Irish waste a golden opportunity
Most surprising about Notre Dame's loss to USC was that the Irish didn't express more urgency beforehand and their fans didn't express more disappointment afterward.
Maybe they just don't care anymore after the football program has been mismanaged for a couple decades.
OK, so Golden Domers do care. They have to. Being maniacal about ND is both a birthright and a burden.
So, why settle for a one-touchdown loss? Why embrace a moral victory? Why accept head coach Charlie Weis' 0-5 record against USC?
The game was more important than indicated by Irish Nation, which in normal times makes a long snapper's sneeze seem earthshaking.
Last week could turn out to be Weis' best - if not last - chance to be closer to the start of his Notre Dame career than to the end.
Why? Because it possibly was Jimmy Clausen's last shot at Southern California.
It's impossible for Weis to recruit a prep quarterback rated higher than No. 1 nationally, which Clausen was.
The surprise isn't that the California kid zoomed into the Heisman Trophy race in this, his junior season with the Irish. It's that it didn't happen last year and maybe even two years ago, considering Notre Dame quarterbacks generally are candidates from kindergarten on.
The logical conclusion for it taking so long is that Weis hadn't coached Clausen well enough or surrounded him with good enough teammates.
Now, despite Clausen still having a senior year of college eligibility, it's possible he'll be in the NFL next year. The injury sustained by Oklahoma's Sam Bradford this season likely frightened all premier college quarterbacks into going pro sooner than later.
Clausen's choices will be to stay and risk being hurt the way Bradford was or leave and become wealthy the way USC's Matt Sanchez did.
The only correct choice for Clausen - as it was for Bradford and Sanchez last year and Matt Leinart and Peyton Manning before them - is to do what he wants to do.
If Clausen returns to South Bend and suffers a career-ending injury - my goodness, he'll be stuck trying to make it in life with nothing more than a Notre Dame degree.
All young people should be that lucky, don't you think?
Anyway, Clausen's uncertain status beyond this season should have made the USC game more urgent and outcome more disappointing.
This could have been the Year of the Irish considering Weis' series of good recruiting classes, a relatively weak schedule and Clausen at quarterback. Not to mention that USC came to hostile South Bend with a freshman starting at quarterback.
The circumstances provided Weis with as good a chance as he'll have at job security and perhaps even as good a chance to advance into national championship contention.
Now the Irish appear to have a long way to go just to earn a BCS berth. Next season they might have to try again without Clausen and with the USC game at Los Angeles.
That's why both the urgency and disappointment should have been at a heightened level last week. Maybe Irish supporters simply don't care whether Charlie Weis flails and fails his way out of South Bend.
mimrem@dailyherald.com