Look at it this way....if we win the next 4 games (it
IS still possible dammit!!!), the the final record is going to be 5-7. That is far from expectations, far from "good enough" and light years away from where we all want the program to be, but it won't necessarily be the worst season ever....even though it will contain part of the worst STRETCH of games ever.
WHY NOTRE DAME CAN AND WILL WIN ITS LAST FOUR GAMES
The last 10 games
from 11/25/2006 - through - 10/20/2007 at 1-9 with multiple blow-outs = 38-0, 38-0, 41-14, 33-3, 31-10 etc. is
worse than 11/30/2002 - through - 11/01/2003. Even then, we only lost 8 out of 10 games; but the margins of defeat were pretty similar - 37-0, 38-0, 44-13, 45-14, 28-6, etc...
That suffering was temporarily halted by a season ending gauntlet of:
11/8 vs. Navy (8-5)
W 27 24
11/15 vs. Brigham Young (4-8)
W 33 14
11/29 @ Stanford (4-7)
W 57 7
12/6 @ Syracuse (6-6)
L 12 38
Those were the scores put up by a previously 2-6 ND team that was at the time seen as the worst in school history...maybe not quite as inept as this year's offense, but still pretty damn right offensive in a bad way themselves...under the immortal leadership of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named
This year we sub-in Air Force for BYU and Duke for Syracuse...I think that this team is more than capable of rallying to a 4-0 finish (instead of 3-1) to pull into a "Ty" so to speak for the worst season EVER!
Beyond this year though, the future looks SWEET! (Or maybe just BETTER!)
WHY NOTRE DAME WILL WIN MNCS (PURAL) IN THE NEXT 6 YEARS
There is only one other time in the last 30 years that ND has had the kind of talent on campus that will be here at the start of next fall's training camp. That would be the Lou Holtz / Vinnie Cerrato years from 1988 - 1993.
1987 - 8-4 (after a 8-1 start, lost Cotton Bowl but fed into the coming years nicely):
1988 - 12-0 (MNC)
1989 - 12-1 (#2)
1990 - 9-3 (NOT GOOD ENOUGH? I bet we'd all take it now!)
1991 - 10-3 (Sugar Bowl win to show who belongs in a Bowl)
1992 - 10-1-1
1993 - 11-1 (SHOULD BE MNC based on 1989 logic, but instead #2)
Overall -> 72-13-1, 1 MNC, 2 #2 finishes, 5 NYD Bowl Wins
What makes me think Weis can replicate all or even part of that success?
Simple really - 2005.
That team went 9-3, and; although Charlie unwisely labelled that "not good enough" instead of a more concillitory "a good start", they got everything they could from the talent they had - and it was in fact almost "good enough". They lost 2 regular season games by 6 total points and in both losses had damn near pulled out wins from a hat (a trick that cast of characters actually DID use at MSU and against UCLA the following year). They came within a controversial ending and an actually illegal though not enforced play of beating the (at-the-time-anyway) "Greatest Team Ever" as ajudicated by the WWL.
The bowl game loss to tOSU in the Fiesta Bowl is now seen as some kind of massive blow-out loss like this season's 38-0 abominations....not true! That game was 27-20 in the 4th quarter with OSU facing a pair of 3rd and longs that they managed to get. Once those 2 plays happened, the ND defense became desperate and got badly out of position to allow the clinching long TD run. 34-20 may have reflected the disaparity in yardage, but the actual game in the 4th quarter was closer than people wish to recall. Granted, in the end it was a 14-point loss and not a win in any sense of the word, BUT realistically speaking the 2005 team was only A FEW PLAYS (NOT GAMES OR YEARS!) away from undefeated and MNC!
- Did Charlie do that in a vacuum?
- Were those players infinitely better than the ones coming in and getting ready to be contributors in 2008, 2009 and 2010?
- Were those players not just coming off of a 2-year combined record of 11-13 with a bunch of drubbings very similar, almost eerily similar to this year's team (see above details)?
Yes, this year's o-line sucks, hard.
Yes, there have been some really bad mistakes in trying to do things this year that set the team back too far to recover in-season.
Yes, there is a lot of improvement lacking at this point and things should be better than they are.
BUT - if Weis could do it once....take a team of under-achieving but some talented players and raise them up from a pitiful offense and an overall record of 11-13 AND bring them to within a handful of plays from possibly being undefeated and MNCs once (for persepctive, this year's team was probably out of national championship contention completely after only a few plays!), why in the hell would everyone or their brother now ASSUME he is totally incapable of such a turn around AGAIN? I have to use my hackneyed phrase here (sad but true) - I am from Missouri now and you have to show me...well, if I am Charlie Weis I am saying "hey DUMBASS, were you NOT paying attention the FIRST time I pulled THAT rabbit out of the hat???? Now, watch me try it again with a better overall cast of talent from top-to-bottom and better depth!!!"
And to further that point, what evidence has been seen that he would EVER allow recruiting (especially along the interior line positions) get to such dangerously low levels in a 3-year period (to the point that ND cannot actually field a complete line WITHOUT underclassmen) again?
All Weis has done is:
- win 19 games in 2 years
- put up the best back-to-back years at ND since 1995 and 1996
- turn a 11-13 team with one minor bowl game appearance into a 19-6 outfit with back-to-back BCS game appearances
- recruit like a madman (#8, #8, #1 so far class ranks) and perfect the art in three years to the point that many people at ND and around the country now believe I might be able to sell ice to eskimos in January (hell, I am writing this massive tome in mainly because I am so bouyed by his recruiting coups in the face of another massive 38-0 beat down! When these beatings happened uner the previous staff, recruits like Reggie Bush ran for the hills of USC! Now, under the current staff, recruits like Mike Floyd - who just so happens to be a "gamebreaker" player who is sporting more "stars" than Mr. Bush did coming out of HS are running to Our Lady's university!!!)
What Weis is now suffering through and paying the combined price for is:
- his own inexperience as a head coach
- his own inexperience at havign to devise a system to develop players instead of utilize them
- his predecessor's lazy habits and disaterous recruiting in the trenches, where CLEARLY games are won and lost with frightening regularity
- the combined weight of mis-steps from 9 years of sub-par results (Later-day Holtz through Ty - 1996 through 2004 that resulted in the program EVER being allowed to have exactly 3 upperclass scholarship offensive linemen!
- an idiot of an AD and a schedule that has seen ND face 8 teams (in a row without a bye week to rest, recuperate or train) which sported a combined record as of their kick-offs against ND of 23-4 ==> (GT = 0-0, PSU = 1-0, UM = 0-2, MSU = 3-0, PU = 4-0, UCLA = 4-1, BC = 6-0, USC = 6-1) - granted that number is somewhat less impressive when taken as an overall record for those teams AFTER they played ND, but at the TIME THEY LINED UP TO PLAY, ND"s first 8 opponents sported a winning percentage of 85%!!!
See? Numbers can be used to "prove" anything!!!!
