Off-Season of Change: Has Charlie Weis Swung the Pendulum Too Far?

For Notre Dame football coaches, players, and fans, the 2007 season was a nightmare. The Irish limped through twelve games finishing 3-9. Improvement wasn’t apparent during any point of the season leaving little hope for the future.

Following such a poor season, something must be done to right the course of the program. After a period of self-evaluation, head coach Charlie Weis has initiated many changes from giving up play calling duties to adding size and strength along the offensive line to taking a more active role in special teams. Weis should be given credit for his admission of a poor coaching performance and willingness to change.

But has Weis over-compensated for not anticipating the problems of the 2007 season by taking drastic steps to correct these problems? The circumstances that contributed to the poor performance of 2007 will not necessarily challenge future Irish squads. Consequently, the resulting repercussions of his off-season remodeling job may negatively impact the performance of the 2008 Fighting Irish.

Anticipating the Problems of 2007

Notre Dame faced a litany of problems in 2007: a true freshman quarterback struggling through injuries, a front-loaded schedule with tough defensive teams, youth and inexperience at many skill positions, three new starters on the offensive line, a lack of leadership and talent in the upper classes, and a new defensive scheme. Many of these things acted together to intensify their negative impact. It was inevitable that a team with so many first-time, underclassmen starters would struggle.

As numerous and substantial as they were, these challenges do not add to 3-9. It is impossible to hold Weis solely responsible for the problems listed above, but he certainly did his share to contribute to the woefully inept offense the Irish fielded in 2007. Not anticipating the problems of his inexperienced roster, Weis made a series of coaching decisions that amplified Notre Dame’s weaknesses. Despite having far more talent than Navy and Air Force, Notre Dame still lost to both.

He complicated the offense by installing the spread, zone-read: consuming valuable practice time, overloading the players with information, and departing from his area of offensive expertise. He restricted contact in practice, likely fearful of the impact of injuries on the lack of depth at many positions. And he did both in the spite of a young offense struggling to find an identity and learn the playbook.

He created a lack of continuity from the revolving quarterback situation. And he refused to develop an effective running game, something extremely beneficial for the inexperienced offensive unit. These poor decisions are alarming evidence of Weis’ inability to anticipate the problems faced by the 2007 Fighting Irish football team.

It is difficult to imagine a coach with Weis’ experience not anticipating the problems of 2007, exacerbating those struggles with the decisions he made. It proves Weis is on a learning curve. The college game is different than the NFL and Weis is still understanding these differences.

Swinging the Pendulum

In response (at least partially) to the offensive struggles of 2007 Weis relinquished play-calling duties to offensive coordinator Michael Haywood. But is abandoning play-calling duties and surrendering the self-proclaimed “schematic advantage” really the answer? Weis is one of the best offensive minds in the game. Perhaps a more tempered change such as focusing on an effective running game, something imperative to consistent success in college football, would have been more advantageous.

Notre Dame’s 2007 offensive line lacked physical play at the point of attack, desperately struggled to protect the passer, and achieved only moderate success run blocking. Was it necessary to improve the physicality of the offensive line by gaining weight via an off-season training program when they were repeatedly getting beat off the ball in 2007?

The hesitant play of the inexperienced offensive line may have been due to information overload. Sacrificing speed and quickness by getting bigger and stronger might hurt the unit’s performance. Simplified blocking schemes and more full speed practice repetitions would likely solve the problem.

Was it necessary to move special teams coaching responsibilities from Brian Polian in 2006 to the whole staff in 2007 and then to Weis and Polian in 2008? Notre Dame’s special teams have not fared well in the recent past, but these drastic changes disrupt consistency.

On some level it is puzzling why Weis would make so many dramatic changes this off-season. The 2007 season was only one year of failure among many successful ones. Weis has a history of offensive success in the NFL and the 2005 and 2006 Irish offenses broke numerous passing and scoring records.

Additionally, many of the problems the Fighting Irish faced were largely out of his control and seemingly temporary. If Weis keeps recruiting at such a high level he won’t ever field a team as young as the 2007 Irish squad. If he and his staff can develop their recruits from athletes into football players, Notre Dame will enjoy more success than 2005.

Knee-Jerk Reactions?

Obviously there are lessons to be learned from the struggles of the 2007 Fighting Irish offense. Good things can and will come from Weis relinquishing play calling to offensive coordinator Michael Haywood. It is also evident from his comments that Weis’ self-evaluation has led to a better understanding of working with a young team.

But these changes seem like knee-jerk reactions to problems that should have been anticipated prior to 2007 and that won’t exist in the future. Changes in the program need to be consistent, well-scoped, and anticipatory, not flagrant and reactive. At some point a lack of continuity creates more problems than the changes solve.

Presumably Weis took the appropriate steps to determine what went wrong for the Irish in 2007. He determined where the team failed (virtually everywhere), isolated what caused these failures, and formulated a solution to each of the causes. The amount of growth and improvement shown by the Fighting Irish in 2008 and beyond will prove whether or not he swung the pendulum too far.