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Ty Willingham Notre Dame

2004 Notre Dame Football: The Willingham Regime Crashes

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Another coaching tenure that began in South Bend with high expectations came crashing to the ground in 2004. Ty Willingham’s first year of 2002 had seen Notre Dame rise to #4 in the polls in late October. But they finished that season poorly, endured a losing campaign in 2003 and when the 2004 Notre Dame football team proved to be mediocre, Willingham was told to pack his bags.

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Notre Dame opened the season unranked. They had talent in the passing game, but it was still young. Brady Quinn was a sophomore at quarterback, and though Rhema McKnight, Maurice Stovall, Jeff Samardzija and tight end Anthony Fasano all had productive years ahead of them—Samardzija in baseball as well football—none were standouts in 2004.

The Irish could run the ball with the tandem of Darius Walker and Ryan Grant, but poor play on defense—particularly in the secondary—often put the offense in bad spots where the run was not as effective.

Pollsters were never taken with Willingham’s last team and they opened the season unranked. A road trip to BYU, who would finish the season 5-6, produced a tough loss. On a night neither team ran the ball and Cougar starting quarterback John Beck left the game with an injury, Notre Dame allowed BYU backup Matt Berry to complete 15/23 passes, including a 42-yard touchdown pass. The Irish lost 20-17.

Hope came back to campus a week later when Notre Dame upset Michigan, ranked eighth at the time and on their way to a co-championship in the Big Ten. Walker ran for 115 yards on 31 carries. The Irish trailed 12-7 in the third quarter.

Then Dwight Ellich intercepted a Chad Henne pass at the Michigan 29-yard line that set up one touchdown. A blocked punt set up another. Quinn led a touchdown drive of his own and with the 28-20 win, there was hope for the Willingham regime.

Notre Dame went on to survive mediocre Michigan State, keyed by a defensive touchdown from strong safety Tom Zibikowski. The Irish blew out a lousy Washington team, the place Willingham would land next season. That brought Purdue to town.

The Boilermakers had not won in South Bend since 1974, including a recent stretch where Drew Brees was the quarterback and the program went to the Rose Bowl. That all changed on this afternoon. The Boilers returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown. Quarterback Kyle Orton threw a 97-yard touchdown pass, part of a 385-yard passing day with four TDs. Purdue, ranked 15th at the time, blitzed Notre Dame 41-16.

Willingham’s team picked themselves up. They beat their coach’s former team in Stanford 23-15, though the Cardinal were not having a good year and the win still required a muffed punt to set up the go-ahead touchdown.

A more impressive win came the following week in East Rutherford, over Navy. The Middies were on their way to a 10-2 year and were coached by Paul Johnson, who has since gone to success at Georgia Tech. When Notre Dame decisively handled Navy 27-9 pollsters took notice and moved the Irish to #24.

It didn’t last. Boston College, who had broken Irish hearts in 1993 and 2002 now stepped up and broke the momentum. The Irish defense made BC quarterback Paul Peterson look like the second coming of Doug Flutie. In the second half alone, Peterson went 19/23 for 297 yards. Notre Dame clung to a 23-17 lead, but Peterson connected with tight end Tony Gonzalez on a 30-yard scoring play with 54 seconds left.

Once again, Willingham’s kids didn’t roll over and die. They went down to Tennessee, ranked ninth in the country and en route to an SEC East title. Notre Dame pulled a 17-13 upset. They had a considerable advantage in that the Vols were down to their third-string quarterback, but ND still held Tennessee to just 58 yards rushing and when Mike Goolsby returned an interception for a touchdown, Notre Dame had the margin of victory.

The win in Knoxville was the last great high point of the Willingham era—in fact, it was the last win, period. The next game was at home against Pitt, who would be part of a four-way tie for the Big East title, a group that included Boston College.

If Notre Dame had made BC’s Peterson look like Flutie, they made Pitt’s Tyler Palko into the next Dan Marino. Palko threw five touchdown passes, for 334 yards and led the drive for the winning field goal in a 41-38 game.

USC was on deck for the finale and there was never any doubt where this one was going. This was a great Trojan team, the best of Pete Carroll’s dominating tenure in Los Angeles. Notre Dame took a 7-0 lead, but then USC quarterback Matt Leinart blitzed the ND secondary for five touchdown passes in a 41-10 win.

Carroll would go on to win the national championship, beating Oklahoma even worse in the Orange Bowl. Willingham had coached his last game—with the 6-5 finish and a recruiting class that did not rank in the Top 25 nationally, he was let go after just three years.

Notre Dame came in for harsh criticism. It was nearly two decades earlier that the school had stood out for its honor in letting Gerry Faust finish out his five-year contract, even though the results on the field weren’t there. Now Willingham, whose 2002 season was better than any year of the Faust era, was being dismissed after three? When Willingham was already a proven winner—a Rose Bowl year at Stanford in 1999—while Faust had come from the high school ranks?

The fact Willingham is African-American brought a racial component into the criticism. My own view is that I don’t believe the decision was race-based. Notre Dame’s athletic department was run by different people in 2004 than it had been in 1985, and the ’04 people were more short-term focused, less moved by arguments to honor. I find it hard to imagine Faust would have gotten a fourth year, much less a fifth in the new era. It reflects a change in Notre Dame’s approach to the football program that is for the worse.

No one ended up looking good in all this. Willingham went to Washington and failed spectacularly. Notre Dame, which said recruiting was Willingham’s primary failure, saw his successor Charlie Weis have two good seasons with Willingham’s players and then fail spectacularly himself once his own more touted classes came to maturity.

Oh, and there was one more football game to be played in 2004. Notre Dame went to the Insight Bowl and played Oregon State and were coached by defensive coordinator Kent Baer. Derek Anderson was the Beaver quarterback and became the latest QB to pad his stats against the Irish, throwing four touchdown passes in a 38-21 Oregon State win. Notre Dame licked its wounds and went back again to the drawing board.

2002 Notre Dame Football: The Willingham Era Begins With Promise

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It was a fresh start for football in South Bend, as head coach Ty Willingham came over from Stanford to coach the 2002 Notre Dame football team. Willlingham had taken the Cardinal to a Rose Bowl in 1999, and a strong first year—including briefly sniffing a possible national championship—raised hopes that Notre Dame finally had the right man.

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The expectations were low when the season began, after 2001 had been a losing year in Bob Davie’s final campaign. Notre Dame was unranked whey went to East Rutherford to open the season against Maryland.

The Terps had shocked the country the year before by winning the ACC title and going to the Orange Bowl under the leadership of innovative head coach Ralph Friedgen. It was offensive creativity that “the Fridge” was renowned for, which made Notre Dame’s strong defensive outing on August 31 all the more heartening.

Notre Dame completely dominated in the trenches, holding Maryland to 16 rush yards, while generating 130 of their own. The Irish gave the keys to the offense to sophomore Carlyle Holiday, who turned in an effective 17/27 for 226 yards and no interceptions. He found a favorite target in Omar Jenkins, who caught five balls for 87 yards. Jenkins would remain Holiday’s favorite receiver throughout the year and Notre Dame won the opener 22-0.

The win got the Irish into the Top 25 and they got set for their traditional run through the Big Ten trio of Purdue, Michigan and Michigan State. They won close games over mediocre Purdue and a Michigan State program that had collapsed after Nick Saban’s departure for LSU. The signature moment came in between those two games, when the Irish hosted Michigan.

Ryan Grant had a bright NFL future ahead of him, playing for the Green Bay Packers and Brett Favre. He was a college sophomore in 2002 and he ran over Michigan for 132 yards on 28 carries. It was the key difference in a sloppy game where each team turned it over four times. Notre Dame led 25-17 in the fourth quarter, when Shane Walton came up with two big plays.

After Michigan scored with 2:53 left, it was Walton who batted away the two-point conversion to keep Notre Dame ahead 25-23. Then he intercepted a pass on the Michigan 38-yard line to preserve the win. Between this win, and the Purdue/Michigan State victories, it was enough to vault ND into the Top 10. The Willingham era was off to a strong start.

Willingham faced off with his old school next. Stanford was on their way to a bad year and the Irish won easily, 31-7. A home date with Pitt a week later was a tougher test. This was a pretty good Panther team, one that would win eight games and they controlled the flow of play, outgaining Notre Dame 402 yards to 185.

But the ND defense sacked mobile Pitt quarterback Rod Rutherford eight times. The Irish recovered a fumble on the Pitt 12-yard line that produced an easy score. In spite of having only one good drive the entire game—an 11-play/80-yard TD march in the second quarter—Notre Dame won 14-6.

A road trip to Air Force followed, and the Irish were able to dominate a good triple-option offense, destroying them at their own game, on the ground. Grant rushed for 190 yards in a 21-14 win.

Notre Dame was now ranked sixth in the country, and October 26 would be the big test—they were heading to Tallahassee to play Florida State. It was time to find out if national title hopes were legitimate.

The answer was yes. The Irish executed their game plan perfectly. They controlled the point of attack, with Grant rushing for 94 yards, while the Seminoles were unable to run. Holiday was efficient, 13/21 for 185 yards and no interceptions. And he made big plays, notably hitting converted quarterback and now wide receiver Arnaz Battle off a play-action rollout for a 65-yard touchdown pass.

Meanwhile, FSU couldn’t take care of the ball, with four turnovers. Notre Dame won 34-24. “They kept us bumfuzzled the whole game,” Florida State coach Bobby Bowden said, putting it as only he can. Notre Dame moved up to #4 in the polls and now the talk was about a national championship and whether the Irish could get a shot at Miami, #1 in the polls and the defending national champion.

One week later, Notre Dame’s fellow Catholics from Boston College ended the talk as soon as it had begun. It was a game that was the reverse of the Pitt game. In this one, ND controlled the flow of play, with a 357-184 advantage in yardage. But Notre Dame lost three fumbles and turned it over five times in all.

The Irish had broken out the green jerseys in an attempt to wake up the echoes of 1977, but instead they woke up the echoes of 1993, as Boston College ended their national title hopes with a victory in South Bend.

There was still the goal of getting a major bowl bid and Notre Dame beat Navy and Rutgers to put themselves in position for a marquee postseason spot. They needed to go to USC and win to make it happen.

But it was in the latter part of 2002 that USC was developing into the program that would dominate college football from 2003-08 under the leadership of Pete Carroll. In ’02, they had a Heisman Trophy winning quarterback in Carson Palmer. One stat will tell the story—USC gained 609 yards of offense, while Notre Dame had 109.

There aren’t enough turnovers in the world to overcome domination like that. The Trojans won 44-13 in what boiled down to a coming-out party for their program’s rejuvenation.  Notre Dame accepted a Gator Bowl invitation to play N.C. State.

Unfortunately, this year that had begun with such promise, ended on yet another bad note. This Wolfpack team had Philip Rivers at quarterback and Jerricho Cotchery at receiver, and they rolled to a 28-6 win.

Notre Dame ended the season ranked #17 in the country. It was a finish that doesn’t tell how real and tangible a national title run seemed as late as November. Unfortunately, it does tell the story of the future of the Willingham regime. ND never regained the promise of September/October 2002 and after two more seasons, Willingham would be shown the door, with the program still searching for its post-Lou Holtz leader.