Turnaround Coming Sooner Than We Think?

Was Charlie Weis playing possum in 2007?

Of course, I’m not by any means suggesting that Notre Dame went 3-9 on purpose. But when we consider that even Pete Carroll could see a down year coming from roughly 2,100 miles away, there is at least a possibility that Weis threw caution to the wind and plunked his young bucks into the deep end, figuring that it would pay off in 2008 and beyond. Right?

It would seem consistent with Weis’ general theory regarding the final score of a game. If you’re down, he has postulated, it doesn’t matter if you lose by 1 or 40 – a loss is a loss. You go down swinging. So would the same hold true for a full season? Is it better to go 3-9 and set yourself up for better results down the line, or max out at maybe 7-5, go to a consolation-prize bowl and go into ’08 with your most talented players having zero experience?

My guess is that he was thinking somewhere along those lines. I mean, really – at some positions (offensive line, for example), the Irish didn’t have any choice but to go with unproven talent, but many of the other greenhorns didn’t need to be forced into action. We know now that Jimmy Clausen was nowhere near 100 percent at any point last season, but Weis still trotted him out there almost every week. Clausen took his lumps, sure, but now you’re not starting the 2008 season with a completely inexperienced quarterback.

Weis proved during his time in the NFL and during his first two years at Notre Dame that he’s not stupid. Last season’s debacle was almost assuredly not borne from complete coaching ineptitude – there was, at least in part, a method to his madness. Though he would never say so publicly, my guess is the roster almost dictated for him that 2007 would be a lost season. Might as well use it to build a foundation, right?

That seems to be exactly what he’s done – and from what I’m hearing around the way, Weis is privately projecting anywhere from nine to 12 victories this year. And yes, a 12-1 mark would equal the biggest turnaround (+8.5 games by Hawaii from 1998-99) in major college football history. But given the schedule, it’s not unrealistic. The only regular-season game in which Notre Dame figures to be a serious underdog is the finale at USC, so Weis could conceivably have an 11-0 team heading out there if everything comes together. At that point, anything’s possible. (Kevin Garnett even said so.)

Hey, the 1988 team was supposed to be “a year away,” right? At the risk of setting the bar too high for what is still a pretty young team, why can’t something similar happen in 2008?

Lyrical Buckshot

* Speaking of Garnett...one can’t help but think that there might be some sort of leprechaun rebirth thing going on here. The Boston Celtics were the second-worst team in the NBA one year ago, and now they’re getting set to raise championship banner No. 17 to the rafters of The Generic Building That Replaced The Garden. If they can go from 24 wins to 66 and win a title...

* Just in case you don’t already...you’re going to love Carlo Calabrese. Trust me...

* For those of you who follow the Irish women’s soccer juggernaut, Kerri Hanks is on the verge of some history entering her senior season. Hanks, the 2006 Hermann Trophy winner, has 64 goals and 58 assists (186 points) through three years, placing her just outside the NCAA’s top 25 in career scoring. At her current pace, she’ll finish with 248 points, which would rank her fifth on the all-time list.

Hanks is just 25 points from matching Jenny Streiffer as Notre Dame’s all-time scoring leader and 16 points from tying Jenny Heft’s school mark of 80 goals. And while Holly Manthei’s Irish (and NCAA) record of 129 assists is out of reach, Hanks needs just 15 to tie another Domer, Katie Thorlakson, for No. 2 in NCAA annals – one ahead of Mia Hamm, since you weren’t wondering.

If you have occasion to catch the Irish women this fall (and aside from the opener, they’ll be playing here during every football weekend), I’d recommend it. If the Irish win a national title this fall, it’ll almost assuredly be on the soccer pitch...

* Word on the street is that SMU boss (and 1978 Notre Dame grad) Steve Orsini will likely be the next Irish athletics director. Not that you should hold me to that or anything, because hearsay is not sworn testimony – but from here, it would appear to be the smart play. Besides, Orsini is a classmate (and intramural softball teammate) of Weis...so this thing is way too pret-a-porter for it not to happen...

* Notre Dame fans generally seemed happy to hear that NBC would continue showing Irish home games through 2015...but they didn’t seem to have the same enthusiasm when they heard that last year’s broadcast team (Tom Hammond, Pat Haden and Alex Flanagan) would return intact this fall. I’ll defer to the viewer on this one, given that the TVs are muted in the press box. But – and I’m aware that Haden is a USC grad – are they really that bad? Has to beat not having the games televised at all...

* For all the complaints that Irish hoop followers have had about Mike Brey’s recruiting...five of the first seven picks in the NBA Draft, and 10 first-rounders overall, were one-and-done freshmen. Not surprisingly, none of them came out of South Bend.

Would it be nice to have a dominant talent like Michael Beasley on your team? Sure. But wouldn’t you rather have guys who stay for four years? Notre Dame is being projected as a top-5 team next year by some (that might be a bit inflated, but still...), and Brey’s doing it with “second-tier” players that stick around. It seemed to work for Kansas, which had six seniors and four juniors on its roster last season (and only one underclassman who wound up leaving early)...

* Speaking of Garnett again...I came across one of the funniest things I’ve ever read on the eve of the NBA Finals. A high-school kid from New Jersey wrote into ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons talking about a game he and his friends play called “KG That.” Basically, they take ordinary events and make a huge deal of them – screaming and pounding their chests after ordering Chinese food, for example – a slight exaggeration of the heart-on-your-sleeve emotion Garnett shows on an everyday basis. Just figured I’d throw that out there in hopes that one of you might get a laugh out of chest-bumping your neighbor after you walk your dog next week.

In fact, I think I’ll try closing out that way...

THAT’S HOW YOU WRITE A COLUMN!!!!!!! AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

(Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go fix this water cooler and then take Dan Silver to the hospital.)