deep and made the best of it. The kids bought in and we had one heckuva a year.

    GET TOB AND HIS COACHES RAISES!!!!!!!!

  11. Alpha Wolf 12/03/2008 at 8:52 AM #

    On the other hand I can’t take word of mouth from these media sources and fan based web sites anymore.

    If you think traditional media are all that trustworthy, I suggest that you read Barry Glassner’s “The Culture of Fear” or even better, Drew Curtis’s “It’s Not News, It’s Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News.”

    For one thing, you would be shocked if you knew how many mainstream reporters get their tips off of message boards and fan blogs. It happens all of the time.

    In fact, when I ran Red and White, I saw one of my columns damn near word for word on another web site a couple of days after I posted it with a well-known mainstream media personality’s name at the top. This wasn’t a re-write, or even a parallel viewpoint. It was paragraph by paragraph with only editing changes. Identical sentence structures and the like. In other words, my words retouched.

    My take was unique enough such that it could not have been mere coincidence. The only reason I didn’t raise holy hell about it was because it would have been turned around on me — he would have claimed initial authorship and then blamed me for plagiarism. Him being the well-known guy, who do you think the Average Joe would have believed?

    While I am at it, since I know that this person reads *this* website, a little personal note to him: just because I didn’t call you out doesn’t mean I couldn’t have. You got your free pass, and you won’t get another one.

    That in mind, I wouldn’t be so fast to give all of my trust to some of the “pros.” They are lazy journalists out there everywhere, and some of them make nice paychecks for sitting on their butts doing not very much.

    Bottom line is that there *was* something to this story, even if all of the facts are not made clear to you here or in the rest of the blogosphere or mainstream media. Sometimes journos amateur or pro are not at liberty to reveal their sources or all of the details that they are given on background and this is one of those cases. I am not the one with the contact, but I implicitly trust the one who does and the info he got.

    Believe what you wish, but there was indeed fire behind this smoke.

  12. Daily Update 12/03/2008 at 9:28 AM #

    Obviously this was probably a longshot of actually happening, however it would have led to an interesting discussion of potential candidates. Maybe the timing for Bill Cowher would have been better and he would have seen a sound, stable program with at least one star quality QB to lead it? Probably still wouldn’t have happened, but I would have been quite pleased with the hiring of Skip Holtz. I thought TOB was the right guy last time around and obviously PJ was highly thought of. But if the search had ended with Skip Holtz last time around, then I would have been very excited.

  13. VaWolf82 12/03/2008 at 10:29 AM #

    I’m not surprised that ND is keeing Weiss, at least for a little while longer. Under Weiss, ND is recruiting better than they ever did under Davies or Willingham. Unless ND is going to eliminate their own academic req’ts for FB players, then they would be smart to stick with a coach that can bring top recruits.

    Maybe they should try the Tuberville approach….blame everything on the assistants and bring in a new bunch.

  14. primacyone 12/03/2008 at 11:49 AM #

    Smart move by ND to guauge the intersest like that.

    Wow. It just hit me. I just realized the very best thing about NC State’s football season this year. And that is the fact that next season will be better than this one.

    We have had some highly targeted recruits comit this week.

  15. TomPack 12/03/2008 at 12:38 PM #

    I am more than happy to see Notre Dame stuck with this mess. As one of the NCAA’s untouchables they have gotten away with things that would have gotten most schools three years of hard sanctions. ND loves to rub everyone’s nose in their “holier-than-thou” attitude so let them suffer. I guess when you don’t have the other teams practices secretly taped you aren’t as good a coach…also his over-inflated ego is rubbing many high school coaches wrong ala Amato here in NC and is hurting the ND recruiting.

  16. VaWolf82 12/03/2008 at 1:15 PM #

    his over-inflated ego is…hurting the ND recruiting.

    I don’t know anything about his ego, but his recruiting is very highly ranked. ND currently has committs from 17 kids and has the 11th ranked class. The three previous classes were ranked 2nd, 11th, and 5th by scout.com.

  17. SEAT.5.F.2 12/03/2008 at 2:26 PM #

    Our recruits this year should be looked at as the continution of the team we started building last season.

    Last season:

    On offense Bible got blue chippers on the OL/QB/RB positions and it appears that we got a steal at WR in TJ.

    On D we got blue chippers at LB

    This seasons the pieces have come in to sorround these players, with an emphasis on DL and DB, and depth at OL and LB.

  18. packalum44 12/03/2008 at 2:38 PM #

    “Remember when Sheridan called a press conference to announce he was staying. AD Valvano showed up with flowers and got him a raise. Our AD should be doing the same.”

    I agree but its a pipe dream. Valvano was one of the most charismatic persons (not only coaches/AD’s) I’ve ever known.

  19. Noah 12/03/2008 at 3:06 PM #

    Tom O’brien was never going to take that job.

    I could see ND getting nine wins next year. They play Washington, Washington State, Stanford, Michigan, Michigan State, Nevada, Purdue, Navy, Pitt, USC, and BC. That’s not an impossible schedule. They were two plays away from having eight wins this year.

  20. redfred2 12/03/2008 at 4:32 PM #

    “Tom O’brien was never going to take that job.”

    If you’re right about that, I’m glad, but what makes you say that Noah? I don’t really want to list them on here right now, but I can see many reasons why THEY would be very interested in him anyway.

  21. SaccoV 12/03/2008 at 4:41 PM #

    I agree with Redfred. TOB should be high on ND’s radar because of his track record at a catholic school (BC). Second, several others have mentioned that TOB is the perfect example of a coach whose recruiting track record cannot be taken at face value. The reason is he is perhaps the best in the country at developing talent. Besides, the recruiting biases of big schools work like a pyramid scheme. One school shows interest in a kid. Then another big school shows some interest, and again until the kid’s a 5-star recruit. This doesn’t mean he will develop into a star player at the college level. Also, when you read up about the recruiting criteria for scouts, it’s almost always bench press, 40 times and cone drills. Last I checked, tackling, blocking, catching and throwing were not used as definitive standards on recruiting talent.

  22. Zen Wolf 12/03/2008 at 4:46 PM #

    Hey alpha wolf can we do a discussion on this years recruiting class? I am not a member of the wolfpacker or packpride as far as the subscription goes so I see who we have but no inside info. I would love to get a summary of who we have and any insider info on each player. Let me know.

  23. Alpha Wolf 12/03/2008 at 5:53 PM #

    Zen, I would love to do it, but I am not the best one to do so. We have been picking up some big recruits and the class that was looking lost a month ago is shaping up very nicely indeed.

  24. Classof89 12/04/2008 at 10:35 AM #

    I think I believe TOB when he made the remarks about this job being the culmination of his career…he’s 60 and winding things down…who in their right mind at that age would want to go into the pressure cooker that is Notre Dame’s football program?

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