Should Jimmy Clausen Get a Second Chance?

It was only two years ago that Jimmy Clausen was being discussed as the number one quarterback in the NFL draft if an injured Sam Bradford decided to come back for a junior season.

In football, two years can be a lifetime, and for Clausen it only took 10 starts for the Carolina Panthers to give up on their 2010 2^nd round pick. Cam Newton, Carolina’s 2011 first round draft choice, is more than just the quarterback of the future in Carolina, he’s the identity the franchise had been searching for since their inaugural season in 1995. He’s what some in Carolina had hoped Jimmy Clausen could be.

But thus far Jimmy Clausen has been nothing but a powder keg of potential. Countless reports have been written about how good Jimmy Clausen was going to be since his junior year of high school in 2005. He was called the “LeBron James of football,” and every big name school from USC, near his home in Thousand Oaks, California, to Tennessee, where his brother Casey lead the the Volunteers to three winning seasons, tried to recruit Clausen. Clausen opted for the glory of Notre Dame, where then head coach Charlie Weis salivated over the opportunity to inject Clausen into his pro-style offense.

But the Clausen/Weis era was a disaster for Notre Dame, leading to Weis’ firing after the 2009 season, which lead Clausen to declare himself eligible for the 2010 NFL draft. Early projections saw Clausen going in the early first round, but draft day 2010 was less kind. Teams such as Buffalo, Jacksonville, San Francisco, and Cleveland, all seemingly needing quarterbacks, passed on Clausen until he ended up in Carolina, a situation that looked excellent for the young passer, given that long time Panthers starter Jake Delhomme was moving on, and the Panthers were a team only a year removed from the two seed in the NFC.

But 2010 was such a disaster in Carolina that John Fox, the head coach who drafted Clausen, lost his job. Wide receiver Steve Smith publicly griped about Clausen’s poor play, and it was even rumored that Clausen’s teammates vehemently disliked him, a reputation that had been following the young passer since high school.

But Clausen is still young, and at age 24 he’s played in a lot of games, seen a lot of adversity, and has played for some excellent coaches to potentially learn from. In the long run, his awful rookie campaign and this year on the bench could supplement his three years as a starter at Notre Dame towards developing Clausen into a better NFL player. Perhaps he learned from his shortcomings as a leader in Carolina and can one day become a captain elsewhere.

But right now there’s nothing Jimmy Clausen can do. Barring a major injury to Cam Newton, Clausen will not see the field the rest of the 2011 season. Odds are that Carolina will fully endorse Newton at the end of the year and part ways with Clausen’s salary, allowing Clausen and his agent to decide where the best place for Jimmy Clausen to continue his NFL career will be.

But there’s one problem: teams traditionally don’t invest their future in other teams damaged goods. Clausen will also hit a market that includes Kyle Orton, David Garrard, Vince Young, Brady Quinn, Chad Pennington, Matt Flynn, and potentially Peyton Manning. Though Clausen is likely viewed as having more upside than those players (based entirely on age), odds are that at least some of those players are going to inherit the open starting jobs, forcing Clausen to follow Matt Leinart and the aforementioned Young in taking backup jobs in situations they seem as potentially fruitful.

Or maybe Clausen won’t be so lucky. Maybe teams like Jacksonville, Cleveland, St. Louis, Minnesota, Seattle, or Arizona won’t want him. Maybe Clausen will be forced to sign on as a backup to a well-engraved starter such as Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, or Matthew Stafford. But Clausen doesn’t deserve that, not yet.

But for Jimmy Clausen it’s never been about learning, growing, and developing. Dating back to his days in high school he’s been expected to be great, resulting in a sense of entitlement. And while the LeBron James comparisons have become laughable, Jimmy Clausen should get another shot to be an NFL starter. Clausen has potential and he has talent, what he didn't have were the intangibles, but this summer some NFL team will buy into what the scouts have written one more time, and give Jimmy Clausen one last chance to prove they're right.

Charlie Weis Heads to the Chiefs

After a suffering through a College Football season that felt like "the countdown to Charlie Weis getting fired," I was starting to get scared of all the offseason "where will Charlie Weis coach" rumors.

Immediately after he was fired, rumors of Weis reuniting with someone from the Parcells/Belichick tree began. Would he go to Cleveland? Belichick said he'd explore the idea when the season was over. Parcells spoke highly of Weis.

At the end of the day, it was the Kansas City Chiefs, who are now General Managed by Scott Pioli, a former Patriots executive.

The hiring of Weis raises the question as to whether or not the Chiefs are interested in drafting Jimmy Clausen to be the future of the franchise. Many scouts believe that it would be to Clausen's benefit to sit and watch the league for a season, instead of being thrown into the fire like Mark Sanchez. Drafting Clausen would raise the Chiefs future prospects, but it would also be the sign of a 40 million dollar mistake marking Pioli's first move as Chiefs GM; the acquiring of QB Matt Cassel.

Cassel ended 2009 with a 16 to 16 TD to INT ratio, 2,924 passing yards, and a 69.9 Quarterback rating. Though the Chiefs offensive weapons aren't exactly the Patriots offensive weapons (a system in which Cassel put up an 89.4 QB rating in 2008), Cassel still underperformed.

The signing of Charlie Weis opens the doors for all of these discussions as we enter an offseason in which the Chiefs would have seemed relative irrelevant.

Thoughts on Last Week

I know these are all late, and all deserved their each article, but in order to catch up on a missed three days, I'm going to combine the following four stories into one article.

MARK MANGINO

Remember that 2007 season when Kansas made that run? When we were all like, "man isn't Kansas supposed to be a basketball school?" That was thanks in large part to Mark Mangino.

Mangino understood what it took to build a winner in the NCAA, and eventually built that in Kansas. There's no denying he was good at what he did. I'll give him all the credit in the world as a football coach.

At the same time, Mangino was totally out of line for the things he said to his players. Telling one player he's going to end up an "alcoholic" like that players "father," and telling another player that he can go back to Oakland and got "shot by his homies" like that player's brother is totally out of line. Let's not forget that these college football coaches are hired to be educators.

Mangino worked for an institution where he was hired to educate. Kansas did the right thing. No amount of wins could cancel out the atrocities that this man was bringing to the locker.

Hopefully for Mangino this serves as a wake up call. Division 1-AA FCS should be his next stop; and it will equate to a great opportunity to rebuild his reputation on work his way back to the FBS.

BOBBY BOWDEN

Wow. You'd think that athletic programs like Florida State would have high paid public relations people working for them. Coach Bowden came out in the beginning of the week and said he wanted to remain the head coach at Florida State and was then let go.

Ouch.

By the time I was old enough to know who Bobby Bowden was he was already a legend in the sport, and that was over 15 years ago. Sure, he's old, but the man has done so much for the sport, the NCAA, and Florida State that he deserved to choose when it's time to go. Not the stinking school.

What a sad ending for (arguably) the greatest coach in college football in the past 40 years. You can't blame Florida States recent string of mediocrity on Bowden, the Florida schools have always taken turns rotating who the states powerhouse is. First it's the Gators, then it's the Hurricanes, and then it's the Seminoles.

Question is, can the Seminoles remain a legitimate BCS contender without Bowden? Not anytime soon.

RUNNING UP THE SCORE?

A lot of people have been talking about Pete Carroll's decision to "run up the score" on UCLA after they called a time out.

USC apologists cite that UCLA called a time out and had it coming (heck it was a rivalry game) while UCLA apologists have called the move bush league.

Personally I can care less whether it was USC vs UCLA or Auburn vs Eastern Michigan, all I care about is the integrity of the sport.

It's one thing if USC is trying to gain BCS points, but they're BCS hopes ended about 5 weeks ago. It's one thing if you were still moving the ball before UCLA's timeout, but you had just taken a knee, so that rules that out. It's one thing if you just want to go home early and end the game, but throwing a touchdown makes the game even longer!

What Carroll did was wrong. I'm not saying losers should be rewarded, I'm just saying coaches need to show one another, and especially the kids playing the game some respect.

Dick Vermeil put it best when he explained the Carroll coached some pretty bad NFL teams (was it Carroll's fault they were that bad? Probably yes, considering under Parcells/Belichick the Jets/Patriots got a lot better) and wouldn't have appreciated it that much if say the Dolphins, Broncos, or Jaguars did that to his teams.

CHARLIE WEIS

It was only a matter of time before Weis was fired. Do I agree Weis should have been fired? Yes. But this has to be it for Notre Dame.

Weis was able to recruit well at Notre Dame, his successor will likely benefit from the same luxury, therefore, Notre Dame needs to make their next coach hiring a long term decision. The team needs to continue graduating players and maintaining high academic standards first; with program continuity BCS bids will come.

As for Weis, he'll be fine. I'm sure he'll end up back in the NFL and coordinate somewhere. Maybe Miami with Bill Parcells, maybe New England with Bill Belichick, maybe Kansas City with Scott Pioli, or maybe even Cleveland with Eric Mangini. Heck, Weis may even be a dark horse for a pro head coaching job. Think about it, the NFL defensive coordinators actually do their job, and Weis would never have to worry about a 3-4, 4-3, 5-2, Nickel, Dime or whatever while getting all the credit for a win.

I think this separation of Notre Dame and Charlie Weis will be for the better for both parties. It's what they have to do. But sometimes after a divorce, even when they're for the party, both parties still end up in shambles.

Hofstra Cancel Football Program

[I know I'm a few days late on this one. I've been slammed with 15 hour days of work. Making it hard for me to make quality posts.]

On Thursday, Hofstra University, home of the Pride, cancelled it's NCAA Division I (FCS, formerly the NCAA DI-AA) football program. As a "scholarship" school, Hofstra was considered a pretty big FCS school, with chatter about moving into the Big East circulating every few years.

The reason why I'm covering this story isn't because I'm from Long Island, or because I went to Hofstra briefly in the middle of the decade, it's because stories like this sometimes need to be made public so we can all see the bigger picture.

Hear me out.

Although Hofstra has had some success at the FCS level; sending the names Marques Colston, Wayne Chrebet, Raheem Morris, and Willie Colon to our vocabulary, by all means Hofstra was a program that everyone, including Hofstra students (I went there when Colston went there and outside of a few people, I don't know many people who went to a game), could care less about.

So the school, which was pumping millions of dollars into it's football program, and making nothing back on it's investment, decided to "pull the plug" on NCAA Football.

So why do I feel it's a good thing?

Because it comes the same week where Bobby Bowden got dismissed from Florida State after being the schools most notable name for decades. The same week that Pete Carroll and USC ran up the score on UCLA. The same week that Mark Mangino got fired for disgusting remarks to his players. The same week where Notre Dame opted to pay their head coach $18,000,000 not to coach, despite the fact that he graduated a record number of players.

Hofstra's decision to cut their Football program was purely academic. They realized that they weren't making a profit on that program (only 25% of all D1 college football programs create a profit) and decided to put the money into academics. Hofstra have a first tier law school, and a new medical school. The school plans on using their "football" money to reinvest in their academics in hopes of joining Notre Dame and UCLA not in the ranks of college athletics, but more importantly in the ranks of college academics.

Would I had loved to see Hofstra make the move to FBS Big East? Of course! It would have been a dream come true for me to have a "home town" college football team to pull for. Am I presently bummed that they've pulled the plug on their program? Yes, I am.

But do I see this in the bigger picture? Of course. I'd much rather see an academic institution invest it's money wisely, than watch it pour it down the drain like the 75% of college programs not profiting.

What this story should do is make us take a step back and realize that this is college football. A sport that has grown so big that we may be forcing kids lives backwards. In the FBS, only about 5 to 10% of the players go pro. Of that 5 to 10% only about 2% make a career out of football. In other words, there are thousands upon thousands of college football players in America, and only a couple hundred of them will make a career out of the sport. Yet the time these athletes devout to the sport absolutely dominates their schedule and prevents the student-athletes from being students.

College football is great, I love it. But let's not set people's lives backwards for it's sake.

Charlie Weis: Done

As if it weren't already inevitable, Charlie Weis' career as the head coach of Notre Dame likely ended today; and for good reason.

No hate towards UConn, but they were a 4-5 team entering the game, while the Irish were some people's preseason pick to go to the BCS, and maybe even the national championship. At this point, another Holiday Bowl bid seems like a good scenerio for the Irish. This time however, beating down on the Hawaii Warriors won't save Weis' job.

What's even worse is that Weis' career record is 35-26, with a .573 winning percentage; Lower than his predecessors Tyrone Willingham and Bob Davie. What also shines a light in Weis' face is that his two best seasons were with a lot of Willingham's recruits.

Jimmy Clausen will probably go pro. If he doesn't he's a bonehead. Weis has done a mediocre to below average job as the head coach of Notre Dame, and you can't blame the school's high academic standards for that, I mean, what about Stanford? They're having a better season than Notre Dame, and they have equal academic standards.

You can argue that Notre Dame has lost it's place as a top recruiting college, being replaced by the SEC, Texas, Penn State, Oklahoma, Miami, Ohio State, USC, and other big name schools, but how do you explain the schools recruitment of Jimmy Clausen, arguably the decades most sought after recruit? Clausen was from Southern California and opted away from USC, Tennessee (where his brother Casey played), and other schools with better professional resumes (post 1993) than Notre Dame.

On top of that, Notre Dame are currently ranked #11 on the Rivals.com Recruitment rankings, sandwiched in between USC and Miami. For 2009 the team finished #21, for 2008 the team finished #2, for 2007 the team finished #8, for 2006 the team finished #8, and for 2005 the team finished #40 despite late recruitment because of coaching change. So to make a long story short, Weis has had a perennial top 10 team in terms of recruit value, and has underperformed with it.

Let's be a little more honest. Weis has done horribly with it.

By comparison, Coach Phil Fulmer, a national championship winning coach for Tennessee who snagged Peyton Manning away from Ole Miss was fired after the 2008 season because he failed to reach a bowl game. The season before Fulmer's team was in the SEC Championship game against eventual national champion LSU, but that wasn't enough. Fulmer had a perennial top 10 recruiting team, but lost his job because he couldn't win a national championship with it.

Weis is not Phil Fulmer. The media, ESPN, and programs around the league have sucked any respectability out of Weis' name as a coach. How could a serious recruit choose Weis over Pete Carroll, Mack Brown Nick Saban, Les Miles, Urban Meyer, or Bob Stoops? Those are just some of the names that Weis has to compete with, and some of those names Notre Dame turned down to hire Weis.

So what now for Notre Dame? I've heard Jon Gruden, Phil Fulmer, Bob Stoops, and even Tony Dungy's names thrown around. Not going to happen. Stoops, maybe, but why? Oklahoma is a better program than Notre Dame, why leave to go to that mess?

Enough with that though. This article is about Charlie Weis, who like every other coach who left Bill Belichick, has failed miserably on his own. To their defense, even Belichick initially failed as a head coach when he strayed away from Bill Parcells after Super Bowl XXV. And that's where Weis will find his next home if he wants one. He'll have enough money to retire I'm sure, he could even transition to a studio somewhere, but if he wants to coach again, he'll have to find a job with Bill or Bill.

On this day, when Weis' firing seems absolute, there should be no Weis apologists. He was given the players, given the recruiting tools, and given the environment to succeed. Truth be told, Weis was always scared, thus, he never succeeded. He was a passionate guy, seemed like a good one too. He loved Notre Dame and was happy to be there. But that doesn't mean he was head coaching material.

He'll always be a champion coordinator though.

This Past Sunday I Learned:

This Past Sunday I learned:

Lovie Smith gets his red zone offense from Charlie Weis.

The New Orleans Saints are for real. This team has a real shot to get home field throughout the NFC playoffs.

That the Seahawks aren't that good; in fact they're actually really bad. With or without Matt Hasselbeck.

The Ravens really need this bye week. It'll be tough for them to go over .500 anyway.

Yes, the Tennessee Titans are the worst team in the AFC, right now.

I was wrong about the Philadelphia Eagles being the best team in the NFC.

As I suspected, the Bengals aren't ready to be a contender.

When the Giants are playing from behind they look old. When they're ahead they look the best team in the league. Chances are they're somewhere in between (like the Patriots?).

The snow really doesn't effect Tom Brady (no tuck rule jokes please), he's the best bad weather QB the NFL has seen this side of Favre... and a lot better than Mark Sanchez.

Matt Cassell isn't as bad as I thought he was, but not nearly as good as everyone else said he was going to be.

Jim Zorn was calling the offensive plays the past two seasons in Washington. Although this was not news to me, the fact that Washington had an offense was.

Despite a win, the Carolina Panthers are a very average team. Did the Buc's really shut Steve Smith down? Maybe I was wrong about calling him the best wide receiver in the NFL. Ouch.

The Houston Texans can win road games against quality opponents.

and most importantly....

The Minnesota Vikings have what it takes to beat any team in the NFL at home.

Notre Dame vs USC Preview

This decade USC's dominance over Notre Dame has had a lot to do with who was under center. Since 2003 the Trojans have produced three current starters on NFL rosters, and two backups. Notre Dame have given the league Brady Quinn.

But for the first time in this era, there is no doubt which team has the better Quarterback. At this point in time Jimmy Clausen is light years ahead of Matt Barkley. Notre Dame's offense is also better than USC's for the first time this rivalry.

I guess that's what happen when you're able to recruit "the kid with the golden arm."

Although Notre Dame have the offensive edge, USC still have the size, the depth, and the defense to make Notre Dame struggle. And I don't want to jump on the Charlie Weis pile on, so let's just say USC have the head coaching advantage here, too.

Neither the Trojans (4-1) or the Irish (4-1) have looked like competition for Florida, Alabama, or even Texas, this year, but this is still the most exciting rivalry on a national level right now. It's also Notre Dame's best shot to get a win with Weiss, a win that may be essential to Weis keeping his job.

Unless Jimmy Clausen stays for senior season, Notre Dame will likely reenter a one to two year rebuilding phase, beginning next year. This is USC's rebuilding. After this season Barkley is a veteran at the college level and USC will once again be national title contenders.

A lot is on the line this week for the Irish. Clausen staying for Senior year is part of it. A win, and national title hopes for 2010, or even this year, begin to emerge. A loss, and Clausen may take the money and run; especially after what happened to Sam Bradford.

Charlie Weis' job is also on the line. Boosters are tired of his act. A loss this Saturday, and Weis may return to Belichick's side in 2010 the way Belichick returned to Parcell's in 1996, and Weis doesn't want that, he may not even be given that sort of opportunity. Weis' collapse in Notre Dame is a lot worse than Belichick's inability to turn Vinny Testaverde into a Pro Bowler (although Testaverde did in 1996, Belichick's first year gone, and 1998, as a Jet with Belichick as defensive coordinator; no need for a Belichick as the reason Testaverde didn't succeed debate though... after all Belichick turned Brady into a Hall of Famer, and Cassell into a millionaire).

Here's the bottom line. Notre Dame are home. Both teams are coming off a bye, both teams BCS hopes are on the line. A win will mean the world for both programs, a loss will go a long way in sending each program backwards. But in college football, nine times out of ten you gotta go with the team with more talent winning the game.

This time the team with more talent is USC.

I hate to say it but the Trojans are going to go into South Bend and win 34 - 21.

Maybe Weis can catch on with Mangini in Cleveland and help develop Brady Quinn. If not I'm sure Big Bill has something for him to do in Miami. If that fails little Bill probably has something in New England. If that fails he and Romeo can co-coach a UFL team.

If that fails there's always pie eating contests. (Damn I said I wouldn't join in the pile on).

If Notre Dame win, Clausen wins the Heisman.