Irish cherish past because present is no gift

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Everything was perfect on a college football Saturday at Notre Dame, except for the school’s lousy team. USC fans are either licking their lips in delight or bemoaning the sudden disappearance of a once great-and-mighty rival.

It was 73 degrees, 38 percent humidity and blue skies for as far as you could see, which, in these flat lands, is to Parking Lot A.

The faithful were out as always, a sea of green and white, or gold and blue. Notre Dame may be the only school with the audacity to claim two color groups as its own. Actually three. Every time they haul out the old green jerseys for extra inspiration, they seem to end up black and blue.

The attendance for Saturday’s road scrimmage for Michigan State was 80,795, the 194th consecutive sellout in Notre Dame Stadium, going back to Thanksgiving of 1973, when they had a few empty seats. Since 1966, Notre Dame has sold out 242 of 243 games.

The Spartans won, 31-14. It was the sixth consecutive victory on Irish turf by Michigan State, the first team to do that.

It was also an 0-4 season start for Notre Dame, which has never done that in a history that goes back to 1897 and includes the coaching regimes of Knute Rockne, Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian, Dan Devine and Lou Holtz, each of whom won at least one national championship. Leahy won four, Rockne three. Before Rockne took over in 1918, the worst record in 21 years was 5-4.

It isn’t so much the 0-4 record, as how it has come to pass.

When Notre Dame recovered a fumble early and scored on an eight-yard run, it was the first offensive points by the Irish this season. They lost their first three games, 33-3, 31-10 and 38-0.

So there is trouble in River City, and this river city is located at the South Bend of the St. Joe.

Notre Dame has been big and fat and successful for so long in football this current fall from grace has all the haters loving it.

The Fighting Irish have become the Fretting Irish. The mosaic on the library wall that peeks over the north end of the stadium and was known as “Touchdown Jesus” is now “Field Goal Jesus.”

The school that once had Four Horsemen now has a couple of plow ponies. Fans plead for a first down for The Gipper. A story going around here these days is that Holtz is moving back to South Bend because he wants to get as far away from college football as possible.

To mark the Irish nose dive, the L.A. Times brought back, after 13 years, Steve Harvey’s Bottom Ten feature. Harvey quickly, and happily, made the Irish No. 1, a spot they are certain to hold this week. He calls them the Fighting Rash.

The man at the helm of the sinking ship is Charlie Weis, who is in his third year after going 9-3 and 10-3 his first two. That’s why Notre Dame’s current 0-4 – with a real shot at 0-8 with Purdue, UCLA, Boston College and USC up next – is such a stunner.

Weis came from the New England Patriots, where he was offensive coordinator and had Tom Brady as his quarterback. When he arrived at Notre Dame, he had Brady Quinn as his quarterback. Apparently, while sometimes it takes a village, with Weis it takes a Brady bunch.

To his credit, Weis appears to be keeping an even keel, finding positives in Saturday’s game – which there were – and purporting to still have a tight grip on a team that is either under achieving or under talented. Or both.

“My job, my responsibility, is to get this team to improve,” he said. “I do know that one of two things could have happened. They could have thrown in the towel, or they could have come out slugging.”

Weis said the 17-14 score at halftime indicated a team that came out slugging. Apparently, in the second half, they were all punched out. That, presumably, will be addressed by Weis.

“I’m not a pat-you-on-the-back-and-tell-you-things-are-gonna-be-all-right kind of guy,” he said.

Notre Dame is a school of great expectations and tradition, and Weis, as an alum, knows the pressure of that.

Irish fans know Weis was given a 10-year extension last year, but they also assume there is a buy out clause there somewhere. Now that the Rose Bowl is more than a longshot, Weis’ job is to show enough improvement to curtail that kind of talk. His first two years indicate he’s up to that.