Question: In addition to finally winning a bowl game and beating Boston College, I believe in order for Charlie Weis to attain and restore whatever credibility he has lost in 2007, the 2008 Fighting Irish need to win a game where no one thought they had any chance, such as USC on the road. It's the only game where Notre Dame will be a decided underdog, assuming they don't start out repeating their disastrous performance in 2007.
You are correct, but at this juncture I want to start walking before going into a trot and then a sprint.
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Beating USC could do a lot for Weis with regard to restoring the faith from the Irish faithful.
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Gerry Faust was proficient at winning games he shouldn't - Michigan, Miami and No. 1 Pitt in '82, BC with Flutie in the '83 Liberty Bowl, at SEC champ LSU and Rose Bowl champ USC in 1984 - but those conquests made the losses to lesser teams at Michigan State, Purdue, Air Force, Arizona at home or a tie at a reeling Oregon team more frustrating.
The same with Tyrone Willingham. If you would have said before the 2004 season that Notre Dame will beat Michigan in Game 2, plus win at Michigan State and Tennessee, I would have told you Notre Dame will play in the BCS. But such conquests were nullified with setbacks to BYU and pulling-defeat-from-the-jaws of victory losses at home to Boston College and Pitt.
Ultimately, pretty much all coaches get into the “he can't win the big one” stage, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It means you are winning the games people are expecting you to win. Ara Parseghian went through it for nearly a decade. In 1966, the tie with MSU was “the big one.” In 1970, despite beating No. 1 Texas in the Cotton Bowl, the loss to USC in the regular season finale was “the big one.” So many other great ones went through this... Joe Paterno before winning the national title in 1982, or Bobby Bowden, or Tom Osborne, or Phil Fulmer or Mack Brown, That's good because it means he's taken the first steps toward prosperity by beating up on teams he's supposed to defeat.
When Coach Parseghian arrived, Notre Dame had lost eight in a row to Michigan State, three of the last four to Purdue, four in a row to Northwestern (coached by Parseghian), three of five to Pitt and three of four to Navy. When he beat those teams with regularity, they were suddenly “not big ones” because he made it look too easy. Whoever he would lose to (usually USC or Purdue) always was "the big one.” Parseghian was 9-11-2 (.455) against the Trojans and Boilermakers – and an astounding 86-6-2 (.926)
Charlie Weis needs to first get into regularly pasting the teams he's supposed to beat. I'm not saying you necessarily beat a Boston College or a Pitt every year, but if you’ve got it going at Notre Dame, you should probably do it about four out of five, the same way an Ohio State beats a Minnesota at least four out of five (even when Glen Mason was the coach for the Golden Gophers).
That bowl streak has to end. It's become an unbelievable albatross for the program. Losing a sixth straight to Boston College also might create a credibility issue of whether the program is truly on the rise.
Be that as it may, you are correct about USC. Coach Weis at 0-4 against USC wouldn't be much different than a Michigan coach going 0-4 versus Ohio State, the Alabama coach posting an 0-4 mark against Auburn, the Miami coach 0-4 versus Florida State, or even the Army coach 0-4 against Navy. No matter what great things John Cooper was doing at OSU (getting him into the Hall of Fame), his woes against Michigan ultimately made the natives restless.
If CW is 0-5 against USC after 2009, few will want to hear about the great recruiting anymore. At some point, you have to deliver against your top rival and the king of the hill for people and players to truly believe. Steps 1 and 2, though are the bowl and the Boston Colleges. Then we can start talking about “the big one.”
Question: What would the Notre Dame administration do to a football coach who had a team with the large number of arrests of Urban Meyer's football team?
Earlier this month, ESPN’s Colin Cowherd talked about how a good sign of your college football program being competitive is the number of its players on the police blotter. He cited three schools specifically: Florida, Ohio State and USC. Meanwhile, Georgia, a popular preseason pick for No. 1 this year, has seen seven players run afoul the law since playing in the Sugar Bowl in January.
I’m sure that partly inspired Weis’ “I can recruit hoodlums and thugs and win tomorrow” comment on the banquet circuit in May, but it was still a no-win comment because it comes across as sour grapes and involuntarily intimates that Notre Dame can’t win with the people they’ve recruited.
There was a period in the late 1980s, early 1990s, the halcyon years under Lou Holtz, where an inordinate amount of players were having disciplinary issues. You had suspension for vehicular arrests, failed drug tests, on-campus dorm damage, accusations of a steroid market, and other more serious charges that led to expulsions of many former top recruits. The result was the release of the 1993 book, "Under The Tarnished Dome: How Notre Dame Sold Its Soul For Football Glory.” Holtz’s stock reply would be “they’re not bad people, they just made poor decisions.”
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Will a pair of notable legacies on the roster, such as Nate Montana (above) be a good omen for Irish success?
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Some felt athletics director Dick Rosenthal was too close with Holtz, so when Mike Wadsworth arrived in 1995, it was like there was a new sheriff in town who was willing to challenge Holtz and the program.
Each case has to be measured on its own, and as Ara Parseghian liked to say "five percent of the team causes 95 percent of the problems." So to condemn an entire 100-man team (including walk-ons) would not be fair. When the six players were expelled for one year in 1974 (four of them All-America caliber) following the 1973 national championship, there were all kinds of salacious headlines (i.e. “Rape at Notre Dame”) that didn't tell the whole story.
A pattern of arrests or discipline issues over time would certainly create alarm within the administration and would be addressed harshly behind closed doors, especially given how Notre Dame is a lightning rod in the media for any such issues. There likely would be a “shape up or ship out” warning, and if the pattern continues, the head coach would be dismissed pretty quickly.
Anytime you're dealing with so many 18-22-year old young men, problems are going to occur, and it can happen anywhere. Bob Davie once commented that when he was the Notre Dame coach, a first thing he would think of in the morning is “I hope no one gets into trouble today,” and the last thing he would usually think before going to sleep is "Wheeew, another day without trouble!" ((Not including the potential 3 a.m. phone call from authorities - not to be confused with Hilary Clinton's question on who would you want picking up the phone at the White House at 3 a.m.)
Question: The last time Notre Dame had a Montana and a Golic on the team, they won a national championship, and it looks like we have a good shot at winning a national championship with a Montana and Golic on the team sometime in the next few years. Are there any previous father-son duos who have both won national championships at Notre Dame, or at another school for that matter?
Great question! The first to come to mind was Leon Hart, the 1949 Heisman Trophy winner who won three national titles at Notre Dame (1946, 1947 and 1949). His son, Kevin, was a backup tight end to Ken MacAfee for the 1977 national champs, and he scored the final TD in the Green Jersey game that year against USC.
There have been many cases of ND alumni who didn't play football watch their sons win one. For example, Pat Eilers (1988) is the son of an ND grad. Or there have been cases where the father won a title as a football player and the son didn't. I'm thinking Lancaster Smith in the 1940s, whose son, Scott, was a kicker on the 1970 team that finished No. 2. Or Gerry Wisne was a reserve for the 1966 champs, and his sons Gerry and Andy played at Notre Dame in the 1990s, and up to 2000.
Other family ties include one of the Four Horseman, Don Miller, being the uncle of the 1943 NCAA rushing champ Creighton Miller. Both won titles at ND, in 1924 and 1943, respectively.
Off the top of my head, though, I couldn't think of anyone beyond the Harts.
I'm sure there have been some at other schools. USC quarterback Paul McDonald (1978 co-champs) had a son play on a recent USC championship squad, I believe. But it is indeed a rare accomplishment.
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