Hey, Charlie: Ever Hear of the Gipper?

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Said Charlie Weis, glowing while describing the mighty spirit this week around Notre Dame, "I haven't felt it like this ever, me personally, since I've been here. And it's not just the university. It's the whole town."

They're called Gipper Games. They occur when a famously gifted foe is on campus to face a Notre Dame team disguised as an underdog. Not only that, with the whole college football universe watching, Gipper Games feature all of those ghosts for the Fighting Irish soaring from the steeples on the Basilica of the Sacred Heart to the statue atop the Golden Dome to the tunnel of Notre Dame Stadium.

The great Notre Dame coaches flourish in Gipper Games. Actually, they win most of them, and Weis has won none of them. So he isn't a great Notre Dame coach. He also could be a gone Notre Dame coach since each of his predecessors without a Gipper Game victory either quietly or noisily left the city limits with a shove.

The thing is, even if Weis does the unlikely by surviving his fifth season at Notre Dame without slaying sixth-ranked Southern Cal on Saturday at home in the only Gipper Game he has this year, his legacy with the Irish will be closer to that of Gerry Faust than Knute Rockne -- at best. We might be talking Terry Brennan and Joe Kuharich territory here, because even the overmatched Tyrone Willingham had somewhat of a Gipper Game victory in 2004 over No. 8 Michigan. That was the last time the Irish won a game at Notre Dame Stadium against somebody ranked in the top 10.

Plus, six years before that, the equally overmatched Bob Davie had somewhat of a Gipper Game victory over a fifth-ranked Michigan bunch.

Courtesy of Southern Cal roaring into town with speed, strength and skills (again) as a contender for the national championship (again), this is a real Gipper Game. Weis has to win it. And, if only for the mental health of everybody within the glow of the Golden Dome, Notre Dame has to win it, period. You have that legitimacy factor. Notre Dame joins Southern Cal at 4-1, but the Irish's record is a fraud. They needed miracles down the stretch against the shaky trio of Michigan State, Purdue and Washington. Thus the lack of national respect for the Irish with barely a No. 25 ranking. And, remember: The Trojans have turned this into a non-rivalry with seven consecutive victories. They've taken the last two by a composite score of 76-3.

If that isn't enough, there was that Gipper Game in 2005 at Notre Dame Stadium, where those ghosts helped Weis' first Irish team play out of its mind against No. 1-ranked Southern Cal. Instead, the Trojans became exorcists. There was that 4th-and-9 heave from their own 26, and there was that (ahem) gracious spot by Pac-10 officials to place the ball near the Notre Dame goalline, and then there was Reggie Bush's illegal push of Matt Leinart into the end zone.

"It was awful. I think I felt like the world was ending," said Notre Dame safety Kyle McCarthy, a freshman back then, speaking for many into gold and blue. "I was depressed for quite some time, and one of my brothers was a Notre Dame senior at the time, and he took it pretty hard himself, and he didn't even play football."

Linebacker Scott Smith nodded nearby, before adding with passion as one of the Notre Dame co-captains, "We're not just playing on Saturday for the guys in the locker room. We're playing for the whole Notre Dame Nation."

This is a Gipper Game, all right. It just isn't one of THE Gipper Games, and as a South Bend native, I know the difference. I covered the last two such games, starting with the classic one in 1988, when you had the Catholics versus the Convicts. While that phrase was rampant around the Notre Dame campus (complete with colorful t-shirts) to describe No. 1-ranked Miami 's love affair with a thuggish image, the rather mouthy Hurricanes spent the week dissing Notre Dame history.

Rock Knutne.

Three Horsemen.

Final score: Notre Dame 31, Miami 30.

Then came November 1993, when you had No. 2-ranked Notre Dame against No. 1-ranked Florida State during a Game of the Century that supposedly would decide the national championship. Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz was so confident of pulling the upset that I was among several journalists that he invited to his house on the Thursday before that Saturday game for a barbecue. You also had Florida State players copying their Miami counterparts with such comments as this from Seminoles wide receiver Tamarick Vanover: "What's the Gipper?"

Final score: Notre Dame 31, Florida State 24. Just as Pat Terrell batted away a potentially damaging Miami pass in the last seconds of the 1988 Miami game, Shawn Wooden did the same for the Irish at the end of this one.

Or was it the Gipper? In case you didn't know, the Gipper was George Gipp, Notre Dame's All-America running back. He uttered something on his dying bed during the 1920s to Rockne, the Notre Dame coach, salesman and motivator. Rockne later used his version of those words on several occasions to tell his players to "Win one for the Gipper," and Notre Dame had a splendid rallying cry for the ages.

Here is the Charlie Weis version: win one for me. He has at least a toe outside of the front door of the Notre Dame head coach's office. For one, his most impressive game with the Irish was that 2005 near-victory over Southern Cal. He even was given a 10-year contract for ridiculous bucks by the priests who run the university.

Since then, Notre Dame has been only a nice little football program.

Sometimes less than that.

Then again, Weis once had an excuse. He inherited poor rosters from Willingham, but he has no excuse now. In addition to future NFL starter Jimmy Clausen at quarterback, he has depth and athletes everywhere. He doesn't have as much of both as Southern Cal, but that's where the Gipper comes in.

Weis already gave part of his Gipper speech earlier this week by telling his players after a practice, "Come Saturday night around 7 p.m., we're going to be the lead story around the country. Which lead story do you want to be? It could be the positive one, or it could be the negative one."

So far, it's been the ugly one for Notre Dame football. That's enough to get those who are victory challenged in Gipper Games fired.