Notre Dame fired head football coach Tyrone Willingham today, after three years, in what can only be viewed as a mistake. ND appears stuck in the mud of its past glory days; schools with admissions standards like Notre Dame's simply cannot field consistently outstanding Division I football teams. This is not an indictment of Notre Dame's admissions standards -- they are Ivy League, and should remain so. The indictment is of certain Notre Dame alumni who don't understand that the system has changed, and that to remain on the level of the USC's, Miami's, and Oklahoma's (while all fine schools), admissions standards have to be bent to accomodate "student" /athletes who are treating the college experience like an NFL developmental league. If you look at schools with similar academic standards that play Division I football, such has Stanford and Northwestern, what you see is a fluctuation between good, bad and mediocre seasons -- there simply are not enough true scholar-athletes to populate the rosters of schools with high admissions standards. Coaching certainly matters -- an outstanding coach may add a win or two a year to a team's total. If you look at ND's record since Lou Holtz walked away, though, how many truly special seasons does that add? God help the Irish if they think a reincarnation of Dan Devine or Ara Parseghian is the answer to their football woes of late.
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