Notre Dame Fires Head Coach Charlie Weis

Notre Dame’s athletic director, Jack Swarbrick, held a lengthy press conference Monday evening, in which he addressed the timing of the firing (Weis knew it was coming), the criteria the Irish brass will be looking for in a replacement (winning games while staying well away from the lush fields of partial qualifiers would be swell), and the progress of the search itself, which is where we find this interesting tidbit:

You know what this means, right? The writing’s on the wall. Bob Stoops AND Urban Meyer will be hired as co-head coaches before the week is out. They’re just playing it coy. Real coy.

From the email sent out to ND students:

In the interim Rob Ianello, assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator, will run the efforts to hold onto their recruiting class. He will not, however, coach the team in a bowl game. The players themselves voted down the idea, and that’s their loss, because no one—repeat, no one—puts on a show like the Meineke Car Care Bowl.

The New York Daily News is reporting that Charlie Weis is gone after his fifth season at Notre Dame, according to those usual magic sources. Players have scheduled a meeting for 3:00 p.m. to discuss going to a bowl game, but it is unknown which members of the staff would participate in coaching said ame.

Weis himself is unlikely, it seems: he cleaned out his office on Thursday last week, and is already entertaining offers to be an offensive coordinator in the NFL.