Charlie Weis isn’t walking through that door folks.
Chances are he’s taking Jimmy Clausen with him.
After crapping the BCS money bed one too many times, Jack Swarbrick decided that buying out the most ludicrous contract in football now was more financially feasible than honoring it later.
Now that the biggest scapegoat in sports has been canned, the mission to fill the void left by his oversized ego has begun.
Does it really matter who inherits the remains of an ancient football tradition?
Is there any human being on the planet capable of resurrecting ghosts of the past to play football on national TV in the fall?
Notre Dame fans are waiting on Touchdown Jesus to save them when not even he could lift their team from the grave. The time has come for the Fighting Irish faithful to come to Jesus and accept the lot of their football lives.
This in an above average program that has underachieved for nearly two decades.
That does not mean that things can’t improve. Pete Carroll proved that a myopic fan base stuck in the past can still be appeased. Before Pete was rubbing the USC armpit on Rick Neuheisel’s face, he had to hear about the great Trojan past. A past that had been past tense for almost two decades.
Sound familiar?
Fans stuck in the past make it impossible for coaches to do work in the present.
Weis should have done more with the talent he had. No question about that. Still, he didn’t have enough to make the golden dome shine like a beacon for recruits nationwide.
Face the facts.
We’re talking almost 20 years of substandard, division one football.
What do the modern generation know of Notre Dame football?
They know a team that lost at home to Navy twice. They know a team that gets hammered by Carroll’s boys in SoCal. They know a team that got beat by a Syracuse squad long after the days of McNabb, Harrison and Bulluck. They know a program that everyone tells them is supposed to be good but never is.
They are the future of the sport of football and they don’t care about tradition.
That was then. This is now.
Then, kids were waking up early to see the golden domes shine on Saturdays then doing the same for the famous alumni who played on Sundays.
Now, they’re skipping all the nationally televised games to watch their friends play on local cable in the SEC, Big 10 and Pac-10.
Weis knew the truth when he took the job. Six wins and five losses just aren’t acceptable. But that’s what you are, Notre Dame. You’re an above average football program with inflated expectations and a distorted image of self.
The gods of college football, the BCS, even made an exception for the hallowed institution in South Bend. Every time the Fighting Irish climbed anywhere near the summit of the NCAA mountain, their opponent smacked them back down to the middle of the pack where they belonged.
This is a new day and the time has come for Notre Dame to bite the bullet and join a conference.
All that NBC money will dry up.
The slush fund to pay off ridiculous contracts will expire.
An independent spirit will have to split money with other institutions.
Every sign indicates the Notre Dame brain trust is ignoring the facts. Don’t they realize NBC is in fourth place in the ratings these days? Who watches college football on the peacock channel?
Most of the new generation only knows that four letter empire as the home of great college football. They’re not staying up late to watch Conan, so why should they get up early to watch an unranked team lose at home to a military academy?
This program still has a pulse but its boosters don’t realize they’re looking death in the face.
Another five years of BCS irrelevancy could equate to a money bowl ban. That’s not even good enough to get a few blue chips to consider balling in Boise on a blue carpet. Safe to say, many a high school All-American has seen more success stories come out of Conference USA than he has from an independent division one football team.
Everything must change. That is inevitable in life.
Those who adapt with the times remain relevant. Those who stubbornly cling to a fleeting past are doomed to fail miserably time and time again.
Notre Dame is Coleco Vision in an X-Box Live age.
The classics may never die but they sure do dim over time. Gold may shine but it doesn’t catch the eye like platinum. Not saying one is better than the other. Certainly the value of gold will hold through the ages. Its worth is proven. It’s just that these days the kids respond to the flash of platinum and not the weight of gold.
Notre Dame has not hit rock bottom. That is why it is best to come to Jesus now before it is too late. If the Mayans were right then I’m not sure if even John Cusack could save this program before 2012, never mind Urban Meyer.
(Chris Shellcroft is the lead blogger for Just Blog Baby, occasional contributor on Lake Show Life and an all around righteous dude. You can follow him on Twitter.)
