Now, I don't mean to pile on. I don't understand anyone to be arguing that Davie should still be the coach of the most storied college football program ever (in fact, "storied" may understate it: to borrow a phrase from a piece about why the writer HATES N.D. football — "It's the most popular sports team in the world."). But there is a somewhat sympathetic-to-Davie version of his career floating about, which is, essentially, that he was sort of a B-minus or C-plus head coach. He had, after all, 35 wins in 5 seasons (7 per year) and N.D. is just the sort of place where the expectations are higher.
OK, let's examine that possibility. Consider the 5-year win totals of Big 10 (ok, 11) teams:
Michigan: 49
Wisconsin: 43
O.S.U. 42
Purdue: 39
P.S.U.: 38
M.S.U.: 35
Illinois: 26
Minnesota: 26
Northwestern: 23
Iowa: 21
Indiana: 18
At the five bottom schools, if they get 35 wins in the next 5 years, they'll be thrilled, and — in general — they're not playing schedules as tough as N.D.'s. At, I venture to say, Penn St., Purdue, M.S.U. and Wisconsin, if the current coach continues on and wins 35 games in the next five years, he'll still have his job. Only at Michigan and Ohio St. would a coach be in jeopardy of losing his job averaging 7 wins per year.
So why aren't those bottom-feeding schools (in the Big 10 and elsewhere) looking to hire Davie? Surely they'd be thrilled with his record, and Indiana was just in the market for a coach.
The answer is that the consumers — i.e, athletic directors — know that Davie isn't any good as a head coach. He has no capacity for program building, no capacity to lead an organization, to delegate, to surround himself with capable people — none. A place like Indiana knows that hiring Davie would be a recipe for not the 7-win seasons that he had at N.D., but 2 or 3-win seasons.
Davie, after all, took over a program that -- while not at the zenith of Holtz's career — was in reasonably good shape, having gone 17-6 in the last two seasons. Davie then went 16-9 in his first two years, and that was the best two-year stretch he had at N.D. It's not unheard-of for coaches with so-so records to wash up on the shores of other programs. Ted Tollner (26-20-1 at U.S.C.), Larry Smith (44-25-3 at U.S.C.), John Robinson (37-21-2 in his second stint at U.S.C.) and John Mackovic (41-28-2 at Texas) all had records comparable to Davie's and sooner or later had head coaching jobs elsewhere. Even Gerry Faust (30-26-1 at N.D.) got a gig at Akron the next year. And Indiana didn't exactly wind up with the hottest property on the coaching market: Gerry DiNardo had a grand total of 7 wins in his last two years at L.S.U.
So why them and not Davie? The market knows that Davie is an unusually bad coach. It's not that he's just below average; he has been, for the last five years, probably one of the worst 10 or so head coaches in Division I-A football. It's quite difficult to find coaches who cost their program about three games per year (Holtz averaged close to 10 wins per year after he got done cleaning up Faust's mess) and manage to hang on to their jobs for five years. Now, I can't rule out the possibility that some A.D. will make a mistake and hire Davie as a head coach, but I'll just about guarantee that it will be a mistake. (For some precedent, consider that Faust had 5 losing seasons in 9 years at Akron, which had experienced only 4 losing seasons in 25 years; his replacement has had winning seasons 2 of the last 3.)
The other mildly sympathetic-to-Davie version is that "He really knows his X's and O's, but the head coaching job at N.D. was just too much for him." So, what about the assistant coaching market? Even disgraced coaches like O'Leary can usually find a job there (he's an assistant with the Vikings). Davie, you will recall, promised to take the job coaching nose guards at Slippery Rock if that were all that was available. It turns out that apparently even that isn't available. There have been rumors connecting him with defensive jobs at Texas A&M, Nebraska and Indiana, but to my knowledge none of them have been substantiated. What gives here?
The evidence that Davie was even any good as a defensive coordinator is very slight. In his 5 years as the defensive coordinator at Texas A&M, the Aggies gave up 14.7 points per game. In the 5 years following Davie's departure, they gave up 16.5 points per game. So, while there was some drop-off, the defense remained excellent — suggesting that it had more to do with the head coach (R.C. Slocum) who has been at A&M continuously. At N.D., in the years that Davie was defensive coordinator, N.D. gave up an average of 20.2 points per game. In the non-Davie years under Holtz, N.D. gave up 18.0 points per game. So, there's not any evidence that Davie was even an average defensive coordinator under Holtz.
It's probably true that Davie knows more about defense than offense. Under Holtz (for the entirety of his career at N.D.), the Irish averaged 32.5 points per game on offense and gave up 18.5. Under Davie, N.D. averaged 25.4 points per game on offense and gave up 22.1 points per game on defense. So, Davie did only roughly half the damage on defense that he did on offense — but that's hardly a recommendation.
The fact of the matter is that head coaches are on to Davie too. They know that Davie doesn't really bring anything to the table here either. Now, I don't want to get into a metaphysical debate about what he knows or doesn't know about football. Maybe he knows a ton. But when it comes to getting college football players to understand and implement a scheme that will allow them to be successful, he's a flop. The circumstances of his succession at N.D. and Holtz's departure are probably plenty to make any head coach leery about letting Bob Davie into the organization. Is he out forever? I have no way of knowing; but the silence thus far tells you all you need to know.
So, who cares? It's relevant to the question of how fast and far N.D. will rebound. N.D. is, fortunately for us, one of the relatively few schools where there's enough headroom to win a national championship. If you look back over the winners of national championships for the last 30 years, there really aren't too many surprise entrants. Occasionally, a team like B.Y.U comes around and snatches it, but even in their year there was room for real doubt about whether the Cougars would've beaten #2 Oklahoma (probably B.Y.U would've been a 2-touchdown underdog). The fact that N.D. has been able to win national championships in the last 30 years with three very different men of different talents as head coaches means that it's a possible task, and two of them brought N.D. back from similar or worse depths than last year's 5-6 season.
But while Davie's lack of competence means that the capacity for greatness almost surely remains at N.D., it's a two-edged sword. Undoubtedly, the chance for a quick rebound would be much greater if Davie had lasted only 2 or 3 years. But he didn't; he was there 5. Except for the incoming recruits, every N.D. player had played under the malaise that has affected the entire football structure. It's possible that Willingham will be able to execute an Ara-like turnaround (2-7 to 9-1), but nobody should underestimate the enormity of the task. I think we're on the right track; just getting rid of Davie was at least half the battle. But this season is very likely to be a work in progress.