The closest I can think of (and it's not that close)

by Sherman Oaks, California, Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 11:01 (6252 days ago) @ BPH
edited by Sherman Oaks, Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 11:11

was Mack Brown at Texas. His record after 6 years was 59-18 (.766), which is excellent until you consider (1) Texas has ND-sized expectations and (2) those first 6 years included 0 BCS appearances and 4 straight losses to OU, including 63-14 and 65-13 annihilations. If Weis had that kind of record and two losses of that magnitude to Southern Cal (or anyone else), there would be at least isolated calls for his head on a platter. But Brown's 7th Texas team beat everyone except OU to finish 11-1, and his 8th team won the NC.

Bobby Ross went 2-9 and 3-8 in his first two years at Georgia Tech (1987-1988). I don't know how close he was to getting fired that early in his tenure, but in any event GT rebounded to 7-4 in year 3 and 11-0-1 and a split NC in year 4.

Before that, you probably have to go all the way back to Woody Hayes in the 1960s. Ohio State was 4-5 in 1966 and started 2-3 in 1967, including a 41-6 home loss to Purdue (which had beaten ND two weeks earlier and USC in the previous Rose Bowl). Hayes' job was in real jeopardy then, despite all he'd accomplished to that point; critics claimed that the game had passed him by and noted that OSU hadn't won a Big Ten title since 1961. Then OSU embarked on a 22-game winning streak, capturing the 1968 NC and staying at No. 1 until the 1969 finale when they lost to Bo Schembechler's first Michigan team. OSU rebounded to run the table in 1970 until starting their habit of losing Rose Bowls, this time in a shocking upset to Stanford. In total, OSU went on a 31-1 run after Hayes was on the verge of getting fired.

Of course, Hayes had 15 years of success at OSU before he got in deep trouble. Weis had a very good season in 2005 and a good but deflating one in 2006, and that's it.