The Standard of Irish Excellence

Notre Dame fans have come to expect a certain level of greatness from the school’s football program. Beginning in the early 1900s, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish were consistently producing a winning record and winning numerous BCS National Championships. Notre Dame coaches are often the center of public criticism when the team is underperforming. Coaches with “poor” winning percentages don’t seem to keep their jobs for very long, due to pressure from a standard set by their predecessors. Notre Dame coaches are usually fired from their positions or choose to resign after consecutive seasons with a losing record. The Fighting Irish are one of the most popular college football teams in the nation and for that reason; they are often faced with enormous amounts of criticism when things aren’t going well. Being the head coach of Notre Dame is one of the most difficult jobs in all of college football.

Charlie Weis took a lot of heat during his five-year stint as head coach of the University of Notre Dame. Being the head coach of Notre Dame is a pressure filled position in its very nature; the burden becomes especially heavy when the team isn’t winning. While Weis led the Irish to two BCS games in his first two seasons, a 3-9 record in ’07 and a 6-6 record in 08’ put Weis in a crucial position to either win immediately or cease to exist as head coach of Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish finished the 2009 regular season with a 6-6 record. A poor record for the season, in addition to high preseason expectations, including a preseason top 25 ranking, caused widespread speculation that Notre Dame would fire Weis. Ultimately, Weis was fired on November 30, 2009. Weis’ winning percentage over his five reasons at Notre Dame was 0.565, very close to that of his predecessor, Tyrone Willingham.

By examining Notre Dame’s coaching history, one could identify the coaches who set the standard of excellence that has come to be the expectation for Fighting Irish football. Lou Holtz has been called the “last truly great Irish coach.” In his 11 seasons as the head coach of Notre Dame, Holtz compiled a 100-32-2 record and was responsible for almost immediately reviving a program in shambles from the incompetence of the previous coach, Gerry Faust. Holtz led his teams to nine major bowl games in those 11 years. His first and last seasons with the Irish were the only time Holtz didn’t take the team to a bowl game and he had one undefeated season and three seasons in which his team only lost one game.

Frank Leahy boasted a 0.864 winning percentage during his time at Notre Dame. His innovative “T-formation” offense changed the game of football forever. Leahy was an ambassador of the grand Notre Dame tradition in the finest sense, capturing four national championships, a staggering six undefeated seasons, and an unbelievable 39-game winning streak in the late 40s. He also coached four Heisman Trophy Winners and took part in one of the greatest games in college football history, the 1946 0-0 tie against a then-powerhouse Army squad; a battle that gave the Irish a national championship.

The greatest Notre Dame coach of all-time was Knute Rockne. In his 13 years as head coach, Rockne posted an all-time best 105-12-5 record (0.881 winning percentage) and collected six national championships and five undefeated seasons. On March 31, 1931, Rockne was killed in a plane crash, an incident President Herbert Hoover called “a national loss.” Rockne is regularly regarded as the greatest coach in college football history and was incredibly important to the evolution of Notre Dame football and college football as a whole.

It’s no wonder a coach like Charlie Weis was fired after five seasons. Like many other things, past success in college football shapes future expectations and sets the “standard of winning.”