Notre Dame Football: The Light at the End of the Tunnel

One thing seems certain, Irish football fortunes are going to snap back faster than the housing market. For the first time since 2005, I'm forecasting returns above guidance for the Irish. Of course, that doesn't mean much coming on the heels of last season's clusterbacle, but this season looks like a good buying opportunity.

I knew the Irish were over-hyped in 2006, because we were in prime over-hype position. We had greatly exceeded expectations in 2005 and we were returning players at the glamor positions, which is all any preseason prognosticators have the ability to focus on. Michigan was in a similar over-hype position last season, after exceeding expectations in 2006 and returning glamor players at quarterback, running back and wide receiver.

Heading into 2008, the Irish are now in a prime under-hype position. Notre Dame underperformed against any expectations last year, leading Athlon to rank the Irish 60th in the country in their preseason rankings. But the Irish talent level is rising back to contender status and we should be in title race by 2009.

I'm gaining slow confidence that we're going to see a significant Irish resurgence for three reasons.

First, the overall talent level is finally rising from underneath. That means for the first time in years, we're going to have heated competition at most positions. If you remember last year at the Blue and Gold game, we didn't have enough offensive linemen to make a two-deep. This year, we're going to have six talented and fairly seasoned players. At positions where we don't have great depth, we've at least got young talent coming in. It's certainly not a perfect mix, but it's hard to improve when your starters are young and surrounded by more youth.

Second, Weis has made some very positive moves the last two years. He deserves a great deal of credit for dumping Minter (they didn't mesh) and hiring Brown and now Tenuta. Those are outstanding hires and I think we'll see much better player development on defense. Additionally, Weis stepping out of the signal caller mode shows great self-awareness and hopefully will lead to a stronger run-pass mix, which will set Clausen up for success.

Third, is Clausen himself. Our quarterbacks were sacked over 50 times last season, and Clausen still put up respectable numbers. I think Jimmy showed much better toughness and field awareness than he got credit, for considering almost every play was a jail break and our receivers were, to be kind, not yet ready for prime time.

By the second half of this year (assuming we finally get some blocking), I think Clausen will be playing at a very high level. Weis's offense demands accuracy from the quarterback, which is why I think Clausen could be playing at a higher level than Quinn in just his sophomore season. If our freshman and sophomore wide receivers can reach their potential early and Hughes and Allen can create some room, we might see a dramatic jump up the offensive rankings this season.

Above all, despite poor recruiting and numbers in the senior and fifth-year classes, we're finally going to have three straight classes with decent talent and numbers. We're building depth, something we never had under Davieham. And as I pointed out previously, just as everything can go wrong in a perfect storm like last season, just fixing one or two parts can snowball rapidly in a positive direction.

If this team can just start believing it can win, the Irish could become the surprise story of 2008.