Notre Dame is 2-0 against former Irish head coach Tyrone Willingham since his departure after the 2004 season and now his tenure in Washington ending after being fired resigning a few weeks back, it appears as though current Notre Dame offensive coordinator Michael Haywood make end up with his old job. It was reported Wednesday night by several sources, including the Seattle Post Intelligencer, that Haywood is interviewing for the open head coaching position at Washington.
Haywood, 44, missed the Irish practice Wednesday. He has the support of head coach Charlie Weis and was granted permission to visit the UW, a source within the Notre Dame athletic department said.
Still, Haywood’s name surfacing is a surprise for several reasons — none bigger than the facts he has no head coaching experience and was in his first year of calling plays before Weis reclaimed that duty last week before the Irish played Navy.
Weis said yesterday that Haywood would be missing practice time yesterday for personal reasons and that he supported Mike in the matter, but wouldn’t give details. It seems obvious now that those personal reasons were to interview for the Washington position. Haywood was up for a couple of head coaching positions the last few years, but has come up short each time.
Like the Seattle PI, I am a little surprised by this as well. Not so much for the fact that Haywood is being interviewed, but because of the timing. It seems likely that Washington’s search is not close to being over so its curious that Haywood is interviewing with two games left in the season. Some Washington fans might be surprised by Haywood being a candidate, but when you consider how poorly of a job Willingham has done recruiting over the last four years, the Huskies might have a hard time attracting a big name for their vacancy.
I hope he gets the job at Washington and takes Charlie Weis with him. I’ve been an Irish fan all my life and this is worse than when Gerry Faust was the coach.
Haywood seems like a good guy and who knows how he’d do on his own. Probably pretty well. I’d think another ND to Washington connection would be bad karma and I’d hate to be starting my head coaching career following an ex-ND coach who bombed at the school. On day one, you’d already have UDub fans giving him the hairy eyeball, wondering if he’d be another Willingham. Not really fair to a guy like Haywood.
I hope he gets the job so that we can finally get a playcaller that isn’t as predictable as he was this season. And it would be nice to get someone here who can actually coach these talented running backs especially with Theo Riddick and Cierre Wood coming in. We need someone who is a creative and can scheme to the strentghs of this team. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get someone who might succeed Weis if these “fans” of ND get what they want.
As far as the recruiting goes, I am scared of losing Rob Ianello. How many of our recruits will jump ship if he goes to Syracuse as compared to Mike Haywood going to UW??
I wonder if some of Weis’ vaunted recruiting magic is upping the stock of his staff at least in that area (as opposed to Ty).