Irish building quiet dynasty

First appeared on January 13th, 2010
in The Lebanon Reporter
It is college sports (or perhaps politics) at its finest, knowing the Alabama state legislature will take up the issue of a Congressional resolution celebrating the Crimson Tide’s national championship. So as the grass roots movement to nominate Head Football Coach Nick Saban Czar of the BCS, Governor of Alabama or perhaps Pope, rages through the Yellowhammer State with all the fury of an Cat 5 Hurricane there are some coaches dominating their sport with much less ballyhoo and fanfare.
For 23 years Muffet McGraw has done nothing but show up and punch the time clock. Demanding the most of herself as well as her staff and players has led to 14 straight NCAA tournament appearances. Her resume includes 584 total wins as well as a National Championship (2001). McGraw’s teams have won 74% of their games and her players are graduating at a clip of 100%. Just who is she you may ask? For those not in the know, she is the head coach of the Notre Dame Lady Irish and her team is currently undefeated and ranked 3rd in the national polls.
You don’t need me telling you that winning 74% of her games far exceeds anything the football program has put together over the last 20 years but I don’t see the day the bean counters at NBC come knocking on McGraw’s door with a TV contract in hand. But such is life, and college sports of course.
Understandable or not, with the firing of Charlie Weis and undefeated runs by both the Colts and Purdue, the perfect start to this season by the Lady Irish has gone largely overlooked in the Hoosier state. This being said, while the Irish have been dominant on most nights, every great run isn’t without its own close calls. Four of Notre Dame’s wins this season have been by 5 points or less including a 68-67 squeaker over Michigan State early in the year.
In getting out to such a fast start Notre Dame has leaned hard on three key players; Freshman Skylar Diggins and Seniors Lindsay Schrader and Ashley Barlow. Diggins is a hometown hero who helped South Bend Washington win a State title. She also garnered national fame by being named the 2009 Gatorade Female Athlete of the Year. The perfect compliment for an outstanding freshman of course would be some seasoned veterans to play alongside. This is exactly what McGraw has in Schrader and the Pike grad Barlow. Not only are they experienced, both seniors are also 1,000 point scorers.
Now before we uncork the champagne and declare the Lady Irish season a complete success, bear in mind they do have a date with number 1 Connecticut on Saturday, in Storrs. You remember UCONN right? Head coach Gino Auriemma? The John Wooden of girls’ basketball? The man with so many rings the grand opening of his jewelry store would include an overstock sale?
If McGraw’s teams are anything like her however, they won’t be fazed by Auriemma’s six rings or UCONN’s recent run of total dominance. And by total dominance here we are specifically referring to the fact that they have won 54 straight games.
Despite her fountain of success however McGraw’s teams are accustomed to toiling in the shadow of a once proud tradition of grid-iron-greatness. Something tells me McGraw will once again be forced to play second fiddle to another football team when her girls face UCONN Saturday night as that is when the Colts play Baltimore. But hey, I guess it’s moments like this that prompted Al Gore to invent the DVR now isn’t it?

It's been 40 years already and has anything really changed?

First appeared on September 30, 2009
in The Lebanon Reporter

Some things happen only once in a lifetime. Things like true love, Haley’s Comet and apparently Indiana winning a football game in Ann Arbor. Yet as Freshman running back Darius Willis was streaking up the sideline during Saturday’s fourth quarter, the crimson red heart of Hoosier nation surged with the belief that history was in the making. 85 yards later Willis scored giving Indiana a lead late in a game they had not won since 1967.
The last time Indiana beat Michigan in Ann Arbor LBJ was president and we hadn’t visited the moon yet. The last time Indiana beat Michigan in Ann Arbor gas was 33 cents a gallon, Super Bowl I had just been played and Charlie Chaplin released his final film.
In the end it was not meant to be as Wolverine Freshman Tate Forcier wrote another chapter in what, early on, looks to be a storybook career. To be clear, Michigan won a game they had no business winning and Indiana lost a game they had no business losing. But ultimately it was a game lost on the national radar for there were far too many upsets Saturday for anyone to spend much time talking about what almost was in Ann Arbor.
Despite this, two things should come about as a result of Saturday’s outcome. For Michigan, one can only assume the insane “Wolverine National Championship” talk we heard after they found a way to beat Notre Dame three weeks ago is gone, surely. For Indiana more may come from losing this game than one might expect. Televised on ESPN 2, the game reached far more households than ESPN U or the Big Ten Network combined. This being said, Indiana having such a dramatic performance on a stage as glamorous as the Big House on such a network as ESPN 2 will go further in recruiting than any 3-0 start against two MAC teams and Eastern Kentucky ever could.
Was it one game? Yes. Do we know what kind of team Bill Lynch really has on his hands? No. Will we find out next week when they play Ohio State? Most likely. But forget wins for the moment, IU needs more performances like this to both energize their fan base and attract recruits. Would it have gone further to win Saturday? Obviously. Does it go further losing by three than the 65-0 we’ve so painfully grown accustomed to? I’m not going to dignify that with a response.
For one bright Saturday afternoon Indiana’s football program caught lightning in a bottle. They came in a program ranked as one of the worst in the conference by the experts and, except for two plays in the first half defensively, they never once looked like they didn’t belong on the field with Michigan. A game that historically resembles a boxer working the heavy bag turned out to be every bit Ali v. Frazier, Tyson v. Holyfield or Nancy Pelosi v. anyone with a pulse. Does the game get Lynch a ticket out of the leaking lifeboat he and Charlie Weis appear to be trying to keep afloat? Not quite yet. And now, as far as plugging the leak goes, the boys are going to have to get real creative after Weis needed a fourth quarter drive to beat Purdue and Lynch threw their best hope (chewing gum) out of his mouth in disgust on Saturday. Strange as it may sound however, the loss to Michigan does get Lynch one step closer to his goal of building a program and, oh yeah- keeping his job at the same time.

Weis or Rodriguez? Is the lesser of two evils really any better?

First appeared on September 16th, 2009
in The Lebanon Reporter

Willing and able football coach in his prime seeks BCS school looking for impressive resume. Must be willing to overlook mixed results. Qualifications include 14 years of coaching experience at the NFL level with four Super Bowl rings. References include two Hall of Fame coaches. Call the Notre Dame Athletic office and leave a message for Jose.
With his team’s loss to Michigan, Notre Dame Head Coach Charlie Weis (Tuna Jr.) may have sealed his fate; again. Saturday was more than a game. It was a moment in which the beleaguered coach sought to snatch his career from the jowls of termination. And just when it appeared his talented receivers and silky smooth quarterback with the west coast hair would pull through, there was Michigan’s Rich Rodriguez (Rich-Rod) bungling things in the same awkward and familiar way only Rich-Rod can.
Two once proud men. Both with hooks firmly in their mouths as their fan base and boosters reel them in. Both fighting for their coaching lives and reputations as 100,000 strong in the Brick House Saturday tried their best to do the loyal fan gig, but all along failing in masking their confusion. Most were surely unsure of what they wanted more- their own coach to fail so the fire-him-now drama would continue, or Weis to have another nail driven into his coffin.
I mean seriously, when your own players are complaining they’re working too hard, it goes a long way in saying Rich-Rod has problems of his own. And still, despite this, he somehow found a way to wriggle away from the hungry jaws of Tuna Jr. It’s no surprise really, we’ve seen Rich-Rod wriggle his way out of tight places before. It might actually do more to explain just how bad things have gotten for Weis. In the end it was Rich Rod who was able to snap his line and live to fight another week while Tuna Jr. appears to be one game closer to finding himself on the stringer.
Since Charlie Weis came to South Bend the phrase “the once proud program” has passed over the tongues of commentators and fans alike far more than “Luck of the Irish” or anything else the Golden Domers of old cling to. Whether you point to the most losses in a single season in Notre Dame history (9 in 2007), the billboard funded by former players heckling Weis or the two passes called late in the game against Michigan, slowly but surely the boosters and the University are beginning to find more and more line on their reels.
Who knows why these things happen. With only a handful of games each season and a postseason system so illogical it appears to have been organized by three chickens and a Black Headed Spider Monkey, college football can be brutal on coaches. Somewhere along the way Weis failed at endearing himself to the media (or winning enough games whichever works). He doesn’t say the right things and he doesn’t use the same tired catch phrases the press expects to hear regularly.
Weis doesn’t even attempt the painted smile; you know the same painted on smile every coach musters whether he’s won, lost or just had a house burn down. Most likely this is a byproduct of spending so much time with two of his mentors, Bill Belichick and Bill Parcells (the Tuna). For this, Weis may be one step closer to paying the ultimate price. The point is Weis is out of favor, he’s out of excuses and he’s one week closer to being out of both time and chances.