Anyone watching Notre Dame’s last regular-season game against Southern California could see it. It was as plain as Dwayne Jarrett’s three touchdown catches. As clear as the three huge misfires on fourth-down attempts in USC territory. As simple as Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis’ disappointed, frustrated countenance. No matter how you look at it, Notre Dame did not belong on the same field as their hated rivals from Los Angeles. The Trojans dominated from start to finish, never leading by fewer than 11 points after Jarrett’s second touchdown grab with just over five minutes remaining in the first quarter. The most apt summary of the game came from Weis himself: “We didn't win on special teams. We didn't win on offense. We didn't win on defense. We're fighting an uphill battle most of the night. It wasn't very productive.”
If this were the first prime time choke job by a Weis-coached Notre Dame team, there would be little to no alarm among the legions of Golden Domers across the country and in South Bend. Yet of the four big games the Irish have played the last two years – at home against USC last year, against Ohio State in the 2006 Fiesta Bowl, at home against Michigan earlier this season, and this most recent game at Southern Cal – the Irish have been outscored by a combined 63 points. In three of those games, they lost by two scores or more.
So, how does Athletic Director Kevin White put the heat on Weis, whose teams have not beaten a single opponent that finished a season in the top 25 of either poll his first two campaigns? By giving him an unprecedented 10-year, $40 million contract extension, of course. Sounds to me like a very good deal for a coach who parlayed his three Super Bowl rings as an offensive coordinator into the job two years ago despite never having played or coached at the collegiate level. The contract extension is especially undeserved considering Weis has not had a chance to coach his own recruits – former coach Ty Willingham signed most of Notre Dame’s current top players, including QB Brady Quinn and WR Jeff Samardzija. So far, Weis has not proven he can land major recruits on the offensive line, defensive line, or at linebacker.
 Even the current stars are overrated: Quinn is a Heisman candidate despite ranking 14th in the nation in passer efficiency, behind such anonymous quarterbacks as Kevin Kolb, Justin Willis, Chase Holbrook, and Bobby Reid. Quinn has thrown for 21 of his 35 touchdowns against six teams with a combined .308 winning percentage, and has padded his stats late in games. For example, in seven different contests, he threw a second-half touchdown pass with his team already up by at least 14 points. Samardzija is 15th in the nation in receptions, 21st in yards, and second on his own team in touchdowns to the more unheralded Rhema McKnight. Quinn and Samardzija are by no means bad players; they simply get far too much publicity and hype, whether it comes from the media, the fans, or the writers that vote for the All-America team, because of the name on the front of their jerseys.
The university might be overestimating, and is undoubtedly overpaying for the ability of Weis to sustain the success his teams have so far experienced. The unprecedented contract extension hardly sounds like an appropriate reward for a coach who considers a last-minute, come-from-behind home win against a 7-5 UCLA team that dominated the contest “thrilling” and not “underachieving.” Then again, maybe the coach is simply trying to reward the National Broadcasting Corporation with these “thrilling” games for being another organization willing to overpay for his services. NBC recently renewed its deal with the University of Notre Dame to pay the school $9 million to broadcast every Irish home game for the better part of the next decade. For that kind of money, the Irish should schedule more teams like Penn State and fewer teams like Stanford, North Carolina, and Air Force to play in Notre Dame Stadium – unless, of course, the program wants to keep beating four to five mediocre teams a year at home to mask its own underachieving performances.
Worst of all, the Bowl Championship Series has bought into the hype machine that is Fighting Irish Football. The system has a rule stating that if Notre Dame finishes in the top 12 in its rankings at the end of the season, it gets the chance to play in one of the five prestigious BCS Bowl Games. Having finished 11th in the BCS this season, the Irish will take on the #4 Louisiana State Tigers in the Sugar Bowl on January 3rd. How fair is this rule to Wisconsin, which was knocked out of the picture because BCS Bowl participants Ohio State and Michigan also play in the Big 10 Conference? Wisconsin finished four spots ahead of Notre Dame in the BCS with an 11-1 record, losing only on the road against Michigan. How fair is this rule to Auburn, which also finished third in its conference, the SEC? Auburn finished two spots ahead of Notre Dame in the BCS rankings and defeated current BCS #2 Florida and BCS #4 LSU.
Perhaps there would be a better understanding of the Irish if they would join a conference, instead of stubbornly remaining an Independent team. The BCS would not have to institute such an unfair rule, and the Irish would bring more legitimacy to a schedule where, at the present time, it can hand-pick all twelve opponents each year as opposed to the three or four open dates allowed by a conference affiliation. Then again, there is no need for Notre Dame to follow the lead of Florida State, which was one of the premier programs in the country when it joined the ACC in 1992, and Penn State, which won two National Titles in the decade before it joined the Big 10 in 1993. Notre Dame benefits from a system that favors it over teams with more impressive resumes and better records. Its TV deal gives the school an unmatched amount of money and publicity, and it might lose that deal if it joined, say, the Big 10. The school’s current schedule allows it to play whatever teams it wants, good or bad; by joining a conference, the Irish would have to play a few real powerhouses each year.
The bottom line: Notre Dame Football is a fraud. The program’s mythical history, surrounding legends such as George Gipp and Knute Rockne, has made the university’s football program undeservedly seem more important than any other.
Expect the Tigers to beat the Irish when they play in less than a month; after all, Notre Dame has not won a bowl game since 1994. In the meantime, it has dropped eight straight bowl games by an average of 15.3 points. The Irish have not exactly been playing in top bowl games, either; its last appearance in the National Title Game was all the way back in 1988. The truth is, Notre Dame is no longer an elite team. The BCS, the media, the writers, the fans, the Heisman voters – everybody – should stop treating the Irish as such. The BCS agreement, the television contract, the royal treatment by poll voters… all need to stop because the Golden Dome does not deserve any of it. The Fighting Irish simply are not in the league of real powers like Texas, Ohio State, Oklahoma, or USC. Anyone watching the team for the last 15 years could see that.
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