Dear Notre Dame football fans,

Do you remember what it was like when your football team was a serious national championship contender on a yearly basis? Honestly, I don't. Part of that is because I was born in 1983, and I was just five when Notre Dame won its last national championship.

The beautiful thing about history is that you don't have to witness it to appreciate it. The glory days of Notre Dame football were certainly rich and full of legends. Yes, those were the days. Those were the days when the Irish used to play with supreme toughness and a sense of pride. Heck, those were the days when you could count on Notre Dame playing a full four quarters.

However, the last two decades haven't necessarily been on par with the high expectations that, no matter how unrealistic and skewed they may be, surround one of college football's most celebrated programs.

When I say the name "Lou Holtz," what do you think of?

I think of a silly college football analyst who is a homer to a fault. I think of a man who will pick Notre Dame every single time unless the Irish are playing against a family member. That's who Lou Holtz is to me. He's Mark May's sidekick.

However, that's not who he was. He was a great football coach. He was Nick Saban, Steve Spurrier and Les Miles. He was that good or maybe even better.

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For the sake of space, I can't go too far into his lengthy laundry list of coaching accomplishments, but let me highlight a few of them.

Holtz went 249-132-7 as a college coach including 100-30-2 in 11 seasons in South Bend. In 1988 and 1989, Holtz's teams went 24-1. From 1991 to 1993, the Irish posted three straight 10-win seasons. He took Notre Dame to nine consecutive bowl games, still a school record.

He's a two-time Paul Bryant Award winner, two-time Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year, two-time Sporting News College Football Coach of the Year, Walter Camp Coach of the Year Award winner, ACC Coach of the Year and SEC Coach of the Year.

He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2008 and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Notre Dame in May of this year.

Since Holtz left Notre Dame in 1996, there have been technically six coaches in South Bend, and none of them have come close to matching his success.

Bob Davie took over the program after Holtz's departure and went 35-25 in five seasons. George O'Leary was named as the next head coach in 2001, but he never coached a game after it was discovered that he misrepresented his credentials. Tyrone Willingham took over and was in South Bend for three seasons. He was let go after going 21-15, and Kent Baer coached that year's bowl game.

Charlie Weis was an epic fail as Notre Dame's head coach. The highly-touted offensive genius was just eight games over .500 in five seasons in South Bend. He finished with a record of 35-27 before he parted ways with Notre Dame.

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Brian Kelly is 12-7 so far at Notre Dame, and his teams have shown many of the same weaknesses as Weis' teams. Notre Dame can score with anyone offensively, but careless mistakes, poor conditioning and a lack of mental toughness have held the program back from competing at a consistently high level.

This was never more evident than in Notre Dame's loss to USC last week. With a chance to stop USC and get the ball back, Notre Dame looked absolutely defeated, and the coaching staff chose to roll over and not call timeouts to at least try to give the Irish a chance.

Maybe it's inappropriate for the Trojans to call Notre Dame out for quitting, but it's a fair point. USC players shouldn't have been the ones to do it, though.

So here you are, Mr. Notre Dame fan. In a season that started with so much promise, your beloved Irish sit at just 4-3. To make matters worse, your team just lost to a USC team with nothing to play for.

With a game against Navy today, Notre Dame has the very real possibility of falling to 4-4. The Midshipmen beat Notre Dame 35-17 last season.

With Wake Forrest (5-2) and No. 4 Stanford remaining on the schedule, Notre Dame will just barely limp into a low-level bowl game.

I smell another coaching search in the near future. Might I suggest that you look at another Holtz as a possible candidate? You might know of him. He's Lou's son, he played at Notre Dame in the 1980s and his USF team won in South Bend earlier this year.

Hey, I guess Lou Holtz wasn't so bad after all, was he?