November 22, 2004

Dr. Kevin White
Athletic Director
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556

Dear Dr. White:

I write this letter (in my personal capacity only, I wish to make clear) with a heavy heart. The subject, as you may have guessed, is the state of the University’s football program.

I admit to having an inordinate concern with the football program. But, it must be said, it is the inordinate concern with the football program shared by so many that has helped to make the University great. It is well known that the football program provided a beacon of light for many alumni and subway alumni in some very dark times.

I have been a supporter of Coach Willingham’s. I wrote him after the first season to congratulate him on the success of the team and the manner in which he was representing the University. I did so even though we had suffered two blowout losses at the end of the year. I thought, and think, that he deserved to be judged by the entire body of his work.

I stuck by Coach Willingham last season, even though the team had a losing record and was outscored over the course of the season by a total of 72 points, the worst since Coach Kuharich’s 2-8 team of 1960 was outscored by 77 points.

I stuck by Coach Willingham through most of this season thinking that this year he would have talent better suited to run the schemes that he favors. It is clear that he does have talent better suited to run his schemes. But the team’s nearly unbelievably inconsistent play makes clear that there are underlying coaching problems.

It is understandable that a team might occasionally lose to a less-talented opponent. It happens to even the best of coaches. But this year we have lost to a B.Y.U. team ended the year with a losing record, at home to a Purdue team that lost four straight games, at home to a Boston College whose only road win to then was by 8 points at Ball State, and most recently at home to a Pittsburgh team whose only road win to then was a 5-point victory over a woeful Temple team.

It is frustrating beyond belief to watch schools with no recent history of success, not 10% of Notre Dame’s national exposure, and with players regarded coming out of high school as being much less talented than ours, produce vastly better teams. The Universities of California, Utah and Louisville are three good examples. Each has a team in the top 10 of the B.C.S. rankings and has a coach in his second or third year who took over a team that lost at least 6 games the year before he started.

I am sure that many will argue that three years is too short of a period to fairly evaluate a football coach and will make the point that Coaches Faust and Davie were given five years before being terminated. But history has shown that three years is enough time at Notre Dame (and, indeed, at most other schools, as referenced above). Indeed Coach Parseghian famously made the observation that if he couldn’t turn Notre Dame football in three years he couldn’t do it at all. He was right that the first three years would be telling as he amassed a 25-3-2 record, a national championship and a near national championship in that span.

Moreover, the Faust-Davie 5-year “precedent” might be convincing if they had done something dramatically better in their last two years. Coach Faust, however, averaged 6 wins per season his first three years and then 6 wins per season his last two. Coach Davie averaged 7 wins per season his first three years and then 7 per season his last two. Two more years of mediocre play might well break the thread that has bound Notre Dame football through the generations.

Coach Willingham now has 21 wins over the course of three years. Even if the team somehow wins another game this year, that will give him an average of 7.3 wins per year. As a further illustration of the relevance of the first three years, consider that Coach Willingham averaged 6.33 wins per year his first three years at Stanford and ended his tenure there averaging 6.28 wins per year.

I am sure we agree that averaging 7 wins or so per year is not satisfactory at Notre Dame. When Coach Davie was fired after 5 years of averaging 7 wins per year, you rightly noted that this was well below the expectations at Notre Dame. Indeed, it is well below the standards correctly required of the University’s other sports.

It might be suggested as a defense of Coach Willingham that we have suffered some unlucky losses, and we surely have. But we’ve had some lucky wins too and three years is generally enough time for the lucky wins to balance the unlucky losses. Indeed, the record shows that Coach Willingham is fortunate to have won as many games as he has.

Notre Dame’s three great, recent coaches were all able to produce teams that were sufficiently dominant that luck didn’t enter into the equation often. For his career, Coach Parseghian’s teams outscored the opposition by about 20 points per game, Coach Holtz’s by about 14 points per game and Coach Devine’s by about 11 per game.

Even our unsuccessful coaches have done better than the current staff. Coach Faust’s teams outscored the opposition by about 5 points per game and Coach Davie’s by about 3 points per game. Through 35 games, Coach Willingham’s teams are only a collective 49 points to the good on the ledger, just barely above a point per game. If we suffer another loss to U.S.C. of the sort that we have the last two years, that figure will fall to under one point per game. Any team operating on such a razor-thin margin is very fortunate to win 60% of its games, as has ours.

I respect and admire Coach Willingham. I would be pleased to see him retained by the University in some appropriate capacity. But the simple truth is that at this point only a drastic change harbors any realistic prospect of improving our fortunes significantly.

Sincerely yours,