We all have our feelings about Weis as a coach, and how he never matched the hype, and as evidenced by his inability to succeed even at a place like Kansas tells us all we need to know about his ability to be a Head Coach at a major Div. 1 program, but its not his fault these programs kept handing him bags with dollar signs on them. That's on ND, and in particular, Swarbrick's predecessor, Kevin White, and on Kansas' AD. Weis was able to sell himself for that much money, with us he could market his Superbowl rings, and making Tom Brady an elite star, with the added bonus of being an ND alum. He had relatively decent success his first couple of years which was fools gold when the cupboard went bare. While he was able to recruit well at skill positions, he was never able to assemble much defensive talent, especially on the DL, and was a lousy developer of talent once he got them here, hence the progressive decline. The rate of return on recruiting started to slip as well. I don't think he'll be able to fool another major program into a head coaching gig. He might still be able to sell himself as an OC in college or pros, but nobody's going to give him the keys to the car.
But I agree, the vitrol against him for taking the money seems unfair. If anyone offered us that kind of money, I doubt we'd take the high road and say, your know what, in retrospect I didn't deserve it. Here, have the money back while I try to figure out how to get hired somewhere else to feed my family. Its not unlike Mike Golic's outstanding defense of ND in 2012 to Rick Reilly's hit peice on ND and how it doesn't DESERVE its TV contract or any other attention it gets. Blame those giving to them, not ND for taking what is given.
