Ten years ago, Notre Dame football was in crisis. Charlie Weis had just been let go and Brian Kelly was about to start his rebuild of the program. The 2009 season was over without a bowl game and the Irish were once again stepping into the unknown. The finale of this series will discuss the memorable moments of this consequential season and how it marked an inflection point in Irish football history.

Previous Entries

Preseason

Nevada

Michigan

Michigan State

Purdue

Washington

USC

Boston College

Washington State

Navy

Pitt

UConn

Stanford

Coaching Search

Random Closing Thoughts

Armando Allen and a not-terrible run game

While Weis’ tenure at Notre Dame will always be remembered for incredible passing game production, his failure to build a stable run game hurt the offense. Without Darius Walker, the 2007 Irish averaged a historically bad 2.1 yards per carry. 2008 wasn’t much of an improvement at 3.3 ypc. For the sake of reference, none of Brian Kelly’s ND teams have averaged under 4.0 ypc for a season.

I went into these recaps expecting more of the same, but instead found that Armando Allen led a pretty strong rushing attack… when he was healthy. He averaged a healthy five yards per carry and was on-pace for a 1,000 yard season before getting banged up. It’s a shame he was never really the same after what looked to be a breakout year.

Robert Hughes was arguably better than Allen when he got playing time, averaging 6.2 ypc in games where he more than seven designed hand-offs. I still maintain that he should’ve gotten the far more over his four years in blue and gold. The 2009 Irish improved from 106th in Rushing SP+ to 31st, the second-highest mark of the Weis Era behind only 2006 (25th). It was an unexpected surprise that proved ND could run the football if it wanted to.

How many NFL Quarterbacks?

As I wrote the game recaps for this series, I found myself saying “that guy played in the NFL” a lot when talking about opposing quarterbacks. In 2009, ND would play six QBs who would go on to start at least one game in the NFL:

Colin Kaepernick- Future breakout star and lightening rod for America’s culture war.

Kirk Cousins- Currently in the middle of a solid NFL career and having a great year for the Vikings.

Jake Locker- Got the dreaded “big arm, but no accuracy” pre-draft assessment and retired after a poor career.

Matt Barkley- Former golden boy who now bounces between teams. Somehow still in the league.

Jeff Tuel- Actually started one game for the Bills in 2013 as an undrafted free agent!

Andrew Luck- The heir to Peyton Manning’s throne who shockingly retired this past season.

Compare this to the following year where Cousins and Luck were the only two future pros the Irish would face. It’s just a massive coincidence that the 2009 Irish played half of their schedule against future NFL QBs.

Fun Fact: ND finished 4-2 against the future pros.

A Very Bad, No-Good Defense That Would Soon be Great

Here are the defensive rankings of Charlie Weis’ tenure at Notre Dame per SP+ and their adjusted points per game given up:

2005: 33rd, 19.5

2006: 54th, 22.1

2007: 52nd, 23.3

2008: 30th, 19.0

2009: 77th, 28.7

In an era where ND was only able to crack the top-30 once on the defensive side of the ball, 2009 managed to take the cake. This defense was awful at pretty much everything, but was particularly abominable at stopping big plays (103rd in IsoPPP). Weis’ most talented defense (only two starters who rated below four stars in 24/7) ended up being his worst.

Despite cratering in epic fashion, help was on the way in the form of a young DC named Robert Albert Diaco. Diaco jettisoned Jon Tenuta’s complicated, blitz-heavy scheme and simplified the defense Following the disaster of the Weis years, the first three seasons of the Kelly era on defense looked like this:

2010: 15th, 16.7

2011: 11th, 17.0

2012: 6th, 13.8

One of the enduring myths of the Weis Era is that he failed to recruit defense. ND’s defense was mostly poor throughout his five years, but not for the lack of talent. It took a coaching change for the immense potential on that side of the ball to finally be realized.

Soon.

The GOAT Receiving Corp and its Conductor

One of the themes throughout this season was the Irish offense and the ungodly amount of talent that somehow produced only six wins. Golden Tate, Michael Floyd, and Kyle Rudolph were a three-headed monster that only played four games together in 2009, depriving us of a receiving corps we will likely never see again. Rudolph is  remembered as the odd one out, but he has proven his worth in the league since then.

Golden Tate won the Biletnikoff Award and probably would have been invited to New York had ND come close to a BCS game. Tate averaged nearly 15 yards a touch and gained almost 1,700 yards from scrimmage in 12 games. Quite simply, he was an unstoppable force of nature who produced maybe the best single season performance by any Notre Dame offensive player ever. I’m not sure if we’ll ever see a do-it-all player do it quite as well as he did this year.

This was while sharing the field with Floyd, whom many believed was the best receiver in the country. Had Floyd played the whole season, his average yards-per-game would’ve placed him at around 1,400 yards receiving and 13 touchdowns. This on its own would have been the best season in Irish history for a wide receiver, and he was still overshadowed by Tate. As a consolation prize, Floyd went on to set every single receiving record possible in his last two years at ND.

Here are Jimmy Clausen’s final 13 games at Notre Dame: 33 touchdowns, four interceptions and 69% completion percentage at 9.2 yards per attempt. His passer rating of 161.2 is the highest in Irish history and he most likely would’ve broken Brady Quinn’s single-season passing record had ND chosen to attend a bowl game. Through all of the hype and early failures, Clausen more than lived up to his anointed status during his junior season at Notre Dame.

The Most Consequential Season…

There’s a lot of contenders for the title of “Most Consequential Season in Irish Football History” and I think 2009 offers a strong case.

Fans usually identify three distinct low points of Notre Dame football, the first being the post-Leahy era from 1954-1963, followed by the Faust experiment, and finally the period from 1997-2009. Going by win percentage, ND won only 51.2% of its games in the post-Leahy malaise and 52.6% under Faust, far worse than the 57.2% win percentage of the Davie-Willingham-Weis era. By this standard, you could argue that the hiring of Ara Parseghian and Lou Holtz were more consequential than that of Brian Kelly.

However, this was the longest sustained period of mediocrity in Notre Dame football history. The Irish were in the middle of a 12-year slide that three different coaches weren’t able to fix. I wasn’t around for Hugh Devore, but it was pretty clear that ND wasn’t too far from being great again considering Ara’s first year. Gerry Faust followed a national title-winning coach, and his successor won his own three years after Faust was fired.

Brian Kelly had to inherit the longest title drought in Notre Dame history. He would have to clean up almost 15 years of institutional rot left by his predecessors. Ever since whatever karmic energy disappeared following 1993, Notre Dame had fallen behind the times in college football. This of all things is how blueblood programs die off, just look at Nebraska for proof. National title-contenders need to stay ahead of the curve, and Notre Dame had failed miserably at that.

On the field, the Irish had just come off a season where they were just as close to 12-0 as they were to 2-10. Kelly would inherit a talented team, but one that didn’t know how to win. That is obviously not an easy thing to teach, as Kelly found out his first two years.

Ten years later, Notre Dame football is the healthiest its been since 1993. After a few fits and starts, Kelly has finally started to win at his Cincinnati level. It’s no small praise to contend that the only thing missing from his resume now is a national title. He will get another chance in 2020, marking a far cry from the pits of 2009.

… For Modern College Football

Even disregarding what happened in South Bend, 2009 changed the landscape of college football. Nick Saban won his first national title at Alabama, heralding an era of doom. They did so at the expense of Texas, who would inexplicably collapse the following year and has still yet to recover from losing Colt McCoy.

Alabama dethroned defending champion Florida in the SEC, who would lose Urban Meyer the following year and find themselves wandering the wilderness for the next decade. Meanwhile, Meyer would seamlessly transfer his dynasty to Columbus where that machine continues to hum.

After dominating college football under Pete Carroll, USC lost more than two games for the first time since 2002. Carroll then abandoned ship to the Seahawks and the Trojans hired Lane Kiffin which in turn sent USC into the wilderness as well. After a combined record of 82-9 from 2002-2008, USC has burned through four coaches and three athletic directors trying to rediscover that success. They soon found themselves overshadowed by Oregon and Stanford, who had breakout seasons in 2009.

Finally, Bobby Bowden stepped down from Florida State and Jimbo Fisher would then institute the ACC Arms Race of the 2010s, which Clemson would eventually win. The ripple effects from this season are still felt in college football.

A Few Words on Charlie Weis

I want to talk about Weis for a moment. The reasons for his failure at ND are well-known and numerous, but I want to be fair to his legacy. Despite all of the jokes about the losing, the post-USC extension and his torn ACL, he holds a unique place in Irish football history.

His biggest flaw was his inability to attract a truly elite defensive coordinator with a cohesive scheme. The tenures of Rick Minter, Corwin Brown and Jon Tenuta culminated in a predictable mess in 2009. The Irish went from a 4-3 front to a 3-4 and then back to 4-3 again within just five years. No defense will ever succeed with that kind of turnover.

Furthermore, Notre Dame simply did not develop enough players under Weis. His recruiting stars almost always panned out, but depth was always perilous. Some of that can be blamed on Willingham, but Weis did no better in developing the roster as a whole. All of that talent, yet the second-string could never be trusted. This is perhaps the biggest reason why ND faltered down the stretch of 2008 and 2009.

Charlie Weis failed at Notre Dame but that doesn’t mean his tenure was devoid of joy. When his offenses were good, they were great. The vast majority of offensive records at ND are held by players Weis developed. His most important on-field accomplishment was simply dragging the Irish offense into the 21st century after a decade of stagnation.

Despite his shortcomings as a coach, Weis set Kelly up for success by leaving him a stacked roster. Charlie Weis professionalized Notre Dame’s recruiting and restocked the cupboard after Ty Willingham no-showed his last couple of years on the trail.Kelly inherited the upperclassmen from the #6 and #2 ranked classes of 2007 and 2008. Future stars like Manti Te’o and Tyler Eifert were recruited by Weis, along with a ton of the talent on the 2012 team.

Almost as important as recruiting, Weis brought about much needed institutional improvements. The training table and improved meal service were among the changes Weis brought to the Gug. His exit interview with Swarbrick also laid the foundation for further upgrades in the program. Despite never being a head coach before ND, he had a clear vision for what needed to be done to win.

On a more holistic level, Charlie Weis is just a good human being. From the Pass Right play-call to the Hannah and Friends, his philanthropy made Northern Indiana a better place. He was beloved by his players and he clearly loved his Alma mater. It’s a bummer that it didn’t work out in the end, but Notre Dame owes a debt of gratitude to Weis for stepping into the abyss in 2004. For all of the bluster and bunker-mentality, Weis was a good guy.

So that wraps up the long and winding road of the 2009 retrospective. I hope you enjoyed it, and please let me know if you’d like to see similar content in the future.