When Will The Pendulum Swing?

“Every time I could smell the flowers, I would look for the coffin.”
- Lou Holtz

Funnyman Holtz, inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame earlier this year for his sideline acumen as head coach, summarized his 6-5 season at Arkansas in 1980 with that one-liner. He lost as many games that year as he did his previous three when he was 30-5-1. Every time his Razorbacks seemed to prosper that season, another setback was lurking in the wings.

Now, multiply that experience by 14 years and you have the Notre Dame football program from 1994-2007.

The Irish have had many decent or pretty good years during that stretch – but just when you thought a dramatic resurgence was brewing, reality bit. The last truly great season occurred in 1993, an 11-1 finish under Holtz with a major bowl victory (Cotton) and a debatable No. 2 finish to Florida State, whom the Irish vanquished that November.

When the Notre Dame football program is humming, as it did during the Knute Rockne (1918-30), Frank Leahy (1941-43, 1946-53), Ara Parseghian (1964-74), Dan Devine (1975-80) and Holtz (1986-96) eras, three-loss campaigns were a valley, a cause for outrage or remorse among Irish faithful, an affront to the nation’s most tradition-rich program.

However, over the past 14 years, three-loss seasons have become peaks, prompting manufactured “Return to Glory” themes that proved premature. In other words, every time the sweet perfume of a renaissance hit the olfactory senses of an ardent Notre Dame follower, the stench of an ugly outing or horrid season soon overrode it. In the past decade alone:

• Bob Davie’s 1998 Irish were 9-1 and on the cusp of a BCS bid. Flowers were blooming. But the finished with two straight losses and then followed with a 5-7 record in 1999. Flowers died.

• Year 4 of the Davie era began to see the top 3 recruiting efforts from 1998 and 1999 bear fruit as freshman quarterback Matt LoVecchio guided the Irish to seven consecutive victories and a BCS bid. Resurrection! Alas, the Irish were destroyed by Oregon State in the Fiesta Bowl, 41-9. Life support! The next year, with LoVecchio touted as a dark horse for the Heisman and the five-year plan in place, the Irish finished 5-6, LoVecchio was benched and transferred to Indiana, and Davie was axed.

• In 2002, first-year head coach Tyrone Willingham directed a stunning 8-0 start and became one of the country’s most celebrated figures during the turnaround 10-3 season, earning the “Sportsman of the Year” award from The Sporting News. Magnificent!

“Divine intervention,” is how Notre Dame athletics director Kevin White summarized Willingham’s hiring after a false George O’Leary résumé got him fired four days into the job.

However, a 5-7 season encore in 2007 (with four losses from 26 to 38 points), poor recruiting and another subpar campaign in 2004 (6-6) led to the ouster of Willingham. Not so divine – or even Devine – anymore.

• In 2005, Charlie Weis electrified Notre Dame with a 9-2 record, and a near upset of No. 1 USC. Phenomenal! But another bowl loss, preseason No. 1 rankings in 2006, and 47-21, 44-24 and 41-14 losses in the three marquee games created a letdown. It was followed by a 3-9 outcome, one of the two or three ugliest campaigns in school annals.

Slumps have been incurred before at Notre Dame, most notably a 34-45 record in the eight seasons from 1956-63 and a 43-36-1 mark in the seven years from 1981-87. In both cases, the Parseghian and Holtz eras swung the pendulum back in Notre Dame’s favor.

When will the pendulum turn again, and will it happen under Weis’ watch?

Potential Cures

Including the record of Holtz’s last three seasons (23-11-1), Davie (35-25), Willingham (21-15, plus 0-1 with interim coach Kent Baer in the bowl) and now Weis (22-15), Notre Dame’s mark over the last 14 seasons is a relatively modest 101-67-1 (.601) – most notably 0-9 in bowls to set an NCAA record for futility in the postseason. It’s akin to the former class valedictorian becoming a ‘C’ student.

Notre Dame had three losing seasons from 1956-63 and three more from 1981-87 – but now it has had four from 1999-2007 with three different coaches, plus a 6-6 mark in 2004.

Nevertheless, Notre Dame is poised for a stronger rebound now than it was in the Davie and Willingham eras for several reasons. 1) The Guglielmino Sports Complex opened in 2005 to upgrade the facilities and the day-to-day working operation, not unlike in 1987 when the Loftus Sports Complex/Haggar Field was dedicated. 2) Salaries have been dramatically upgraded in the past several years to lure premier assistants, such as Jon Tenuta this year. 3) Beginning in 2009, the White template of scheduling begins with the seven homes game, four road contests and one off-site “home game,” potentially creating a more realistic, favorable slate.

Above all, though, recruiting under Weis has had its finest three-year stretch from 2006-08, at least on paper, since the Vinny Cerrato era (1986-91), when the Irish harvested four consecutive top-ranked classes. Each of the last three hauls by Weis was deemed a consensus top-10 group by myriad recruiting services, with the most recent (see pages 40-46) ranked behind only Alabama by most everyone.

It has to still be done on the field, which brings us to…

One Year Away?

It took a couple of years before the recruiting maladies of 2004 and 2005 caught up with Notre Dame during the 2007 collapse (see “The Perfect Storm” on pages 60-61).

A decent recruiting haul from 2002 and a high-level group in 2003 – led by quarterback Brady Quinn – helped Weis thrive in his first two seasons when the Irish posted at least nine victories in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1992-93. But the storm was brewing in the background as only seven seniors and 13 juniors remained from those 2004 and 2005 classes.

This year, the upper classes still remain relatively threadbare with three fifth-year seniors (compared to nine last year) and 12 fourth-year seniors (13 if defensive lineman Patrick Kuntz gets re-admitted into Notre Dame this summer as anticipated).

It’s not championship timber yet – explaining Notre Dame’s preseason No. 60 ranking in Athlon and No. 59 in Lindy’s, but the time has arrived for Weis’ junior and sophomore classes to begin asserting their presence. After all, junior-, sophomore- and freshman-laden Notre Dame squads in 1973 and 1988 were also classified as “a year away” before producing national titles that season. Of course, that was with proven head coaches Parseghian and Holtz, respectively.

The 2008 football season can be viewed as a “table-setting” campaign for the future, one that must yield more of a feast to overcome the program’s decade-plus famine. If the table setting, prep work and cooking by Weis and Co. continue to falter on the field this year, then 2008 could be as unappetizing as 2007.

Similar to recruiting shortages catching up with the Irish last season, the hauls from 2006-08 will be in their peak years from 2009-11. In those seasons, Notre Dame will be expected to return to the BCS form displayed in 2005 and 2006 – only a little deeper overall with, hopefully, better results.

If the pendulum doesn’t start to swing Notre Dame’s way now…then when?

Lest We Forget

Since 2000, four of the superpowers in college football have been USC, LSU, Oklahoma and Texas. Yet it’s easy to forget that prior to their return to the top, they endured more than a decade of mediocrity before the pendulum swung their way.

USC: 1980-2001
During this 22-year period, the Trojans had only three top-10 finishes despite dwelling in one of the country’s premier recruiting hotbeds. It took USC 23 seasons before it had as few as one loss in a season (2003), and it couldn’t defeat Notre Dame in a 13-year stretch (1983-95).

USC’s record in these 22 years was 156-98-7 (.611), which rivals Notre Dame’s .601 percentage since 1994. The Trojans fired four different head coaches during this time – Ted Tollner, Larry Smith, John Robinson and Paul Hackett – even though all but Hackett led Rose Bowl victories.

In the 12 years from 1990-2001, USC was 78-64-4 (.571), and six of them saw the Trojans lose at least six games.

LSU: 1989-2002
In these 14 years, LSU fired three different coaches (Mike Archer, Curly Hallman and Gerry DiNardo), was 84-77-1 (.522) and had one top-10 finish.

Even under Nick Saban, hired in 2000, the Tigers lost at home to UAB in his first year, and lost five games in his third season.

OKLAHOMA: 1989-99
During these 11 years, the Sooners fired three different coaches (Gary Gibbs, Howard Schnellenberger and John Blake) in a span of six years.

Add Bob Stoops’ 7-5 debut in 1999, including a loss at Notre Dame, and Oklahoma was 68-55-3 (.551).

TEXAS: 1984-97
During this 14-year span, the Eyes of Texas were cast upon sorrow with no top-10 finishes, a record of 92-68-3 (.574), the firing of three coaches (Fred Akers, David McWilliams and John Mackovic), five sub-.500 finishes, plus five others years with at least five defeats.

Even with the hiring of Mack Brown in 1998, the Longhorns posted yet another five-loss season in 1999.