Winless Notre Dame Is Falling Fast

The Notre Dame offense has yet to provide a touchdown for Coach Charlie Weis. (Rebecca Cook - Reuters)

It is a simple fact of life in sports that there are certain teams that are both loved and despised.

Those that love them are completely rabid, will do anything to get close to their heroes and consider winning to be a birthright rather than a privilege.

No one in baseball is neutral on the subject of the New York Yankees. They are Gods in mortal form to some; the Devil in pinstripes to others. To one degree or another -- depending often on how well they are playing -- teams like the Dallas Cowboys, the Boston Celtics, the Montreal Canadiens and, in the last 20 years, Duke basketball -- fit this description. The Canadiens and Celtics have fallen on serious hard times in recent years, but whenever they get good again, they will be in the same love/hate category very quickly once again.

And then there is Notre Dame football.

The Fighting Irish are the only college football team with their own TV network. They are the only college football program that can thrive as an independent. They are the only school that has a true national following that isn't a military academy. Notre Dame can play in any city in the country and sellout the stadium.

There is no question that Notre Dame is unique.

Except that right now the Fighting Irish can't score a touchdown. They've been outscored 102-13 in three games this season. The 13 points have come on a pair of field goals and an interception returned for a touchdown. Head Coach Charlie Weis, who has done everything but declare himself the greatest offensive mastermind in the history of the game since arriving at Notre Dame, has yet to produce a touchdown.

It is worth pointing out, some will note, that the offense is being run by a freshman quarterback. Good thought, except that Michigan, which hammered the Irish 38-0 on Saturday, also started a freshman quarterback. That's the same Michigan team that opened its season by losing to Division 1-AA Appalachian State (at home) and then getting crushed by Oregon, 39-7 (at home). Michigan plays on the road about as often as the Harlem Globetrotters lost a game.

A lot of people are enjoying Notre Dame's current futility. Others are stunned and angry. Some of it is fueled by the so-called Notre Dame mystique. If you cried during 'Rudy,' because you were moved by the fight song and the story about the gritty little guy who wanted to step on the field for the Irish just once, then you fall into the stunned and shocked category. If you couldn't believe how corny the movie was -- or if you learned after it came out that about 75 percent of the movie was pure fiction and that almost everyone at Notre Dame considered Rudy a pain-in-the-neck -- then your most ardent hope right now is that this is the year Navy finally beats the Irish.

There is little doubt that those who don't get goose bumps whenever they hear the fight song (okay, love or hate Notre Dame, it is THE best fight song ever written with the POSSIBLE exception of 'On Brave Old Army Team,') are reveling in what is going on right now because of the personality of Charlie "Knute," Weis.

Few coaches in history have ever arrived on a job with more swagger than Weis did in the winter of 2005. He hadn't been on campus for 15 minutes before he began lecturing the media on how it was to do its job -- or, preferably, not do its job. He talked about his offense and his system and how his program was going to be different than it was under the two men who had preceded him -- Bob Davie and Tyrone Willingham.

Neither Davie nor Willingham won enough to satisfy the cravings of Notre Dame fans. Willingham was jettisoned after only three seasons. He won 10 games his first year, but struggled the next two and was gone before his first class of recruits reached their senior seasons.