greg paulus

[HoyaFanNY]

this is becoming a soap opera. from what i hear, paulus never liked willingham or his west coast offense. now that ty is gone, the idea of urban meyer and his run and gun offense have paulus seriously thinking of bagging duke hoops and signing with nd, to play both football and hoops.

now it gets good. reportedly, coach k(rybaby) is jetting to syracuse to see paulus play his first hoops game tonight and, more important, try to convonce him to honor his verbal to the pukies.

listen, as a michigan football fan i hate nd football....but i would love for the irish to steal paulus from that whining b*tch coach k. i can hear vitale crying as we speak.

[SFHoya99]

Paulus is what, 6'2"/6'3"? I can understand signing with Duke if he didn't want to play football, but he's got more pro potential there.

I'm sure Brey and Meyer would like that combo.

[HoyaFanNY]

i've watched paulus play both football and basketball a number of times and, while i'm no mel kiper, i think he is a better football prospect than basketball.

[HOYAPLAYA]

Not to be an a-hole because I'm not sure what the real story is, but what is there not to like about Ty Willingham. Everyone who is spoken up about him over the past few years and since his firing yesterday, speaks very well of him and he seems to be the ultimate professional. What happened yesterday at ND was a shame and it's time for the AD to wake up and smell the coffee. ND can not and will not consistently win 9-10 games with the schedule they play and the academic requirements that are put on their recruits if they don't give a coach the time to build his own tradition. Trust me when I tell you that other schools will be using this as part of a "negative recruiting" campaign against ND for years to come. It will only get worse if their next coach puts up a couple of 7 or 8 win seasons in a row. Let's keep in mind that when Holtz one his championship, there were a ton of sketchy students on those teams. I can't speak to Parseghian era because that was before my time but the dynamics of college athletics was also very different then. I personally hope ND never gets to 10 wins again and in three years, the AD is held accountable for this quick decision to fire Wilingham

[FromTheBeginning]

Notre Dame is living in a dream world. They are no longer a top tier football program and are caught in a catch 22 situation. They have to maintain the killer schedule they play to keep whatever credibility they think they still have as a major football power but that same schedule keeps them from being able to win with the players they are able to recruit.
The explosion of college football on television since the advent of the satellite packeges, etc. makes it possible for every good college team to have almost all their games on TV somewhere. The days of Notre Dame being the media darling are over, if not in ratings, then in terms of them being the most watchable team on TV. They will never approach that top level again unless they get lucky with a whole bunch of 2nd tier recruits in one year. All you have to do is look at any national top 100 football recruiting list. 10 years ago they were listed with dozens of the top recruits every year - not so any more.
Ty was fired because no top ten football school will tolerate his record over the past 2 years. The only problem is ND's delusion that they are still that type of program.

[hoyarooter]

This is evolving into being off topic, but what happened to Willingham is an absolute shame. Being in LA, I had a somewhat close-up look at the job he did at Stanford, and I don't believe I ever heard a bad word about him from anyone in the Pac-10. Notre Dame dumped him because they want to grab Meyer before someone else does. I am certain that Willingham will land on his feet at a solid program.

What I found alarming was reading that ND students were planning a demonstration for last night urging Willingham's ouster. I thought demonstrations like that only occurred when the coach was really terrible, like...oh, never mind. You all know who I mean.

[GUHoya07]

I give up. Fine everyone, you can all think that it was the Fire Esh Rally when it really didn't have any such intentions and Esherick was never mentioned by us.

Am I happy that he's gone? oh, I'm ecstatic, but we were never calling for Craig's head. There are a lot of other problems within the program and administrative support, and that is what we were addressing.

[IceHoya]

Hmmmm... Paulus no longer definitely heading to Duke? Sounds like the door's open to sign with the Hoyas.

Hey Bobby Benson, get on that recruiting trail!

[hoyarooter]

GU2007, I acknowledge that I intentionally misrepresented the purpose of our rally. I just thought the comparison to Notre Dame was too sweet to pass up.

On the other hand, I think it is a bit disingenuous to say that the rally wasn't intended as a fire Esherick movement when I'm sure (I say from 3000 miles away) that such a result had to be in the back (or front) of the minds of many of the attendees.

[GUHoya07]

It was not in the back of the minds of the people who planned it. At least speaking for myself I can say that I had no such thoughts. Never once did I think that such an effect would be possible, nor did I even consider it while planning it and I was completely focused on things such as administrative support and the things I have mentioned.

[EasyEd]

Greg Paulus has a news conference scheduled for Monday. Is he backing out of Duke?

[YB]

The Rally was planned to address general institutional and student support for the program largely because we believed we had no chance of getting coach fired- and we also believed it would have been pretty loutish to call for someone's head on a platter.

We still have not been addressed in what we actually demanded, BTW.