Coach Tyrone Willingham Fired

[Walter Cronkite]

Tyrone Willingham Was 10-2 in his first season

Coach Tyrone Willingham was fired by Notre Dame on Tuesday after three seasons in which he failed to return one of the nation's most storied football programs to prominence.

Willingham went 21-15, including 6-5 this season. The Fighting Irish lost 41-10 to No. 1 Southern California on Saturday.

It was not immediately clear whether Willingham would coach the team at the Insight Bowl on Dec. 28. Notre Dame accepted the invitation to the game on Sunday.

Athletic director Kevin White scheduled a news conference for 4 p.m. ET Tuesday.

Willingham's firing comes after a season in which the Irish pulled off upset victories over Michigan and Tennessee but also were beaten badly by USC and Purdue. Student groups were planning a protest on campus Tuesday evening to call for Willingham's firing; he faced criticism from fans much of the season.

Notre Dame's loss to USC on Saturday marked the fifth time the Irish lost by 31 points or more under Willingham -- including three against the rival Trojans. By comparison, former coach Bob Davie's team had just one such loss; Lou Holtz and Dan Devine had none.

Notre Dame hired Willingham, the first black head coach in any sport for the Irish, from Stanford to replace George O'Leary. The former Georgia Tech coach resigned five days after taking the job because he lied about his academic and athletic achievements on his resume.

With Tony Samuel fired by New Mexico State and Fitz Hill resigning from San Jose State last week, there are now only two black head coaches in Division I-A: Karl Dorrell at UCLA and Sylvester Croom at Mississippi State.

In his first season, Willingham had many fans recalling Notre Dame's glory days, taking over a losing squad and turning things around immediately. The Irish won eight straight games to start the season before finishing 10-3 and going to the Gator Bowl.

But during his second year, the Irish fell to 5-7, with four of their losses coming by 26 points or more. It was Notre Dame's third losing record in five seasons, the team's worst stretch in 115 years of football.

One coach certain to be mentioned as a possible replacement for Willingham is Utah's Urban Meyer, an Irish assistant from 1996-00. The Utes are 11-0 and ranked No. 5. Meyer said he hadn't heard about Willingham's departure from Notre Dame until he was asked about it by The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Asked if he has had any contact with Notre Dame or if he would be interested in coaching the Fighting Irish, Meyer responded: "I won't comment on it."

Notre Dame has won eight AP college football national championships, more than any other school, with the last in the 1988 season under Holtz. Players from the school have won the Heisman Trophy seven times, also the most in college football.

But the Irish haven't won a bowl game since ending the 1993 season ranked No. 2 after beating Texas A&M 24-21 in the Cotton Bowl. Since then, the Irish have lost six straight postseason games.

Source: AP

[AndySMC]

This is another case which is all too common in college athletics. Willingham was not given a fair chance to succeed at Notre Dame. Three years is not an adequate period to evaluate a coach. Bob Davie recruited several prominent players from the 2004 team. You cannot fairly assess a coach on this level when a team is not full of guys he brought in.

It sure looks like a bunch of boosters are pulling the strings from behind the scenes. They just don't get it. In this day and age it is nearly impossible to build a program that is in the national championship hunt every season. With Notre Dame's difficult schedule and academic standards, doing this was going to take a long time if it could have been done.

The first step towards building a successful program is stability. Firing three coaches in three seasons is not the way to obtain this stability as Notre Dame has done. Several previously successful programs, such as Florida and Nebraska in football and North Carolina basketball are far too quick to pull the plug on coaches in attempts to recreate glories of the past. They do not give coaches a fair chance and their programs have been going backwards as a result.

People are far too quick to forget the 10 win season the Irish had in Willingham's first season during which time he got them to play over their heads. They did go backwards in 2003, but it's tough to view 2004 as anything but a step in the right direction with a winning record and wins against Michigan and at Tennessee. There were definite signs that Willingham was turning things around.

Willingham was the right man for the job. He understood how to build a power at an academic institution with high standards. He led Stanford to a Pac 10 title and its only Rose Bowl in the past 30 years. This took time, however. He was not as successful at the start. With such a complicated system and tough schedule, patience was necessary. He needed time to get to the destination.

Notre Dame let other coaches with similar 3 year records finish out their contracts because they deserved a fair chance. Their program will never get back to where they want it if they let boosters call the shots.

[Modern Arts]

For crying out loud Notre Dame fired a mediocre coach get over it. Whether it was academic standards, poor coaching , or lousy recruiting he's gone. I really don't think Ty Willingham was ready for such a high profile position. Don't cry for Willingham he'll land on his feet at a good program (Washington).You must also remember Willingham was ND's 6th choice. This is not the glamor job it once was, right now there are at least 10 jobs more attractive than the ND job.

Having said all this however I think that TW should have been given 1 more year. You should never fire a coach before his first class graduates. When it's all said and done I think that ND did not want to miss the chance to nab Urban Meyer. A bigger travesty is David Cutcliffe being canned at Ole Miss. Cutcliffe took a dead program and brought it to respectability. Ole Miss will regret this decision.