FanHouse TyWillingham

As the coaching carousel keeps turning, the newly-available Ty Willingham might be expected to be bitter. After all, his record at Notre Dame was essentially the same as Charlie Weis' after three seasons. Yet Willingham got the gate from the Domers, while Weis got the dreaded vote of confidence from his athletic director this week. You wouldn't blame Willingham if all of a sudden he started talking like Yosemite Sam with a habanero seed stuck in his throat. Gibbering, barely coherent anger would seem to be an appropriate response to such a regrettable circumstance.

Whatever you may think of Willingham as a coach, he said the right thing about Weis, and about coaches in general.

"It's not just my issue, it's a college football issue - we have to give coaches a chance to do their job," Willingham said Thursday from Seattle, where he recently was fired as the University of Washington's coach after four seasons, the last of them winless.

"Because now we have coaches ... especially some of the minority coaches ... they are losing their jobs after 2 1/2 years. That's not right."

Indeed, it's not right, as I said earlier this year. The situation hasn't gotten better. Who's to blame?

Look closely and you'll notice that when USC defensive back Shareece Wright knocks the socks off of Washington's Jake Locker, the Husky quarterback has yet to set foot out of bounds. Sure his body is leaning as if it is on its way out of bounds but his last step was in-bounds...but the Pac Ten officialls pulled out the yellow hanky nonetheless.

Now go to 4:14 into this and watch John David Booty throw the interception. On the return, do you see the late hit--or does it look like someone is making a tackle which leads to a player going out of bounds? Guess what the Pac Ten officials thought?

Even Washington head coach Ty Willingham thought the penalties against USC were excessive and we hear USC coach Pete Carroll says that conference officials have some explaining to do.

Ohio State came to Seattle on Saturday and basically pushed the Huskies around. They were the faster, more physical team that day, and there is no argument who the better team was when the scoreboard flashed zero's. Jim Tressel's defense in particular was very impressive, and despite over 100 yards rushing for UW QB Jake Locker, the Buckeyes gave up only 14 points to UW in a punishing performance. But did Ohio State's defense cross the line?

You hate be a whiner after the fact, and that if they really were against the rules, they would have been called by the officials....but....the tape doesn't lie. It's hard not to see some of this and wonder exactly what the refs were thinking (or, likely not thinking). Give this first one about a minute in, and you'll see the head-twist, plus more after the jump:

1. Thanks for that. Topic 1-A in college football is no longer "why does Michigan suck" after their 38-0 shellacking of a Notre Dame team that put up about as much fight as Terri Schiavo. Instead it's "why does Notre Dame suck, and who can we blame this on?" Rumors and Rants excerpts some posts from Irish partisans at the Notre Dame Rivals site, and it's not pretty:

Prister then unloaded this gem, "Sure everyone knew the '07 season would be a titanic struggle. What no one knew is that it would develop into a Titanic-like struggle. Weis has lost his football team, and beating the crap out of them on the practice field offers no guarantees and runs the risk of losing them permanently." Well said.

Sampson is perhaps even more harsh. He refers to Weis has "Hurricane Hubris." He slams him for failing to read his team and their mood all the way back to spring practice, for the erosion of simple techniques and fundamentals he credits to Weis' arrogance. And he rips him for installing two offenses for two quarterback (one for Jimmy Clausen and one for Jones) rather than perfecting a basic off-tackle play.

R&R then goes off the reliability reservation with some juicy gossip that has "unreliable internets crap" written all over it:

Through some enterprising research, I also discovered that at a tailgate last season, the members of Notre Dame's 1966 team were telling anyone who would listen about the complete lack of respect they had for Weis and they way he had treated former players. This week players from the 1973 National Championship team said the same thing. As former players are not allowed to attend practices or even meet the players. And most of the "insiders" close to the program feel Weis has thrown his players under the bus, despite the fact that they obviously haven't been anywhere close to prepared for their first three games.

Veracity? Unknown? Awesomeness? Total.