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Ok here are a few first impressions with this hire.

First great hire for U of D, I doubt they really could've done better in this process, it took a while but they got a well respected quality coach in.

Putnam left Davison because he was tired of not being able to get over the hump (I can understand that), he stated he felt athletics had been slighted there, or at least not elevated as high as he would like.

Problem I have is what exactly about U of D's football history would make you think they would have what he is looking for? The reputation of U of D is that football is a low level priority.

New AD could mean a new change in direction in attitude, and I think it's only fair to allow that to be the case. However, I have a feeling that Putnam saw the success of the other programs in that building (he said as much) and thought why not football (which sounds like a confident coach). But U of D does tend to bring in students who favor those other sports and not football. He'll have a hard time selling non legacy kids on going to U of D rather than St. Mary's, Rice etc. He's jumping into the Catholic league which can be a meat grinder from the Big 9 (isn't it like 4 schools now?) and taking over a team that would've struggled not to be last in that confernce.

Here I think is the most telling part of what I read in an article, Putnam says he was sold that they wanted all thier programs to be a winner....what he wanted to hear mind you. And Barret the new AD said thier goal was to find a coach that has a history of "elevating a program"...which they have found in Putnam. I didn't see much in the article from the U of D talking about how frustrated they were, and the things they had planned to turn it around. Simply they wanted a "coach" who could do it. To me this sounds like the same old rhetoric from U of D. While the attitude may change from the players, I believe they expect way to much from the coach, and not enough from the school. I need to see a change in admissions, number of coaches in the building, etc. to believe the school is going to do what it takes.

I'm willing to sit back and see what happens, and I hope things go very well, the CHSL could use a solid U of D, back in the central. But I'm very lukewarm to the idea that Putnam can do anything more than Merchant was able to do, and that might even be pushing it when you look at the numbers coming up. U of D is a team that would be a solid D6 school now, that's a long way to climb by yourself.