reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (11/28/85)
For those who haven't heard, Gerry Faust, head coach of Notre Dame, resigned
yesterday. Since Faust's five year contract runs out this year, and since
Notre Dame's record for the year is 5-5 (likely to go to 5-6 after this
Saturday's Miami game), and since Faust's best year at Notre Dame produced
a 7-5 record, Faust's resignation is not much of a surprise and comes
slightly ahead of Notre Dame's certain decision not to renew his contract.
As a Notre Dame alumnus, I have always had mixed feelings about Faust.
He was the perfect Notre Dame coach, except for one tiny flaw: he didn't
win football games. Unlike the usual Notre Dame practice, which calls for
crying for a coach's resignation any time he loses more than three games in
a season, both students and alumni were fairly patient with Faust. (I
remember the slogan "Dump Devine!" when Dan Devine had the affrontery to
go 8-3 his first season and fail to get ND into a bowl.) Unfortunately,
Faust just couldn't do the entire job. He was a fine recruiter, he had
precisely the right attitude, but he couldn't win. He may not have brought
much glory to Notre Dame during his tenure, but he did bring class, both in
his time there and in his leaving.
Speculation is high on his successor, who is bound to be announced very
soon, so that recruiting will not be too adversely affected. Lou Holtz,
currently head coach of Minnesota, seems to be the front runner. (Holtz
has stated that Notre Dame is the only job in college football that would
cause him to leave Minnesota. When he signed with Minnesota, his contract
included a clause that permits him to leave before the contract expires in
the event that he is offered the head coaching job at Notre Dame.) George
Welch, Terry Donahue, Jack Bicknell, Howard Schnellenberger, and Dick
Vermeil are also believed to be candidates. At any rate, Notre Dame's
next head coach is certain to be someone with a long history of winning
lots of games at the collegiate level.
At any rate, I wish Coach Faust well, as I'm sure all of Notre Dame's
supporters do. I also hope for better things from the Fighting Irish
in the future. I understand our basketball team is supposed to be
pretty good this year...
--
Peter Reiher
reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiherreiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (12/02/85)
In article <7808@ucla-cs.ARPA> lor@ucla-cs.UUCP (Edward Lor) writes: > > I really don't like the N.D. alumni's "winning is everything" >attitude. Faust is a really classy guy and brings class to the >football program. Yes, Faust is a very classy guy. Like I said, he's almost the perfect Notre Dame head coach. But let's get something straight: people play these games to win them. Notre Dame, and its supporters, cut a whole lot of slack for Faust. He got all five years of his five year contract. (How many other schools would have kept him after 5-6, 6-4-1, and 7-5 his first three seasons?) In fact, Faust would almost certainly have kept his job if he had done as well as 8-3 *any* of his five seasons. We might also talk about the way he lost many of the games, on stupid game plans, mental errors (like 16 men on the field, twice, this year), and an inability to correctly gauge his team and other teams. By the way, winning comes at least third in the eyes of the Notre Dame alumni I know, behind graduating as many athletes as possible (98% last year, which is slightly above Notre Dame's usual average) and running a clean program. Faust, to his credit, has done both of these. Pardon us for criticizing him for messing up his third responsibility, which comes first at many other schools. >Besides, 30-25-1 is not as bad as many people think, >as college football is anybody's game now. Notre Dame does not have >patents to 10-1 or 9-2 seasons. Since it is an independent school >and plays a tough schedule every year, it must have its share >of dry years. If you named the top twenty football schools in 1970, almost all of them would be in the top fifty or so in the early eighties. Sure, some schools have come up in the world, and a few have dropped out of sight, but there are certain institutions which are perennial football powers. Notre Dame is one of them, as are Alabama, Pittsburgh, Penn State, USC, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and many others. None of these schools would keep a new coach who went 30-25-1 in five seasons and failed to win more than seven games in one year. Be serious, 30-25-1 may be a reasonable record for one of the middle teams in a strong conference, but it is not an acceptable record for a team which aspires to be one of the better teams in college football. Yes, Notre Dame's record is tough, and Faust had further bad luck in that some of his supposed patsies (like Miami and Air Force) happened to become very strong, making the schedules even worse. (Of course, he had a little luck, too, as a few normally strong opponents had down years during his tenure, and USC, it seems, is starting off on a down decade.) And, like I said, no one demanded that Faust win national championships, produce undefeated seasons, or trounce every opponent decisively. If Faust had managed a single 8-3 season, not too great a feat, I think he'd still be at Notre Dame. Let us also remember that it isn't as if he had bad luck on recruiting, as he has brought in one of the nation's ten best freshman classes all of his years at ND. Also, Faust gave no sign of improving. The same problems that appeared his first year still beset the team this year. > For all the Notre Dame alumni, if you just want wins >or else get the coach fired, why don't you root for an NFL team? >Notre Dame, on the other hand, is only an academic institution. Notre Dame was also an academic institution under Knute Rockne, Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian, and Dan Devine, yet they managed to have a few good seasons, with schedules similar to those which Faust dealt with. I might also point out that, unlike many schools, ND didn't fire a vastly unsuccessful coach. We merely failed to renew a contract which had expired. Faust had five years to get his act together, a very generous amount of time, more than enough to pull out of temporary slumps and down years. He failed to do so. P.S. On a crass commercial note, Notre Dame finances *all* sporting activities at the University, male and female, solely off revenues from football and basketball. Since Notre Dame has started appearing in post-season play (barring a 1925 Rose Bowl appearance) in 1970 through 1981, Notre Dame appeared in the Cotton, Sugar, or Orange Bowl 8 times. Each appearance brought a substantial sum of money to help support fencing teams, women's basketball, pathetic swimming teams, etc. Gerry Faust, in five years, failed to take Notre Dame to a major bowl once. Figuring that ND was going to one, and bringing in the extra support, about 2 years out of three up to the time he came, including the year before he took over, Faust has probably cost the athletic program in the neighborhood of $2 million (assuming that the trend continued, and giving him credit for lesser sums from two lesser bowls to which Faust took Notre Dame). I doubt if the football team was the one to suffer, but probably there was a certain amount of penny pinching necessary on the other teams. Another part of the Faust legacy. -- Peter Reiher reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU {...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher