By Sean Quinn
Tyrone Willingham was not the problem with Notre Dame football. Whoever puts on the headset next in South Bend will have the same difficulties Willingham did. The problem isn’t the coaching. The problem is that Notre Dame’s allure has melted away faster than Joan Rivers’ face.Years ago if you would have asked any top high school football player where he wanted to play, Notre Dame would be number one and any other school would be a distant second. Nowadays, however, Notre Dame would be lucky to be in the top five or even top 10 on the list of the biggest recruits. The Oklahoma’s, Miami’s and USC’s of the college football world have not only replaced the Irish at tops of list, but leapt over them and stolen their pot of gold at the end of their dissipating rainbow.
We all know that recruiting rankings can sometimes be about as accurate as Martin Grammatica’s field goals, but the Irish continue to fall farther and farther down on the list. Three years ago marked the first time Notre Dame’s recruiting job didn’t crack the top 10. Last year’s class barely cracked the top 30 on most lists. In a nation wide recruiting battle with the likes of the Trojans and Volunteers, the Irish aren’t even showing up to fight.
Top recruits give you talent. Notre Dame is lacking talent. While USC’s talent pool is gaining depths to make the Pacific jealous, the Irish’s talent pool is filled with kids in orange floaties. Kids are choosing schools based on national exposure and coaching systems that make them appealing to NFL scouts, that’s why Oklahoma, LSU, and USC are being bombarded by recruits, while Notre Dame doesn’t even show up on the radar screen anymore. Kid’s don’t want to pick a school that has been in constant transition and struggling to find its identity since the departure of Lou Holtz after the 1996 season. Tradition is nice and so is history, but Notre Dame’s golden tarnish has faded to rusted bronze.
The Irish haven’t had a skilled player picked in the first round of the NFL Draft in over a decade. Compare this with schools like Miami (Fl.), which just set the record in the 2004 draft with six first rounders. This makes 40 first round picks for the ‘Canes since 1987. Without talent, not even Knute Rockne could hope for more than seven wins a season at Notre Dame. All of those seven wins would probably come during the regular season, considering Notre Dame hasn’t won a bowl game since “Saved By the Bell” went off the air.
When you boil it down to pure talent, Notre Dame’s is far from steaming. Talent wins football games, not coaches. All-Americans win you national championships, and the Irish haven’t had one of those in nearly a decade.
Firing Tyrone Willingham is not going to solve anything. Willingham’s five year contract was cut short, (marking the first time a coach was fired in the middle of his contract at Notre Dame), because he wasn’t even their guy to begin with. The Irish tried to lure Mike Shanahan and Jon Gruden away from the NFL, before unsuccessfully courting after Bob Stoops. They then hired and fired George O’Leary, who would have fit in about as well in South Bend as Ruben Studdard in a pair of pants not containing the letters “X” or “L.” Willingham was never even close to being their first option.
He’s not the first coach to have a mediocre third season at Notre Dame, at 6-5. Bob Davie had a losing record and he was still allowed to finish out his contract. Willingham’s 21-15 record in his first three seasons should be looked upon as an achievement. Establishing a new coach’s system takes time, it’s that simple. Three years was not long enough.
Willingham led Stanford to a Pac-10 title, and he could have been the man to turn around the ship at Notre Dame. It wasn’t Willingham’s offense or his coaching that led to the Irish losing by 30 or more points five times in three years. It wass the talent. Willingham’s 2003 campaign ended with a 5-7 record. It’s not Tyrone, it’s the talent. After all, two of Bob Davie’s final three seasons ended in losing seasons. In fact, the current ESPN broadcaster’s third year marked the first losing season in South Bend since 1986 and he still wasn’t fired. If Notre Dame wants to head in a new direction then that’s fine, but don’t blame Willingham.
It’s naive for Notre Dame officials to think one coach can makeover this mess, (because that is what it is), in less than five years. And Notre Dame’s athletic officials better invest in some towels because their faces are only going to be more caked on when they realize Urban Meyer isn’t headed to South Bend. They have to start realizing that their football team isn’t a national powerhouse any longer. This isn’t your grandpa’s Notre Dame team; it’s not even your daddy’s Notre Dame team; it’s a new generation of Irish football. Good luck finding a coach who can knock off three top 15 teams in one season with this current talent, because beating only two teams obviously wasn’t good enough. The Irish can no doubt be a national contender once again, considering Oklahoma was 12-22 in three seasons before Bob Stoops and USC was 31-29 in five seasons before Pete Carroll; but the Irish better pray to Touchdown Jesus for some patience and one hell of a sideline savior.