Having followed college football my entire life, I would have never thought that the University of Notre Dame would have a hard time hiring a head football coach.
Until now.
A week or so ago, Notre Dame fired Tyrone Willingham — a highly-regarded coach within the profession who will not be without a job for long — after three seasons and a 21-15 record. Since that time, both the retiring Notre Dame president and its athletic director have stated publicly that they did approve of the firing.
But, as the Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins points out in this op-ed, if they did not approve of Coach Willingham’s termination, who did?:
Now, the only thing that has taken a hit here is Notre Dame’s affectations. [President] Malloy’s statement begs the question: If the school president isn’t responsible for Willingham’s firing, then who is? . . . [I] have to wonder if this pale after-the-fact confession is what passes for administrative support at Notre Dame these days. Malloy’s statement was easy enough to say a week later and 700 miles away. He was in the room where Willingham’s fate was being determined. But he deferred, citing his impending retirement.
As Ms. Jenkins notes, for all its nostalgic value, the Notre Dame football program is simply not all that attractive to good football players anymore:
Notre Dame has become a creaking old fraud. That’s why people don’t want to go there anymore. Its integrity is based on yellowing old cinema reels. Its facilities are outmoded (although it does still have that stadium.) Its recruiting pitch is no longer persuasive: as a destination for coaches and blue-chip recruits, its appeal falls somewhere between those of sleek warm-weather football schools, and the more elite educational institutions such as Stanford and Duke. It’s not just old; it’s cold.
[Moreover,] the Irish have struggled on the field for nearly a decade and a half now. It’s been 16 years since they won the last of their record eight titles, and 10 seasons since they won a bowl game. They’ve lost four straight to Boston College, three to Tennessee and two in a row to Purdue. And they’ve had just two NFL first-round draft picks since 1999 — compared with nine for Ohio State and 21 for Miami.
Which leads me to pass along an old joke among college football aficionados:
Q. What do you call Notre Dame without a football program?
A. Creighton.
At any rate, Notre Dame will eventually find a good football coach, although it is far from certain that the new coach will fair any better than Coach Willingham, who remains a good coach. Rather, Notre Dame’s real problem is reflected best by the hypocrisy of the statements made by its president and athletic director decrying the termination of Coach Willingham.
You see, these two administrators have negotiated the most lucrative television contract of any university athletic program in the nation and have overseen the raising of tens of millions recently to expand Notre Dame’s historic stadium. Then, after having a key role in creating this swamp of financial expectations, these two fellows criticize a move that was made precisely because the football program was not meeting those high expectations. Frankly, a much better case can be made that the firing of Coach Willingham was utterly consistent with the values that have become most important in the Notre Dame football program.
Notre Dame is relearning the hard lesson that you reap what you sow. The timing of Notre Dame’s realization of that enduring truth will have much more to do with the re-emergence of its football program than whoever the Domers choose as their next football coach.
And it would help to find another Joe Montana out there somewhere. ;^)
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