Newz Forum: FOOTBALL: Irish prove to be world beaters -- for a day, at least

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- This just in: Tyrone Willingham is competent.

This week.

Darius Walker is the future of the program.

Based on Saturday.

Notre Dame is back among the living in college football hierarchy.

Whoa, whoa that might be going too far after the Irish's 28-20 victory over No. 8 Michigan.

"Please understand," said Willingham, the coach whose stock seems to fluctuate like, well, stock. "This is one football game."

That's the problem under the Dome these days. The program, the alumni, the coaches and the players are living game to game. Sometimes play to play. It was 9-0 on Saturday before Notre Dame started to play worth a damn, the fourth quarter before it had the lead.

The big picture, if there is one here these days, still states the obvious. A wonderful 10-3 start for Willingham descended to 5-7 last year then hit an opening-night low last week against BYU.

How do you like them now?

The doctors, aka national columnists, have gotten into the mode of checking the patient every hour. Some already have pulled the plug. That was expected. This wasn't: Notre Dame greats cracking their own. Rocket Ismail said none of the current starters could have started for his Irish teams. Aaron Taylor told one newspaper "the wheels are coming off."

"You never want to be written off, especially so early in the season," said tight end Jerome Collins. "We were watching certain sportscasts, even our own alumni said we couldn't do this."

[Edited on 9/12/2004 by Gibbs Baby!!!]

Nobody would give this team credit, i think every reporter had stated that The IRISH have no offense and wont be able to win this game, looks like they proved poeple wrong again.