First, let me congratulate you and your Gators on your national championship.

While Weis-Meyer comparisons are inevitable, and Meyer has the upper hand at the moment with 2 bowl wins and a National Championship, I think they both have done a terrific job at getting their teams to play at a level far above (for ND: on offense, anyway) what they displayed in the three previous seasons before their arrival.

Florida’s NC has apparently ended any criticism of Meyer, for the time being anyway (we college football fans tend to exhibit the “What have you done lately?” mentality to a ridiculous degree). While ND’s last four losses - all to teams finishing in that season’s top 10 - have brought criticism, in the previous three seasons (2002-04), the Irish had been on the wrong end of 8 21+ point losses, including 5 31+ point losses, a 25 point loss to 7-5 Purdue and a (2003) 26 point loss to 6-6 Syracuse. Nor was there much promise of improvement; Ty’s final two recruiting classes were not on anyone’s Top 25 list, the first of which (this coming year’s seniors) has only 8 players left.

While you reveal yourself to be a thoughtful analyst, and it is unreasonable to expect someone to remember somewhat mundane details about a team you don’t follow, there are two inaccuracies in your post that you might want to rectify:

–”Ty Willingham was fired at the end of the season and was allowed to coach the bowl game”

Willingham did not coach the Irish in the 2004 Insight bowl. ND defensive coordinator Kent Baer served as a one-game interim coach. Willingham had moved on already, having accepted the Washington job on Dec. 12, 2004, the same day ND announced that it had hired Weis.

–”Out of Ty Willingham’s [2004] 6 losses, 3 were blowouts (2 TDs or more) to Pittsburgh, USC and the bowl matchup versus Oregon State.”

The 2004 Irish lost to Pitt 41-38. They lost to 7W-5L Purdue 41-16 at home that year, which you mention 3 sentences later. Obviously a simple “oops” mistake, but you might want to correct it.

I believe you are correct, though, in stating that a look at the 2004 Irish season reveals how bad ND had become. In addition to the losses already mentioned, they had 11 total rushing yards in a loss to 5-6 BYU and lost to Boston College at home. Their two “marquee” wins came over a Michigan team starting a freshman quarterback and a Tennessee team who, after losing their starting quarterback to injury right before halftime, resorted to using a transfer QB who hadn’t taken a competitive snap in two years. He promptly threw an ill-advised pass to an Irish linebacker, who returned the pick for the go-ahead score.

Also, a couple of comments that I would take issue with:

–”In Weis’s first year only the Fiesta bowl meets our criteria for a blowout loss.”

The vast majority of the college football world considers the 34-20 loss to OSU in the Fiesta Bowl a “blow-out”. I assume its because the Buckeyes rolled up 617 yards to ND’s 348. However, the outcome was still very much in doubt late in the 4th quarter. After the Irish rallied to within 27-20 with 5 minutes left, they needed only to muster a defensive stop to get the ball back with two timeouts and a chance to tie the game. Alas, Troy Smith converted two third-and-longs, and Antonio Freeman burst through a stunting Irish D for the clinching touchdown with just under 2 minutes left. I suspect that many folks’ urge to classify this a blowout possibly stems from “Laura Quinn Publicity Grab” fatigue….

–”After hearing both schools best pitch, Meyer ultimately decided to go to Gainesville.”

This sentence is somewhat misleading, in that it gives the impression that FL and ND had equal and contemporaneous shots to present their “best pitch”.

In truth, when Willingham was (suprisingly) canned on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2004, Meyer had been in contact with Florida for at least three weeks already, and was very close to accepting the job when ND canned Ty. Meyer did some last minute consideration of ND, highlighted by a rather hastily arranged flight by Irish AD Kevin White to Salt Lake City to try to pry Meyer away from his impending commitment. Meyer asked White if ND would sweeten the pot by agreeing to lower its entrance requirements and/or accept transfer and juco players (something his former ND boss, Bob Davie, had complained about incessantly, to no avail). ND said no. Meyer also consulted Davie (a somewhat bitter failure as ND coach), his father, and his wife, all of whom recommended FL over ND as the better job. The last of these three, in my opinion, is the key: as any married man knows, if the wife ain’t happy, you ain’t happy.

(All of the above can be confirmed by reading the contemporaneous accounts of these events as reported in the South Bend Tribune and the Orlando Sentinel. Having attended ND, I still read the SB Tribune; having grown up in Orlando, I still read the Sentinel….)

Meyer accepted the FL position on either Friday, Dec. 3, 2004. Florida had presented its best pitch, without competition, for a month. ND had two days to present its best pitch with the FL job offer already on the table. It is hard not to conclude that ND was at a considerable disadvantage by the time it contacted Meyer.

So where do the two programs go from here? Florida looks like they are in a position for a “1987-2000 Florida State”-style camp-out in the Top 5. ND still has to recover from Ty’s last two recruiting classes (this coming year’s juniors and seniors), of which the only 4-star recruit, Darius Walker, is now gone to the NFL draft. However, they are doing well in recruiting top-tier offensive talent, and Irish faithful are high on the propects of an improved defense under Corwin Brown, which should lead to better defensive recruiting. In the case of both FL and ND, I think it is fair to say that both schools got a coach that they are going to be very happy with over the next decade or so….

Anyway, congrats again on your national championship….