So Charlie Weis said "To Hell with Michigan" to the ND booster club's "Blue Gold buffet" prior to Notre Dame's spring practice. He said Michigan will come in making all kinds of excuses, and leave doing the same. Someone please tell me why I'm supposed to care
Much has been made of this by my fellow Michigan blogs. Brian has declared an "excuse fatwa," MSC declares "Same to you, Frontbutt," The M Zone is somewhat incredulous at the whole thing, and I think Vijay just had an aneurysm . No one seems to be able to believe that a coach who is 22-15, 0-3 in bowl games, 1-2 against Michigan, and 4-8 against ranked opponents would have the cojones to call out anyone else for making excuses.
But that's Charlie. In one breath he'll blame his inability to recruit hoodlums and thugs as a reason he's not winning, and in the next accuse others of making excuses for their shortcomings. This is what he does. And he'll do it long after Notre Dame fires his ass for incompetence. (Just as support for what I'm saying, on May 1, 2008, I was listening to Silvy and Waddle on ESPN 1000AM in Chicago, when Tom Waddle mentioned on air that during his time at this year's NFL draft one of the green room quarterbacks (not named Chad Henne, for you conspiracy theorists) told him that playing Notre Dame was like playing a high school team. You can listen to it via Podcast, if you're so inclined.)
As one of the only, if not the only, Michigan site without a visceral hatred of Notre Dame I simply say, "To Hell with Weis." I'm on record as wanting the Notre Dame Michigan rivalry to go on indefinitely . Hell, I even called out Bo himself for being wrong when he said "To Hell with Notre Dame." The Notre Dame Michigan rivalry is above this sort of nonsense. It's about the two winningest programs in the NCAA going up against each other as a national championship contender elimination game. It's a game that's important to college football.
That's what it's supposed to be about.
Unfortunately, Weis doesn't really get this. But then again he hasn't gotten a lot of things during his tenure at Notre Dame. You know. Things like blocking. Defense. Or the effective use of the run game. What Weis does understand is use of the press. While everyone is focusing on his comments, they're not focusing on his performance. And maybe that was his intention all along.