Michael Rosenberg / Special to FOXSports.com
Posted: 8 minutes ago
Notre Dame is back!
<!-- FOXBITE -->Have you heard? This fall, the Fighting Irish can win the national championship, Brady Quinn should win the Heisman Trophy and Charlie Weis is the early favorite for the Papacy, though he might turn it down on the grounds that his current job is more important. These are all wonderful developments for college football. People have often said that college football needs Notre Dame. I don't know about that. Notre Dame went away for a decade or so and the sport seemed just fine without it. But college football is definitely better off with Notre Dame in the national spotlight.
The Fighting Irish reek of tradition. Find me an American who doesn't know about Rockne, the Gipper and Touchdown Jesus and I'll demand to see a passport. Notre Dame Stadium is one of the coolest sports venues on the planet. The Irish have an extraordinary history of winning. They've had arguably more great coaches over the years than any other school.
And as good as the Irish have been, they would probably have been even better except that every few years, when the football program gets too big, academic types tend to worry and tighten standards and a performance dropoff usually follows.
Notre Dame-haters hate to admit all that, which is part of the fun. But to see if Notre Dame is truly back, we must examine whether the Irish meet the following three standards:
1. A Great Coach You Can Hate
Lou Holtz was one of the best coaches of his era, wildly entertaining and, if you were in the mood, easy to loathe. He'd say things like "This is the best Navy team I've ever seen" and "I don't know how we can stay on the field with Army" and people across the country would want to pick him up and strangle him, which seemed highly possible since he appeared to be 4-foot-6 and weigh 67 pounds.
Plus, there was that book Under the Tarnished Dome, which Holtz claimed not to have read and supposedly revealed Notre Dame to be a cheating fraud, though frankly I never read it.
And as a game coach, Holtz was one of the best of the last 30 years.
On first glance, Charlie Weis doesn't fit the bill. First of all, despite the wonderful success he had last year — and despite the accolades being sent his way — we really can't call him a great coach yet. He has only been a head coach for one season.
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And last year, he called that play for a child who had just passed away, one of the nicer sports moments of the last decade. Doesn't seem possible to hate a guy like that.
Ah, but Charlie has come through. He spars with reporters. He talks a tough game. Sometimes, he seems genuinely offended that anybody else is trying to coach the game he invented.
VERDICT: We can't say for sure, but it looks promising.
2. National Championship Hopes
Let's be honest: Just as it's no fun loving a bad team, it's not much fun hating a bad team. Notre Dame fans — especially the subway alums who only care about the team and not the school — did not enjoy the Bob Davie era and didn't much like the Tyrone Willingham era, either. And even for the haters, the fun of seeing Davie look befuddled by his team's four-touchdown deficit wore off after a while.
Now Notre Dame is No. 2 in the AP poll and tied for third in the coaches' poll. But there are legitimate questions about the defense, overall talent level and whether Notre Dame is truly ready to make a national-title run.
VERDICT: I'm not sold, but that's OK, because it brings up ...
3. The Suspicion That Notre Dame Is Overrated Because Everybody Wants a Great Story like "Notre Dame Is Back!"
Bingo!
Nothing against Notre Dame. Nothing against Quinn. Nothing against Weis.
But it's fair to wonder if a team by any other name would be just as hyped. This is a program that hasn't won a bowl game since President Clinton's first term. Sure, the Irish finished No. 6 in the country and almost upset USC, but their last game was a bad loss to Ohio State and they finished 9-3 — a strong 9-3, but still 9-3. Remember, Willingham had a similar first year.
Also, the schedule is filled with mines: Georgia Tech and USC on the road; Michigan, Penn State, Purdue and UCLA at home. And I didn't even mention Michigan State, which has dominated Notre Dame in recent years.
Swirl that around your mouth for a second: Michigan State, which has defined mediocrity for most of the last few decades, has dominated Notre Dame. The Spartans have won five straight games in South Bend. That's not to say Notre Dame can't win the national championship, just that the Irish might be a tad overrated.
Then again, maybe Notre Dame is just that good. That's the beauty of sports: as the season unfolds, we'll find out.
VERDICT: It's been a long time since crowds chanted "overrated" during a Notre Dame game. Maybe this is the year.
Back, indeed.
