After years of supporting and making excuses for a coach who wrote a book titled "No Excuses," I wonder whether Coach Weis is the man who ever gets us a National Championship. When he first appeared on a list of possible candidates for the job, I advocated him ahead of Urban Meyer. I gushed with pride when he visited the USC locker room after the 2005 game to congratulate them and when he told the team to go over to the Navy sideline for Navy's alma mater. Even when we were getting blown out by 38 points against Michigan and USC in my senior year, I blamed previous years' poor recruiting and inexperience rather than point the finger at our head coach.Now, after this weekend's loss to Pittsburgh, I cannot say that I can do any more defending. This weekend's game against Pittsburgh is indicative of the problems that our team has continuously had during the Weis regime: a lack of killer instinct and motivation to put teams away. Two of the major declarations of the Weis Doctrine were once again debunked this weekend: that we would be a "nasty football team" and we would never be "outcoached." We fell flat in the second half and four overtimes. We gave up a 14-point lead to a team that had three times as many turnovers as we did.Who does this team think it is to let up after being up 17-3? We went 3-9 last year. Every quarter, half, game, play, second should serve as motivation to erase the dark abyss that was last season. Our team thinks that the debacle of last season is clearly in the rearview window - in fact, Weis said never to bring it up again. For those fans that suffered through that season, especially my fellow 2008 classmates, I am sorry but it's not. If our team thinks it's fine to not put opponents away for good and simply coast until ensuring a loss, that's not fine either.We cannot take the foot off the pedal ever purely for the fact that we should seek to get rid of that nasty taste of ridicule from last season on every single play and that inability to do so solely falls on the shoulders of the head coach. I thought I would never say this but look at the national championship-winning programs at USC and Florida. Their coaches never let go of the throttle and their players seek to not just win but dominate on every single play of every single game. Their coaches challenge their players to constantly compete and never let up - look at what Florida did to Georgia this weekend and what USC does to nearly every team except for Oregon State. Weis has recruited players of similar or of the same caliber yet they fail to simply put away or dominate opponents as they have.Look, I know Coach Weis is a good man. I will never forget "Pass Right" or how he came around every dorm to answer questions. However, he has not shown that he is the coach that will get us past mediocrity to greatness. To quote The Dark Knight, "Sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded." We as Notre Dame fans deserve more than what we saw this past Saturday.
Tae Kanggrad studentoff-campusNov. 2
