Since Lou Holtz left in 1996, Notre Dame has gone 79-56, and yet it keeps its status as a BCS school by just placing in the top 8. If they were any other school they would never see a BCS bowl. Other teams are happy to see Notre Dame in a bowl game since they have lost their last 9. Notre Dame has the most consensus national championships and has produced more All-Americans than any other Football Bowl Subdivision school. Additionally, seven Fighting Irish football players have won the Heisman Trophy. But are they still relevent in 2008?
In the 2007 season, Notre Dame went 3-9, with their only wins coming against UCLA, Duke and Stanford. Their loss to Navy on November 3 snapped an NCAA-record 43-game winning streak over the Midshipmen, dating back to the Heisman Trophy-winning tenure of Roger Staubach at the Naval Academy. The team ranked near the bottom of Division 1-FBS in both rushing yards per game and total yards per game. Along with being third from last in scoring per game, the team was shut out twice en route to its first nine-loss season ever. Weis attributed the team’s downfall to his own mistakes, including his failure to use full-speed practices and to develop his players properly, as well as to the graduation of star quarterback Brady Quinn. Weis’ dismal performance in his third season, while several of his predecessors had won national championships in theirs, only served to inflame the debate over the controversial firing of Tyrone Willingham after his third season with the Irish three years earlier, when the team went 6-6, including its second bowl appearance in Willingham’s brief tenure. Despite the poor season, which was saved from being Notre Dame’s worst ever only by its finishing the season with a pair of wins over Duke (1-11) and Stanford (4-8), Weis nonetheless managed to recruit one of the top recruiting classes in the country.
So the talent is there according to the services that rank high school prospects. What is holding Notre Dame back? Is it the cupcake schedule? Poor coaching? The blame can’t to to Tyrone Willingham. Other coaches have put their stamp on their program in the same time Coach Wies has been on the job (see Urban Meyers).
| Bowl | W/L | Opponent | PF | PA |
| Fiesta Bowl | L | Colorado | 24 | 41 |
| Orange Bowl | L | Florida State | 26 | 31 |
| Independence Bowl | L | LSU | 9 | 27 |
| Gator Bowl | L | Georgia Tech | 28 | 35 |
| Fiesta Bowl | L | Oregon State | 9 | 41 |
| Gator Bowl | L | North Carolina State | 6 | 28 |
| Insight Bowl | L | Oregon State | 21 | 38 |
| Fiesta Bowl | L | Ohio State | 20 | 34 |
| Sugar Bowl | L | LSU | 14 | 41 |
September 12th, 2008 by thelab in SEC, Notre Dame, NCAA | No Comments







