Notre Dame Spring Football '07

It’s often said that great programs don’t rebuild they just reload.
In the world of college basketball, teams like UCLA, Kansas, Kentucky,
North Carolina, and Indiana seem to be able to always attract quality
talent. In the same way, the great college football programs seem to
be able to sustain excellence even when crops of excellent college
players have exhausted their eligibility.

For the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, sustaining excellence has been a
challenge in recent years for a variety of reasons. From the late
1980s through the early 1990s, former Irish coach Lou Holtz attracted
some of the best talent in the country. His teams from 1988 through
1993, a seven-year stretch, went 63-9-1 (.870) against some of the most
difficult schedules in the history of college football, winning one
national title and barely missing out on two others. Since that time,
however, it has been painfully obvious to fans of the Irish that the
N.D. program has been in a 13-year period of perpetual rebuilding,
unaccustomed territory for Notre Dame historically.

Consider this: during only one other period since 1913 have the Irish
been out of the national title picture for this long. Starting in
1954, and spanning the next ten seasons, Notre Dame would not seriously
contend for the national title. That streak came to an end in 1964,
when first-year Irish coach Ara Parseghian nearly took Notre Dame to
the national title before falling in the last minute in the season
finale at Southern Cal.

Since Jesse Harper became the program’s first true full-time head coach
in 1913, the Irish have had their ups and downs, having won more
consensus national titles than any program in college football history,
but also incurring their share of embarrassing seasons. Even the
incomparable Knute Rockne had to endure the rebuilding process on a
couple of occasions. In 1925, he dealt with the reality of having lost
the core of his 1924 national championship team, anchored by the “Four
Horsemen” backfield and the “Seven Mules” line. Despite a severely
depleted starting corps, he managed a 7-2-1 campaign, which he followed
with seasons of 9-1-0 and 7-1-0 in 1926 and 1927, respectively.

In 1928, Rock experienced his one truly miserable season under the
Golden Dome, going only 5-4-0. The team was a unit consisting of young
players mostly, and struggled against Notre Dame’s difficult schedule.
(That season’s most memorable moment came at halftime of the Army game,
when Rockne delivered his famous “Win One for the Gipper” speech.)
From the ashes of that five-win campaign, however, Rock would string
together perhaps his two greatest seasons, claiming consensus national
titles in 1929 and 1930, winning the last 19 games that he would ever
coach.

The game of college football has changed in many ways since the time of
Rockne, but excellence is still achieved in the same way. Coaches have
to land top-quality recruits, and then lead their recruits to victory
through capable coaching. Through the years, Notre Dame has had its
share of both great and lousy coaches, and most of them have been able
to funnel the built-in advantages of Notre Dame into recruiting top
talent. What seems to have differentiated the great coaches from the
not-so great ones, then, is their ability to manage a game, make
adjustments, and find a way to win, even when defeat seems inevitable.

Now we come to the upcoming 119th season of college football at Notre
Dame. Spring practice has been underway for the past several weeks,
and there are numerous questions to be tackled for Charlie Weis and his
staff. Unlike many of his predecessors, Weis did not come to Notre
Dame with an astounding amount of talent already in place. Next
season’s senior class, for example, has all of eight players remaining,
only two of whom have seen substantial playing time. Weis has been
able to make the most of his situation, however, helping to turn Brady
Quinn in a highly regarded quarterback, and making the previously
anonymous Jeff Samardzija a household name. (And with a name like
that, that’s saying quite a bit!)

Two thousand-seven will be an interesting season in many ways because
of the questions that have to be answered. Many of those questions
will be confronted this spring, while others may not be answered until
next season. Among the issues facing this program as spring practice
continues in South Bend:

-Who will step up to lead this team after the loss of the program’s
three most visible stars, namely, Quinn, Samardzija, and Darius Walker,
who declared early for this year’s NFL draft?

-With the importance of the quarterback position in Weis’s offense, who
will be the new starter? Redshirt-freshmen Zach Frazer and Demetrius
Jones, as well as last season’s backup junior Evan Sharpley will
compete for the position. The headliner, however, is this season’s
most highly-rated (and touted) recruit, Jimmy Clausen, whose brothers
both played QB at Tennessee, and whose career already has been highly
scrutinized.

-How will new Defensive Coordinator Corwin Brown’s 3-4 defensive scheme
be implemented, and will it help the Irish to stop the defensive
meltdowns that have been all too frequent in the last three seasons?

-In a similar light, will the much-maligned secondary finally improve
this year?

-How will Weis handle the increasingly crowded backfield with
luminaries such as Travis Thomas, James Aldrich, Munir Prince, and true
freshman Armando Allen vying for the starting spot? Apparently, that
question has been partially answered, as Prince is looking to move to
the secondary, where he was an All-State performer for DeSmet Jesuit
H.S. in St. Louis.

-With Weis’s recent announcement that the entire coaching staff would
be assisting in Special Teams, how will it effect that underwhelming
unit’s performance?

-In a question that feels like deja vu all over again, will the Irish
get a consistent kicking game going?

-Finally, how will this team, comprised of many freshmen and
sophomores, respond to this season’s poorly assembled schedule, which
features the team playing four of its first six games at tough venues,
and eight consecutive games to start the season without a bye?

This year’s spring practice is being scrutinized by Irish fans who are
curious to see what direction this team will go after last season’s
meltdowns in its final two games. The Blue & Gold Game is on April 21
in the House that Rockne Built.

Best wishes for a happy and healthy Easter celebration!

Go Irish!

Big Mike

copyright Michael D. McAllister 2007