Notre Dame fans, I have an idea for those of you who are going to attend the final home game of the 2009 season.

If everyone pitches in $10 or $20, you ought to be able to raise enough money to buy out Charlie Weis’ contract.

The time is now to act. Waiting another year could send the program into a spiral that it may take years to recover from.

Charlie Weis is not a bad guy. A little too stuck on himself for my taste, but cocky has served a lot of head coaches well in this business.

The man and his staff can most definitely recruit.

The problem is, those recruits are just not performing on the field.

So who is to blame for this?

That ultimately falls on the shoulders of the head coach.

Is it fair to blame all the team’s problems on just one man? Of course not, but that’s what Weis signed up for when he took over one of the nation’s all-time winningest programs.
I think the time has come to buy out his contract and begin the search for a new coach.
There are plenty of names being floated around right now and several of them would make the Irish faithful happy, at least for a short period of time.

Remember, Tyrone Willingham was successful his first season at Notre Dame, as was Charlie Weis.

Both fell out of favor as time went on, which is the real tough part of coaching the Fighting Irish.

Just winning football games isn’t enough at Notre Dame.

Since the Irish don’t play in a conference, there are no league titles to appease the fans in the stands.

So at Notre Dame you must win a lot of games and play in a Bowl Championship Series game and you must contend for national championships.

That’s not as easy as it used to be. There are a lot more quality football teams throughout the country and those teams are capable of beating anyone on any given day – right Navy?

Notre Dame has talent, especially on the offensive side of the football. The Irish have a big offensive line, which appears to be too slow to run block effectively.

Notre Dame can’t stop the run on defense and has had trouble at times defending the pass.

Weis runs the offense, while two other coaches run the defense.

I have thought for the past two seasons that the team ought to abandon the run all together and just spread the field with their talented receivers and let Jimmy Clausen wing it 40 or 50 times a game.

By continuing to try and run the ball, Weis puts his team in bad situations. That’s coaching. You need to know your limitations and apparently he hasn’t figured out his yet.
Notre Dame made some coaching moves the past few years, which were supposed to get the team going in the right direction.

I still haven’t figured out what direction that is.

The school softened up its schedule this season in I guess an attempt to allow it to win more football games and compete for a BCS spot.

That schedule doesn’t look so soft right now and if the Irish fail to win out, they are looking at a bowl bid that won’t be that appealing to its fans.

With Pittsburgh (8-1), Connecticut and Stanford, which upset No. 8 Oregon on Saturday, remaining, there is a chance that the Irish could lose two out of its final three games or all three.

Notre Dame could also run the table against those schools and land in a better bowl game.

Regardless of what happens the next three weekends, the taste of another “failed” season won’t be easy to get out of Notre Dame fans’ mouths.

This team was supposed to be experienced and were playing a schedule that would allow them to enjoy great success.

A 6-3 record is good at some schools, but it’s not good enough at Notre Dame.

If the Irish finish at 6-6, I don’t believe there is any saving Charlie Weis this time.

After all, he said that if the Irish didn’t win a BCS championship within five years, he should be fired.

I guess you should be careful what you say.

Scott Novak is sports editor of Leader Publications. He can be reached at scott.novak@leaderpub.com or by phone at 687-7702.