And I Say Hey! What's Going On?

Obviously, the Irish are not doing very well this year and the offensive line has been awful. Charlie Weis will receive a lot of criticism for this, but he deserves more time. For one thing, everything is not entirely his fault. For another, the things that are his fault are correctible. Finally, He has been good for ND win-or-lose.

My first point has been hashed and rehashed everywhere that Irish football is discussed. Tyrone Willingham refused to recruit when he was at ND. As a consequence, Weis inherited a team that had just five offensive linemen and 66 total football players. They were essentially on the equivalent of an NCAA punishment of twenty scholarships except that ND's reduction was self-induced. The end result is that ND has just six players in their senior class, and the offensive line is awful. This is not that shocking since it takes offensive linemen longer to develop than players at other positions. When you have only one senior offensive linemen total, the odds are that your offense is going to be in for a long season.

None of this is to say that part of ND's problems are not Weis's fault, but he is capable of correcting them. When defending the young offensive line, I should point out that the last two teams did not have very good running games, either, and they had veteran offensive lines. Instead, of running the ball effectively, ND's offense was one dimensional and was effective due to Brady Quinn and a deap receiving core. Rather than allowing this new group of young linemen to develop into poor run blockers like the preceding group, Weis should look for a new offensive line coach. John Latina's lines have not shown anything to suggest that ND will ever be a good running team under him.

Finally, let's consider the possibility that Weis will be a failure at ND. He has, at the very least, been a very good recruiter. As such, we will know for sure whether Weis can coach within two years because his sophomore, junior, and senior classes will all have been ranked in the top ten coming in. Consequently, if Weis is fired after that season, ND's talent cupboard will be stocked for the next coach and a potential national championship run.

At this point, ND can go one of two ways. Either Weis will get the job done, or he will not. Either way, the talent level has been seriously upgraded since Willingham left. Weis is either a Ron Zook or a Lou Holtz. Either would be good for ND. Zook did, after all, recruit the players that won Florida's national championship.