Brian Kelly's Dumb Decision

I might be the only person that does not understand the mystique surrounding the Notre Dame job.

I'm not talking about Notre Dame in the '90s, '80s or '70s.  I'm talking about the Notre Dame of the 2000s.  The program that went through three different coaches this decade, and the only bowl win it has to show was against Hawaii.  In one of the years it actually made a BCS bowl, the Fighting Irish were so bad, they made JaMarcus Russell look like a No. 1 overall pick.

Here's a shovel, Mr. Kelly.  You're going to need it.

Notre Dame loses its quarterback, Jimmy Claussen, and top wide receiver, Golden Tate, to the NFL.  Its top defensive recruit for next season has already backed out.  It has no conference affiliation, and since the BCS has already shown its ability to screw BCS teams -- the teams the system was invented to help -- out of championship games, what exactly is the point in going to Notre Dame.

Good luck in the recruiting field.  It must have been easy at Cincinnati.  Bob Huggins did it for years and has how many players with degrees to show for it?  I've seen more of the Cincinnati campus by watching TV cutaways during the game than most Bearcat players have.  I can't wait 'til you get a kid foolish enough to want to play at Notre Dame, only to find out that after making the cut on his ACTs, SATs and NCAA Clearinghouse, the kid can't attend Notre Dame because he doesn't meet Notre Dame's lofty standards.

Soon enough, that young man will sign with Florida, Southern California or Texas.  You'll have to go up against said young man, who will not only be motivated to beat you because he will represent another university.  He'll want to beat you because you couldn't bring him to your team.

Do people not realize this isn't 1980 anymore?  Joe Montana is not walking through that door.  Try talking to an 18-year-old kid about Notre Dame's prestige and they'll laugh in your face.  Or look at you with a confused look on their face.  One of the two.

It's hard to convince an 18-year-old young man to spend the next three-to-five years of his life in South Bend, Ind., when schools in Florida, Texas and California, which have been successful in this decade, come calling with winning records and hot chicks.

Seriously, turn down a USC Song Girl?

Didn't think so.  Erin Andrews went to Florida.  Think some high school senior out there wants a chance to date the next Erin Andrews?  Texas.  Trust me, everything's better in Texas

This girl isn't a Tennessee hostess (I don't think) but watching this video made me suddenly want to go to grad school in Knoxville. ... And I hate Tennessee.

And if that doesn't sway your opinion, this should.

Dale Lennon's University of North Dakota 17 Brian Kelly's Grand Valley State 14.

Or for those of you keeping mathematical statistics at home?

Southern Illinois University Carbondale's Head Football Coach > Notre Dame Head Football Coach

Suck it, Notre Dame!

Charlie Weis' Next Job: Bears Offensive Coordinator

First of all, wow, I still cannot believe I got a picture of Charlie Weis to fit on this page.  The Internet truly is a special place.

Second, I cannot believe Notre Dame fans really want to can the head coach that has brought the most talent to the Golden Domers since Lou Holtz resided in South Bend, Ind.  OK, so you're not winning national championships yearly.  Get used to it.  The only people who care about Notre Dame's grand tradition are people who went there a long time ago.  Now, the only tradition high school's most talented football players care about involves blondes, bikinis and beer.

What?  You think high school students don't like to party?

Because of this new train of thought, Fighting Irish fans are getting restless and wanting to launch their head coach.  Fine by me.  I've got a perfect landing spot for him.

Chicago.

I will never be confused with nostrodamus (or Nastrodamus or Negrodamus, for that matter) but if I had a guess, Bears fans will not get all their Christmas wishes come true this winter.  That means Lovie Smith will not be fired.  But if I were a gambling man (which I am on certain days that end with "Y") I would say that Ron Turner is very likely to be the scape goat and will be asked to leave Halas Hall along with his playbook chock full of plays that were successful back in the day when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

And if Weis is on the market, Jerry Angelo should be at all systems go to try to get him.

Weis would be the perfect candidate for the Bears next OC gig.  He has a history of developing good, young quarterbacks.  Tom Brady is the prime example, but take a look at what he did with Brady Quinn and Jimmy Claussen.  The similarities between the two are striking.  Both started as true freshmen and both gradually improved each and every year afterward. And if it weren't for some close losses, Claussen would be joining Quinn as ND QBs to start in a BCS bowl game.

(He probably would have joined Quinn as just another QB to have lost a BCS bowl game as the Fighting Irish starting quarterback.  I digress.)

Jay Cutler is only 26 and will be entering his prime, and since Ron Turner is allergic to developing quarterbacks, the Bears need Weis.  In fact, Cutler needs the rotund offensive guru more than Weis needs a NFL job.  (But not as much as CW needs a turkey sandwich.)  The Weis offensive gameplan (as detailed here) would be a tremendous upgrade from whatever plays Turner drew in the dirt on a sandlot once upon a time.

For Cutler, who was a four-year starter at Vanderbilt, hiring Weis would mean working with a creative offensive mind for the first time in his short stay in Chicago.  And since we all know Cutler is the centerpiece of the future of Bears football, Angelo might as well surround the centerpiece with a complimentary set of shit that doesn't suck.

Charlie's passing offenses ranked sixth, 10th, 12th and fourth from 2001 to 2004.  A span in which the Patriots won 48 games and three Super Bowl rings.  In those years, Brady passed for 13,919 yards and 97 touchdowns.  In those four years, Brady had three different players to lead in receiving ... so it is not as if he has been throwing to Randy Moss his entire career.

Weis' best feature is that he gets the most out of his talent, a feature that only the best coaches have.  Unfortunately, his worst feature is that in order to lure him to Chicago, it would likely take a countless amount of deep dish pizzas to get him to coach the Bears' offense.

And that might be a task too tall for Giordano's, Gino's East and Lou Malnati's to handle.

Pigskin Pimpin On A Sunday Night: Bears, Salukis & Much More

Your favorite football feature that is chock-full of cheerleaders is back.

The there were two winners in Sunday's Bears-Cardinals game.  Fantasy football players and, of course, the Cardinals.  Kurt Warner threw five touchdowns, two of which went to Larry Fitzgerald, who notched 123 receiving yards.  Jay Cutler threw for 369 yards and three touchdowns.  All three of said touchdowns went to Greg "G-Reg" Olsen, who became the first Chicago tight end to grab three TD passes since Marty Booker did so in 2001.

Heck, I'm surprised it has been that long, seeing that the Bears haven't had a quarterback since Sid Luckman or a tight end that could catch three passes in a game since Mike Ditka.

However, there were plenty of losers ... the biggest being Chicago DT Tommie Harris.  Wow.  I'll be the first to say that I didn't see the play in real time (because yours truly was cooking up a storm on the grill) but upon further review, his play was inexcusable.  Disgusting to say the least.  It truly was an omen for the Bears defense, which was pummeled by Warner, Fitzgerald and the Cardinals.

However, I feel as if there is something missing in this entire thing, for this is not the Tommie Harris that Bears fans have come to know and love.  Since coming to Chicago, Harris has been one of the most charitable players in the organization while coming off as a humble, stand-up kind of guy.

Then there's the last couple of years, where Harris has fallen apart.  Not playing hard in games.  Not practicing.  Being held out of games.  Holding himself out of games.  So, what's up with No. 91?  Two sources have suggested that Harris is going through some personal problems, which could be distracting Harris on the gridiron.

As for solving this problem right now, a suspension makes sense.  But after that, where do you go with a guy who has lots of years and lots of money still coming to him.

Big ups to The Alma Mater, clinching a playoff berth and a Missouri Valley Football Conference championship with a 34-15 win at South Dakota State.  The No. 3 Salukis opened up a 34-3 lead in the first three quarters of the game against the No. 9 Jackrabbits on their home turf.  The SIU offense took it to SDSU, a team that ranks among the best in the FCS.  Well, that is ranked among the best before Deji Karim rushed for 127 yards to highlight the fireworks.  Quarterback Paul McIntosh added 76 yards on the ground as well.

Think people are still worried about losing Chris Dieker?  I hate to say I told you so, but that would be a lie.

SIU could further solidify its playoff seeding starting Saturday in what will be the last regular season game played at McAndrew Stadium

Southern looks like it is for real and is playing like a team that realizes it is doing something special.  Here's hoping they could keep it up.

Remember when Michigan was good?  You know.  They were nationally ranked and had just knocked off Notre Dame?  Yeah, well that seems like a distant memory now.  The Wolverines are looking like an average team after looking like they were headed to a big bowl game earlier in the season.

I'll chalk a part of the mediocrity to the growing pains of having new players in a new system.  But that's only 10 percent.  The other 90 percent has to come from Rich Rodriguez and his recruiting.  Truth be told, I think Michigan is only one player from being an elite college football team.

Unfortunately, that guy is the quarterback of The Ohio State University.

This whole situation would be a lot better if Terrell Pryor was under center at Michigan.  Remember all those Vince Young comparisons?  They make sense now.  In two years, it's easy to see that Pryor struggles in The Sweatervest's pro-style sets, but excels when he gets to make plays by being mobile.

I'll be under the assumption that Rich Rod could turn it around sooner, rather than later.  C'mon.  He lured Adam "Pacman" Jones and Chris Henry to play football at Morgantown, W. Va.  How could you not get Terrell Pryor to play at Michigan?

Michigan's loss is only softened by the loss of Notre Dame to Navy.

Fighting Irish fans need to start looking at things on a wider scale.  Charlie Weis is taking your team to another bowl game and has produced two pro quarterbacks.  Shouldn't you be happy?

Oh, that's right, you're not.  You're Notre Dame and everything should be handed on a golden platter.  Guess what?  It's not the 1980s anymore.  If you think Jon Gruden is going to save your team?  Think again.  Urban Meyer?  Haha.

News flash, Golden Domers.  South Bend, Ind., is no longer a destination location for high schoolers.  They don't care about the famed Notre Dame mystique, mostly because they weren't alive for it.  You might care about it, but they don't.  Your average 18-year-old high schooler wants to spend the next four years of his life in a place with warm weather and hot babes.

Florida, Texas and California have all three of those.  And that's why those three states have some of the best college football teams.  As a life-long Midwesterner, I know that the winters are very cold and very gray.  Often, I've wanted to escape the lethargic nature that comes with the fall and winter in the middle west.

But if I was a legit college prospects, these would be the most important factors in my college recruitment in order of preference.

1. Girl-to-Guy ratio.
2. Playing time.
3. Location.
4. Coaching
   

Now, that's different from a normal college student.  Kind of.

1. Location: Far enough to be away from the parents, close enough to be a respectable drive home. Far enough south to limit the brutal winters.
2. Instead of playing time, SIU played to my interest in sports writing.
3. My one mistake was ignoring the girl-to-guy ratio.  Probably shouldn't have overlooked that one.
   

So, Irish fans, remember that when you're not bowling with the big boys ... but bowling nonetheless.

Pigskin Pimpin: Salukis FTW! Edition

The Southern Illinois University football team had won 127 games from 1994-2008.  None of them were at the UNI Dome in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

In what is arguably the most bitter rivalry in the Gateway Missouri Valley Football Conference, the University of Northern Iowa had always gotten the better of Southern Illinois when the games were played indoors.  Panthers fans called it "Dome Magic."  Saluki fans called it (expletive deleted) ... among other things.

And as yours truly predicted on Friday, it all came to an end as the Salukis beat the Panthers 27-20 on Saturday at the little dome of horrors.

Consider the following.  Southern has had six head coaches try and fail to beat UNI in its back yard since Rey Dempsey's squad did the trick in 1983 en route to the school's lone national title.  Ten different First Team All-Americans have suited up in the maroon and white.  None of them came home with a road win at Northern Iowa.  Southern has fielded 16 different 1,000-yard running backs.  But none had carried the Egyptian Hunting Dawgs to a road win in the terror dome.

That all became nothing more than a past nightmare as Deji Karim rushed for 125 yards and what turned out to be the game winning touchdown. The 1-yard score on 4th-and-Goal gave SIU a 20-13 lead with about five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter.

On the Panthers' ensuing possession, cornerback Brandon Williams took back a pick six to put the game on ice.

And for good measure, former Saluki great Jerry Hairston Jr. scored the winning run for the New York Yankees after leading off the bottom of the 13th with a base hit.  I guess you could pencil in a 10-tackle day for Bart Scott against the Bills and a 100-yard rushing game for Brandon Jacobs against the Saints as a pair of former Dawgs will hit the gridiron later today.

And now, the rest of your Pigskin Pimpin' on a Sunday morning...

A great day for the alma mater was made better by a loss for a school I never even thought of attending.  Notre Dame.  Sure, the Fighting Irish made it close in the end, but the Southern Cal showed it was just a better team.  At least, enough of a better team to beat the Irish by seven points.

I know ND fans thought they'd pick up a win in this one.  Their beloved Fightin' Stereotypes had the home field advantage, an edge at the quarterback position and the motivation to get it done.  However, I'm not sure why this team was so confident.  Sure, it had beaten the University of Washington, a team that had beaten USC a few weeks ago.  But if there's one thing I know about the Trojans is that they don't let an early-season loss put them down.

USC is one of the few teams that seems to get better each as the season goes on.  I guess that's why they always have an argument to be in the national title hunt at the end of the year despite losing to a mediocre Pac-10 squad earlier in the year.

Some Irish fans are shocked with the loss.  Why?  The Trojans had already beaten a quality opponent on the road.  Granted that opponent was the uber-fraudulent Ohio State, but give the Buckeyes credit where it's due -- they never lose at home.

As for Notre Dame, they somehow find a way to lose big games.  Remember when they used to win big games?  Ah, the days of Lou Holtz and Ron Powlus must feel like ages ago for fans of the Fighting Irish.

Yeah, I enjoyed the fact that Ohio State lost to Purdue.  You can't fault the Buckeyes for falling on the road in the Big Ten?  I can.  Terrell Pryor ain't winnin' the Heisman.  Not this year.  Maybe not ever.  He's gone after his junior year -- you heard it here first.  Still, gotta love The Sweatervest.

As for Purdue, well, Purdue is bad.  Plain bad.  Drew Brees isn't running the show.  Neither is Kyle Orton.  Once upon a time, Joe Tiller offenses used to light up the scoreboard.  Now, it's the Boilermaker defense that spends most of the time getting lit up.

At least Purdue has Matt Painter (yet, another Saluki reference in tonight's blog) and basketball season in the not-too-distant future.

The Atlanta Falcons provide the Chicago Bears with their biggest test to date when the team's square off for a nationally televised game on NBC.  Here's hoping Chicago fares better tonight than the last time the team was under the national microscope.

The bad news is that Jay Cutler is one four-INT game away from being the worst quarterback evar! in Chicago Bears history.  That's just how Chicago sports fans are.  One week, you're the savior.  The next week, the only person more maligned than you is Satan.  Those are just the breaks.

However, the good news is that the Bears do have Jay Cutler, and that means if this game gets into a shootout -- like the Falcons' Week 5 match-up against a good 49ers team -- Chicago should be adequately prepared.

Cutler has 10 games under his belt in which he has thrown for at least 300 yards.  He also has a 447-yard throwing performance in his back pocket as well.  In his big games, he owns a 60 percent completion rate and an 18 career touchdowns against 13 interceptions.  Cutler is 5-5 in such games.  In the wins, Cutler owns a 4-1 TD-to-INT ratio (12 TDs, 4 INTs) and his teams have averaged 32.6 points per game with a 41-point game against the Oakland Raiders in Sept. 2008 being the high-water mark.  On the other hand, Cutler's teams have allowed an average of 35.6 points per game in the losses.

For the Stat Boy in all of us:  The Falcons are averaging 25.5 points per game in 2009.  The Bears average 26.2 points per game.  Cutler is 14-1 when his defense allows 20 points or less.

Anyone ready for a shootout in the Georgia Dome tonight?

Notre Dame sucks. Its reward? A trip to Hawaii. Of course, that makes sense.

When athletes suck, they hear about it.

The curveball doesn't have enough bite. There's a hitch in your jump shot. You're not wrapping up.

And when the curveball doesn't curve, it gets hit 500 feet. The hitch in your jumper is going to drop your field goal percentage to the depths of hell. When you're not wrapping up, you end up on the wrong end of a SportsCenter highlight.

As in life, poor performances in sports get punished.

Unless you're Notre Dame, of course.

The Golden Domers were invited to (and accepted) a bid to the Hawaii Bowl (sorry, I'll leave the corporate sponsor out of it) to face the University of Hawaii.

That's right. A 6-6 season in which the team loses five of its final seven games, gets beaten by a bottom feeding Big East team and its coach is on the hot seat on the verge of getting fired gets a trip to Hawaii.

Personally I would have tried to match up Weis' Fighting Irish against Mark Mangino's Kansas team in the first ever Turducken Bowl.

But that's just me.

Photo Credit: AP and Daylife.com