Mediocre Notre Dame hired ordinary Ty Willingham

I can no longer hold back.

I am willing to risk offending my Irish Catholic friends and indeed risk eternal damnation in order to reveal the truth about Notre Dame and their new coach, Tyrone Willingham.

It is time to expose some of the myths about the most successful brainwashing business since organized religion -- Notre Dame football. In South Bend, they have so blatantly mixed football and religion that they have even nicknamed their savior, "Touchdown Jesus." This reverence for the program has perpetuated some ridiculous ideas.

The fear of "Touchdown Jesus" has apparently inspired anyone who addresses the issue to claim the Notre Dame head coaching job is one of the most prestigious jobs in sports and Tyrone Willingham is a great hire.

Well, it's time for some sacrilege, or as I like to call it, truth. Notre Dame is no longer one of the most prestigious jobs in sports or even in college football, and Tyrone Willingham is nothing special.

First, let's look at the job that Rick Neuheisel called "certainly one of the most prestigious jobs in the country," before explaining that he would rather keep his job at the University of Washington.

Notre Dame has produced exactly zero All-Americans in the last five years.

It is a job for which Mike Belotti said he was honored to be considered for, although he would rather stay at the University of Oregon. Maybe he was less impressed by the "prestige" when he realized that the Fighting Irish have lost 25 games in the past five years.

Bob Stoops was undoubtedly proud that the Pope's favorite team wanted him for a coach, but he said he would rather stay at Oklahoma than take over the most prestigious job in college football to lead the program, which has produced only one winning season in the last three years and has not won a bowl game since its current players were in elementary school.

Notre Dame, despite all of its tradition, which includes a 6-15 record in its last 21 games vs. ranked teams, could not lure the Raiders' John Gruden or the 49ers' Steve Mariucci from their NFL jobs. All the Irish tradition (one first round draft pick in five years) couldn't even interest Tom Coughlin of the Jacksonville Jaguars, and he is probably going to be looking for work soon.

So, in truth, maybe Notre Dame is the most prestigious job in football other than coaching the 49ers, Raiders, or Jaguars, or the jobs at the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, and the University of Oklahoma.

So Notre Dame settled on Willingham, who is an excellent human being and a decent football coach.

Most people, particularly the columnists in the national media, are saying that the Fighting Irish hired a great coach. Maybe they are saying this nonsense out of fear of going to hell for questioning the wisdom of "Touchdown Jesus," whose Christian name is Kevin White, Notre Dame director of athletics.

The truth is, while Willingham is good at graduating players and running a clean program, he is mediocre at winning football games.

Other than his success at maintaining a high graduation rate, I am not sure why Willingham is getting so much praise. (Incidentally, don't let White fool you into thinking graduation rate figures as a big priority in his choice -- his first choice was George O'Leary who had a miserable graduation rate at Georgia Tech.)

On the field, Willingham just completed his most successful season, which culminated in a loss to O'Leary's Yellow Jackets in the Seattle Bowl. Even after going 9-3 in 2001, his Stanford team is only three games over .500 (30-27) in the last five seasons. Those five seasons include three years with losing records. One of his claims to fame is an undefeated record against Cal. I'm not sure whether White knows, but Cal is not exactly a football powerhouse.

Willingham is apparently a very classy individual, but his record as a head coach is mediocre. He is a coach with moderate success taking over a mediocre program.