Upon Further Review (Week 12)

When Irish Eyes Aren't Smiling
 
Nothing is going well at Notre Dame these days.  There is even a rumor that a group on a religious pilgrimage to South Bend saw teardrops falling from the eyes of Touchdown Jesus.

Things are so bad that quarterback Jimmy Clausen was sucker-punched by an angry fan in a local restaurant on Sunday. 

A Notre Dame fan. 

The latest word is that the shiner he sustained won't keep him from playing at Stanford on Saturday, where he and his teammates are likely to get more of the same.

But, if the alleged experts are correct, it appears the Charlie Weis era is coming to an end.

The Notre Dame faithful seem to feel they have a divine right to a superior football team, but they keep picking the wrong guy to lead the reformation.  Since 1996, when Lou Holtz departed after eleven seasons with a 100-30-2 record, his three successors have combined to go 91-65.

Under Weis, the Irish are 1-11 against ranked teams, and currently 35-26 overall, which means not only do they fail to win the big games, but they sometimes struggle to win the little ones. 

Something has to change.  And soon.

The alleged experts tell us that Notre Dame's reputation alone will always provide a strong pull for recruiting, but I'm not sure that's true.

Think about this for a minute.  If you are an eighteen year old senior in high school now, and you probably didn't really start consciously watching college games on television until you were twelve or thirteen, that means your first meaningful memories of Notre Dame football were seeing them suffer through seasons of 5-7 (2003) and 6-6 (2004), and then watching them fire their second coach in four years.

Meanwhile, USC, Florida, Alabama, LSU, and Texas have been racking up wins and owning the airwaves.

Weis may or may not have been the wrong guy for the job, but Notre Dame has really been led down the wrong path by the people above him.

Meddling from the university president and its board of trustees has made the job of athletic director at Notre Dame a difficult one. When Tyrone Willingham was fired after just three seasons, it was against the wishes of then athletic director Kevin White. It is interesting to note that he was the first Irish coach in 47 years to be fired before his initial contract had expired. 


From 1914 to 1987, Notre Dame had a total of six athletic directors. When Jack Swarbrick was hired last year to take over for White, he became the fourth AD since '87. If you count George O'Leary, who was fired just five days after his hiring, when it was discovered he had taken some creative liberties with his resume, Weis is the fourth football coach hired since Holtz left.

Something's clearly not right.

Cutting Weis loose will be expensive - the buyout on his contract is rumored to be as much as $18 million - but the cost isn't purely financial. Notre Dame's reputation has suffered along the way, and continues to suffer. It's not the dream job it used to be. Already, Florida's Urban Meyer, once thought to be a prime candidate, very quickly, and very publicly, removed his name from any further speculation.

Several other names have been tossed around, and it will be interesting to see what happens, but, however it turns out, Notre Dame fans had better hope that the next guy is one that can make them happy for a long time, because, right now, Irish eyes aren't smiling.

The Bone Head Call of the Week

I've thought for a while that LSU coach Les Miles was a dunderhead, and I have said so.  Saturday, he went out of his way to prove it.

If you didn't see the loss to Mississippi, you missed some of the most inexplicable clock management ever committed by an alleged coach.  It was so mind-bogglingly dumb, that it's hard to even explain.

With 1:17 remaining, LSU scored a touchdown to make it 25-23.  The two point conversion failed, but the Tigers recovered the onside kick.

After completing a pass to the Rebel 32 yard line, LSU, almost unbelievably, went backwards 16 yards on the next three plays - an incomplete pass, a sack for a nine yard loss, and a screen pass that lost seven yards.

But here's the really unbelievable part.  Facing a fourth and 26, coach Miles allowed 17 seconds to tick off the clock before somebody somwhere on the LSU sideline realized they hadn't managed to use their last timeout.

There were nine seconds left.

After the timeout, quarterback Jordan Jefferson miraculously completed a pass to Terrance Toliver at the Ole Miss five yard line.  The first down momentarily stopped the clock, but, with no timeouts remaining, the Tigers scrambled to the line of scrimmage hoping to spike the ball and kick a field goal.

There was one second left.

A)  You can't spike the ball with one second left.

B)  If they hadn't allowed the 17 seconds to tick away earlier, there would have been plenty of time to line up, spike the ball, and kick the winning field goal.

At first, Miles said he "thought" they had called a timeout.  Then, he admitted that he "didn't know what to do" after precious seconds had ticked away.

The game ended in pathetic confusion when the ball was whistled ready for play at the Rebel five, and the lonely second ticked away.

If anybody in Baton Rouge is wondering, I'd gladly take $3 million a year to stand on the sidelines looking like a deer in headlights.

I don't look good in purple and gold though...