Notre Dame was in the unenviable position of being the visiting team for the final football game at venerable Stanford Stadium Saturday night.
The proud old 80,000-seat edifice has grown a little shabby, and it has been a rather quiet place in recent years, in keeping with Stanford’s declining football fortunes. University officials have decided 50,000 seats more comfortable and closer to the field sensibly trump all the history so the current facility was to start falling to the wrecking ball within hours of Saturday’s final gun.
Meanwhile, more than 200 of the players who had made Stanford Stadium one of college football’s special places were on hand for a last hurrah, a “salute to Stanford football,” which meant Notre Dame would not have it easy.
At stake: a 9-2 record, a berth in a stunningly lucrative Bowl Championship Series game and a strong suggestion the Irish are once again a major player on the national scene under first-year coach Charlie Weis.
Even the most passionate, true-believing Domer would have had trouble envisioning that when Weis was hired last December, but his own self-confidence is impressive even by a self-proclaimed “Jersey guy’s” swaggering standards.
Maybe it’s the Super Bowl rings, maybe it’s knowing he made his bones working for Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick, two of the pro game’s most demanding and successful coaches. It’s probably both. But before he had had a meeting or run a drill with his new Irish players, Weis knew what they were getting: a first-rate football coach.
“It’s going to take a little while to raise the talent level,” he said then, “but if it comes down to schemes or X’s and O’s, we’ll be fine.”
You think? The Irish are in the process of setting a raft of school records, including points scored in a season with their average of nearly 40 per game. Maybe they have been out-scheming people, but they also have won some games with the hat-on-hat physical superiority that was missing during the Bob Davie and Tyrone Willingham eras, when all but a handful of victories seemed more the result of good fortune than good play or great preparation.
“Charlie has done a fantastic job,” Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White said. “He has assembled a terrific staff, and he has put the kids in a position to succeed in a system they’ve bought into.”
Weis credits the players for the turnaround.
“From studying them in the spring, I thought there were enough weapons to score some points,” he said. “You don’t know how they’re going to progress, but these guys have taken it and run with it. You can call the best plays in the world, but if your guys don’t get it or can’t execute it, it’s not going to work.”
Any type of Irish superiority seemed unthinkable against a schedule that was masochistic by glass-half-full standards and suicidal if the glass were half-empty. Yet that was of small concern to Weis.
“I don’t control the schedule, so I don’t worry about it,” he said, invoking Parcells. “Just tell me when and where and we’ll show up and play.”
Ironically, that schedule was being used to impugn Notre Dame’s BCS worthiness because it turns out to have been less severe than anticipated. Pitt and Purdue went nowhere. Michigan State fell on its face after beating the Irish. Tennessee is muddling through a rare down year. Even Michigan is slightly less than Michigan. Stanford was a middling 5-5 before Saturday. And if you’re Notre Dame, you don’t get many points for beating Navy, Syracuse, BYU and Washington.
Oregon, meanwhile, has lost only to USC, and the Pac-10 is strong this year. Auburn is a two-loss SEC team coming off a 13-0 season. Ohio State has lost only to Penn State and Texas.
But the BCS is about TV ratings and ticket sales. A 9-2 Notre Dame team emerging from a decade of mediocrity with a movie-star-handsome quarterback, a handful of other marquee players and a curiously charismatic coach is irresistible.
“We all know the ramifications of what this game means–a chance to go to a BCS game,” Weis said before the Irish faced Stanford. “I don’t want to be disrespectful to any of the bowls–they’re all important, that’s why there are so many of them. But if you’re chosen for a BCS game, you’re recognized as one of the top eight programs. It’s about being the best you can be.”
Weis was careful not to mention the estimated $14 million financial stake, perhaps because he’s sensitive to fallout from the lengthy contract extension he recently agreed to that makes him the university’s highest paid employee, and by quite a lot.
Weis views the extension as a statement that 10-2, 9-3 whatever this year’s record is, it’s not the pinnacle, but the beginning.
“If you’re a competitive player or coach, you want to win every time you play, and if you don’t you’re disappointed. That will never change,” Weis said. “I’m pleased with the team’s first-year performance, but I’d never say I’m satisfied, although they’re somewhat synonymous.
” . . . But you never look back, you’re always looking forward. Did you hear Tom Brady on his `60 Minutes’ interview? `The best ring is the next one.’ I’d like to put those NFL rings away and wear one I won here. But never will I say, `That’s enough for me.’
As long as I’m alive, it will always be the next thing.”
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dmcgrath@tribune.com
