Next Notre Dame coach must deliver dose of reality in first speech

So Charlie Weis is giving Notre Dame its pass, is he? He can't argue if they fire him? Well, how is that not a resignation?

Answer: It isn't. And maybe that's how everyone will try to term it when it comes time for the two to redefine their relationship, either Sunday after the Stanford game, or Monday after the postmortem of the Stanford game.

But when Weis gets cracked isn't the point any more. In fact, we would suggest that it isn't even who takes the job once Weis cleans out his office. Brian Kelly of Cincinnati, Jim Harbaugh of Stanford, Pat Fitzgerald of Northwestern, Gary Patterson of TCU, whatever. Whoever.

What matters is the speech the winner gives at his first press conference, and it should start with this:

"Notre Dame isn't special. It hasn't been special for a long time, at least not in the way you all think it's special. Notre Dame needs to be fixed from within, which is why I've been hired at such an exorbitant salary.

"I want Notre Dame to be special again, and I think it can be. But first and foremost, it has to stop living in this pretend world where it can hang with the big boys in its present state. The world has changed, college football has changed, and the place we all love and that I currently work for has become soft in the couch of its own delusions.

"This is a hard job, a very hard job. I'm taking it knowing that it is a complete bear. Some of it is your level of expectation as alums and fans, which is ridiculous. Some of it is living outside the normal conference affiliate world. Some of it is the fact that the power in college football has shifted south and southeast of South Bend. And some of it is our fascination with ourselves.

"That much has to stop. We have to stop bragging about what we do and how we do it, because what we do and how we do it is part of the problem, and part of the reason I'm here now.

"We are no longer viewed nationally as a Top 25 program, and thumping the tub year after year about what a great recruiting class we had is not helpful. We will recruit to the best of our ability, but when someone says, 'I see where your class was rated seventh in the country,' our response will be, 'What do they know? They say that about us every year, so clearly they're full of crap. We got players we're excited about, but they're nothing until we see them, coach them and prep them.' Anyone who cares about Notre Dame should ignore the recruiting evaluations because we are.

"As of today, you're just going to have to hear this and live with it. We are Navy. And we are Connecticut. WE are the teams that beat us. And we are slightly better than an ordinary team and nothing more, so the less we hear about special, the faster we will be special again.

"We will acknowledge what we are not, we will deal with our shortcomings, and your job in our grand scheme is to accept that things are not as we wish them to be, and that we are further from that position than we have been in years.

"You're paying me to fix it, which means you're all pot-committed here like never before. You all say you want to help, so here's how you can. Stop irritating people with all that Notre Dame-is-swell propaganda. Nobody listens to it anymore, because we haven't backed it up, so stop saying it. When you get in arguments with people about Notre Dame, you end up looking ridiculous because we haven't backed your play.

"So stop. If someone asks you about us, say, 'We'll see.' If a friend of yours wants to give you some good-natured stick at the tavern, agree with him and say, 'Well, we have some work to do.' If you doubt our resolve to make this right, well, we kind of deserve your doubts, don't we?

"I'm promising nothing except exhaustive, honorable and relentless effort from everyone on the payroll. We get what we have to do, more than you know, so stop pretending you know more about Notre Dame than we do. We did our homework, and we're going to do more. Until we prove to you we get it, don't tell anyone that we do. Until we show that Notre Dame football can be fixed to everyone's satisfaction, don't tell anyone it is. If it was, you wouldn't be listening to me, you'd be listening to Charlie.

"So let's all agree to shut up about us for awhile. When it's time to talk, people will be talking to us, not the other way around."

This is a speech that won't be given, of course, but it should be, and the guy who is willing to give it is the one who will succeed at Notre Dame. Everyone else will just be faking it, and faking it is what got Notre Dame in this mess to begin with, isn't it?

Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.