So now the ghosts come for Charlie Weis, armed with all their yesterdays. You think Rockne would have put up with this, Chuck? You think Leahy would?
You think Ara or Lou, God love ’em, would have lasted 10 years without beating anyone?
Thirty-five and 25 doesn’t cut it at the University of Notre Dame, a place the lore sustains like no other. And 16-19 for a certainty doesn’t.
The first is Weis’ record at Notre Dame in not quite five seasons, exactly the same as doomed Bob Davie’s. The second is his record across the last three seasons, which is worse than either Davie (19-16) or his equally doomed successor, Tyrone Willingham (21-16 in his only three seasons).
That’s why Weis’ hair is as gray as a naval bulkhead now, and why the questions he can’t possibly answer – and really has no business answering, for his players’ sake – are building like thunderheads on a summer day. He managed to duck them Sunday, canceling his weekly day-after news conference because the team got back too late from Pittsburgh. He won’t be so lucky from here on out.
The word, see, is that he’s already gone, and even the alumni have moved on. Weis, as far as they’re concerned, is as relevant as a disposable razor. Time to unwrap some sharp new victim, who will surely beat Navy and go 12-0 and shake down the thunder, along with some of that glory Domer Nation is convinced is still out there.
I wish them luck. They’re going to need it.
No one but the most foaming-at-the-mouth Irish hater would suggest Notre Dame’s days as a player in college football are past, but it doesn’t take a genius to recognize that being a player doesn’t mean the same thing for Notre Dame as it did 30 years ago. Then it meant a national championship every five or 10 years. Now it only means getting into the top 10 once in a while, or at least consistently contending for it.
For whoever takes the baton from Weis, that’s a reasonable expectation. Anything much beyond that is for the dreamers who still pine for the good old days of ’24.
Brutal truth here: Notre Dame will always get its share of athletes, but the days are probably done when it gets USC’s or Florida’s or Texas’ share. Twenty or 30 years ago you could sell some young program-changer on the eminence of Notre Dame football. Now you’re just trying to sell a lot of maybes to 18-year-olds who were in Garanimals the last time Notre Dame football was relevant.
Rockne and the Four Horsemen, Hanratty and Seymour, even Rocket Ismail and Tony Rice: It’s all just something that happened a long time ago to kids for whom even the first Gulf War is something that happened a long time ago. Rice, architect of Notre Dame’s last national title, is 42 years old. He might as well be Methuselah.
Even Weis and his fabled four Super Bowl rings couldn’t lure the depth of talent he needed, and when his “decided schematic advantage” turned out to be a lot of empty talk, he became just another pro guy who flopped in the college game.
Maybe he beats UConn and Stanford and wins his bowl game, and the word of his demise turns out to be as counterfeit as a Confederate fiver.
More likely he goes 7-5 and takes the Irish to another Gator Bowl, and his breakout season becomes just another season when he couldn’t beat anyone who mattered: With two games left, the record of the six teams he’s beaten is 28-34.
The next guy, surely, will do better.
I wish him luck. He’s going to need it.
