Pay Attention Charlie, This Is What a Signature Win Looks Like

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Rich Rodriguez earned his first signature victory at the University of Michigan. Charlie Weis is still in search of his.

You have to wonder if the Irish and their head coach just don't have what it takes to win a big game ... even when the opponent is unranked.

Before 110, 278 canary-yellow-clad fans, the Wolverines delivered the kind of thrilling, welcome-to-the-program victory for its head coach that to this day has eluded Weis. As the clock struck 0:00 in Ann Arbor, Rodriguez, who finished 3-9 in his first season at Michigan a year ago, accepted a warm hug from Wolverine basketball coach John Beilein. Weis, standing nearby, had the same "Who stole my cake?" visage etched on his face that you first saw after the Irish fell to top-ranked USC in 2005 ... a game that remains the signature victory of the Weis era (not counting the signature that Weis put to the contract Notre Dame offered him shortly after that defeat).

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"Forget cancer," texted a subway alum who is in the midst of her second bout with the dreaded disease just moments after Michigan's Tate Forcier connected with Greg Matthews for the game-winning touchdown pass with 0:11 remaining. "Notre Dame is going to kill me."

Exactly.

The Irish have lost nine in a row under Weis against a higher-ranked team. Their only such victory was in his 2005 debut, at overrated No. 23 Pittsburgh, who would stumble to a 5-6 finish. They have lost their last five contests that were decided by five points or fewer. And they've lost five of their last six games played on the campuses of BCS conference opponents -- the lone victory being at winless Washington last autumn, a team that, it bears mentioning, was coached by Weis's predecessor, Tyrone Willingham.

In short, if it matters, they're in tatters. And if it's close, they're toast.

Irish? Yes. Fighting? Not hardly.

College football, after all, is a game of passion. And momentous victories. You don't lose in September or October and console yourself with thoughts of a wildcard berth. You invest your emotional energy into certain Saturdays, against schools such as Michigan or USC or Penn State, and you hope that you win more of those than you lose. And you certainly hope that if it's the type of game people will be talking about a decade from now, that you won't feel a stabbing pain in your heart when they evoke it.

Such as today's loss. The Irish entered Michigan Stadium with a roster that possessed far more talent, and far more experience, than the Wolverines. And that is extremely rare in this series.

Michigan pinned its hopes on a true freshman quarterback, Forcier, who was starting just his second game. The last time Notre Dame visited the Big House, they relied on a true freshman quarterback who was starting just his second game. And how did that go?

"That might have been the toughest game physically I've ever played in," said Clausen, who was sacked seven times in the 38-0 loss in 2007, earlier this week. "It took me three to four, five days to recover from that game."

Clausen and his younger California counterpart were both brilliant in the game's final stages. Both quarterbacks led their teams to a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns. Clausen led the Irish back from a 31-20 deficit, throwing for 113 yards and even hooking up with Armando Allen on a Statue-of-Liberty, shades-of-Boise State, two-point conversion play.

But it was Forcier, who a year ago this time was dazzling the bleacher bums at Scripps Ranch High School in San Diego, who was magical. First, with Michigan facing a 4th-and-3 at the Irish 31 early in the fourth quarter, Forcier juked an Irish linebacker and sprinted between the hashmarks untouched for a touchdown. Then in the final two minutes Forcier, who out-Kaepernicked the supposedly most elusive quarterback the Irish will face all season, led Michigan on the type of game-winning drive that forged Joe Montana's legend decades earlier.

And It should never have come to that. Neither Clausen nor Forcier (nor Allen, who rushed for a career-high 141 yards and made every play the Irish needed him to all day) should have been pushed to the brink of heroics on this afternoon. Notre Dame is at last talented, and deep, and experienced, and after being humiliated on this turf in their last visit, you might think motivated.

Instead, the Irish allowed an inferior team still in search of its identity to hang around. In front of 110,278 of their closest friends. Never a good idea.

Fans, and pundits, have a tendency to focus on the final moments of a game. To wonder why the Irish, with the ball and a 3-point lead with less than three minutes to play, attempted two passes that both fell incomplete-and stopped the clock. To ask how come punter Eric Maust can boom a 46-yard punt that rolls into the end zone when the Irish are hoping for a pooch and yet only get off a 28-yarder, under no rush, in the most pivotal kick of the game. To muse about how Forcier showed the pocket presence of a Steve Young or Roger Staubach on Michigan's game-winning drive. How the Irish could allow him to complete five of six passes-the lone misfire being a ball dropped in the end zone-on that drive when it was obvious what was coming.

Such errors are magnified in clarity because they are the last ones committed. The real question is how come the Irish lack the killer instinct truly great teams possess. Two years earlier, in what was mostly a reversal of rosters in terms of talent and tenure, the Wolverines crushed the will of the Irish by halftime. It was 31-0, Michigan, at the intermission and if the buses to back to South Bend were not already idling, the keys were definitely in the ignition.

Earlier this week Weis said that "you won't have to worry about me calling off the dogs" in regards to Saturday's outcome. Instead, the Irish find themselves going home with their tails between their legs.



Weis is competent, even brilliant. His offense hums, as the Irish rolled to 490 yards of total offense today. What remains in doubt is whether he can truly motivate a team. Whether he can be the CEO of a group of overachievers. How many "if it were not for that one play" losses can a program endure before you begin to wonder if the bad breaks are not simply bad luck?

Three years ago, after Matt Leinart stumbled into the end zone to crush the hearts of the Irish and their devoted, many would say deluded, followers, the balm was the belief that there were great days ahead. Those great days? They are still ahead, and no one can say jus t how far ahead, or who will be steering this ship when-or if-they ever arrive. Right now it's even money on the greater likelihood: a Notre Dame national championship or the Second Coming.

Where do the Irish go from here?

"That's a very good question," said Weis. "That's the same question I raised to them [his players] after the game."

Tune in next week.