The regular season is over and a possible bowl game awaits for a 6-6 team. But everyone is waiting for much bigger news.
Coach Charlie Weis was fired Dec. 1, officially divorcing the coach from the team after another mediocre season that might bring, at the very best, a mediocre bowl invite.
The news came after the Irish finished the regular season on a four-game slide, including a 45-38 loss at Stanford on Nov. 28, when the Cardinal scored the last 15 points in the final nine minutes.
"It was a microcosm of our season," Weis said in a radio interview. "You know when we're up 38-30, and then they come down and score and then they go for two to tie. You figure, 'Here we go again.'"
It's no consolation or salvation that Notre Dame lost each of its six games by seven points or fewer. The grand total of its deficit in six losses: 28 points.
Numbers of greater concern were 35-27, Weis' five-year record at Notre Dame. By his own admission at the time of his hiring and as recently as last week, that's not good enough. Athletic director Jack Swarbrick concurred.
Weis leaves with a winning percentage (.565) that doesn't match predecessors Bob Davie (.583) and Tyrone Willingham (.583) but did take the Irish to two BCS bowl games. Getting to the games was nice, but it wasn't the goal of the program.
"We have great expectations for our football program, and we have not been able to meet those expectations," Swarbrick said. "As an alumnus, Charlie understands those goals and expectations better than most, and he's as disappointed as anyone that we have not achieved the desired results."
It was a wholly unsatisfying season for Notre Dame, which was perched to make a run at a BCS bowl when it was 6-2. But a 23-21 home loss to Navy was the catalyst for the late-season slide.
Weis is gone -- albeit with a golden parachute totaling some $18 million for the remaining six years on his contract -- and there's rampant speculation that junior quarterback Jimmy Clausen and, possibly, junior receiver Golden Tate, could be going too.
"I feel really bad for the outgoing players," Weis said after the Stanford game.
"I think too many times we forget that these guys are kids. There's a bunch of 22-, 23-year-old young men right there finishing out their career losing the last four games. They feel miserable and I feel miserable for them."
Assistant head coach Rob Ianello will resume responsibility for the team until a new coach is hired. Reports indicated Ianello isn't a candidate for the head-coaching job and that players were expected to vote on whether to accept a bowl game invitation if one is offered this week.
Swarbrick said the search has begun for Weis' replacement and the goal is to finish that search "as fast as we possibly can."
The leading candidates for the job according to the churning rumor mill were Cincinnati's Brian Kelly, Oklahoma's Bob Stoops and Stanford's Jim Harbaugh. Urban Meyer, a former assistant at UND, said last week he has no plans to coach at any school other than Florida.
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