On paper, these candidates sound like they could be running for city council in South Boston
Based on the stats in the previous article, and based on websites like this one, I think it is fair to say that Mr. Weiss is on the hot seat. Not only are the stats against him, but the fans are too. Any time that a coach appears to be losing his grip, fans begin to speculate on the next man who would be king. Based on the small group of Domers I associate with, the popular choices are Urban Meyer, head coach at the University of Florida, and Brian Kelly, head coach at the University of Cincinnati.
At first glance, these guys both pass the “name test.” The name “Brian Kelly” is about as Irish as Paddy’s pig so he is a clear fit for the program based on name alone. At the same time, what name could be more pointedly Catholic than Urban Meyer? So based on that alone, they seem like decent enough fits with the program.
Yet, given the performance that both coaches are showing this year (#1 and #2 in the TGOPoll), it is no wonder that Domer Nation is hoping for one of these two men to take over if Weiss gets canned. The question is, who do you want more? Meyer? Or Kelly?
Since it is “Coach Appreciation Week” here at The Game on Paper, let’s break out our old standard of coaching evaluation. Up the Y-Axis we’ll plot the number of Rivals.com “stars” per player that each coach recruits as a proxy for recruiting. Along the X-Axis, we’ll plot each coach’s winning percentage. The ideal coach would be one who recruits well and has a high winning percentage. Further, because we know that Notre Dame has a short-fuse for coaches in their first three years, we’ll only take a look at Meyer and Kelly’s first three years at their respective schools to see if there is any likely improvement over the Weiss regime.
On paper, most people would take either one over Weiss
Taking a look a this graph, there are a couple of interesting things to notice. Let’s start with Kelly’s stats. Of the three, Kelly is apparently the weakest recruiter. In his first three seasons, he went 8-5, 10-3, 11-3. Over that time, his average recruit was bringing in 2.69 stars. Additionally, during that time frame, Kelly did not land a single recruit rated higher than three stars by Rivals.com. Said another way, Kelly has yet to land a 4-star or 5-star recruit despite two seasons with wins in the double digits. At the same time, his winning percentage is better than Weiss’, and is only a few games away from Meyer’s. The lesson here is that the man is incredible at developing talent, and he clearly has a system that is successful at molding his kind of players into a winning team. Less Talent + More Wins = One Hell of a Coach If You Need to Build a Program.
Having taken a look at Kelly, let’s turn our attention to Meyer. Everywhere he has gone, the man has crapped gold and pissed excellence. Super Bowl ring or not, Meyer’s average recruits are still indexing a 104 v. Weiss’, and a whopping 164 v. Kelly’s. It’s clear the man can recruit, but unlike Weiss, he hasn’t squandered the talent he has drawn to Gainesville. In his first three years, Meyer went 12-1, 9-4, 12-1 and won two National Championships. The man brings in talent, the man develops talent, and the man can develop talent. The only question is, can the Irish lure him away from Gainesville? According to the fountainhead of all modern knowledge, Wikipedia, the answer is “maybe.”
So, if I were the AD at Notre Dame and just showed Weiss the business side of my shillelagh, who would I hire. In my mind, the answer is Meyer. Now, hiring Meyer would require that I was able to drive a bigger dump truck of money up to his house than Florida, which would be a big “IF,” but given the deep pockets of the Irish boosters, I bet I’d find dollars before I found lint if it were for Urban Meyer.
The question is why Meyer and not Kelly? For all Kelly’s ability as a coach, and he is an incredible coach, he is the wrong guy for what Notre Dame needs. Sure, Kelly would be walking into a program with talent indexing a 158 over his previous team, but they wouldn’t be his guys. Could he win with them eventually? Sure. But. But. Converting a team rich with talent over to a new system that they are not useful has been a dismal experiment in other college towns in the Midwest. Additionally, the fact that Kelly has yet to land a 4 or 5 star recruit at Cincinnati raises questions over the sustainability of his system at a school that has an up-or-out policy for its coaches. A final knock on Kelly is the ability to win big games (e.g. Ohio State, Louisville, Virginia Tech). Considering that the Notre Dame football schedule is basically nothing but storied rivalry games, this might be reason to pause.
So, now that I have fired Charlie Weiss, it looks like I have two calls to make. The first one is to Urban Meyer. The second one is the to the City of Gainesville Public Works Department to see if I can rent the biggest dump truck they’ve got.
