The great Irish lie unveiled by Trojans

There is a great lie in college football, but hopefully the events of this past Saturday have brought the truth to light. Notre Dame, the tradition-laden flagship of America's favorite sport, was sunk without a fight by the far, far superior Trojans of the University of Southern California.

The great lie was that Notre Dame and its guru coach, Heisman-hopeful quarterback and hard-hitting safety were all top performers — the best of the best. The great lie was that Notre Dame had returned to its winning ways, to times when national championships were commonplace and Heisman winners produced in abundance. Those who perpetrated the great lie, those affiliated with Notre Dame in one form or another and those who fell in love with the great lie and spread it unwittingly have done us all a great disservice. After Saturday night, it's an unfortunate truth that this disservice continues.

That the 2006 Notre Dame football team is considered a great football team is a conspiracy on par with Watergate and Iran-Contra. You can trust no one; anyone and everyone may be secretly rooting or hoping for the Irish to win. But for those who value the truth, for those who want to see it prevail, there is hope. Do not trust the polls, do not trust ABC's play-by-play man Brent Musburger; you must go to the evidence. Look there, and you will see that sports are not always what we and others make them out to be. Too often the commentary on our sports does not focus on talent and skill as it should, but rather constructs nothings out of smoke and mirrors, and these nothings come to dominate all discussion. The story of the 2006 Notre Dame football team is a prime example.

There are insiders and outsiders in this story. At the very heart of the insider camp sits Charlie Weis, Notre Dame's coach. He is a large man with a large ego. He is the winner of three Super Bowls with Tom Brady and the Patriots and considered the best offensive mind in college football. He is arrogant and impetuous and defends his decisions and his guys to the death. The media loves Weis and venerates him at every turn.

Two of Notre Dame's best players receive as much attention as its coach. Brady Quinn, the former model who now quarterbacks the Fighting Irish, is considered a surefire top-five pick in the 2007 NFL draft. He has posted gaudy numbers over the last two years and the accepted wisdom is that he is one of the best if not the best quarterback in college football. Announcers and commentators and fans all realized that Saturday's game against the Trojans would be Quinn's chance to prove that he is the best college player on the planet and deserving of the highest honor, the Heisman. If he plays superbly, they said before the events of last Saturday night, he would have a shot at wresting it away from the favorite, Ohio State's Troy Smith.

Tom Zbikowski is to the Irish defense what Quinn is to the offense — its glamour-boy leader. He is a big hitter at safety and an exciting punt returner, but what sets him apart is his moonlighting as a professional boxer. This summer he fought and won in New York at the Garden. He is the dream of every boxing promoter: a tough kid from Chicago who plays his guts out for Notre Dame when he is not boxing his guts out in the ring. Like Quinn, he is considered likely to be a high pick in next year's draft.

The outsiders to the 2006 Notre Dame football story are the announcers, commentators and fans who think that the Irish are a great team; they are those most responsible for the great lie. They gush about Weis' tactics, Quinn's arm and Zbikowski's heart. "How can you not like this team," they seem to ask. "Surely this coach and these players are what we say they are; surely they are the best of the best. It is destiny, after all, for the Irish to be great once again." For them, too much time has gone by since the last national championship, that great achievement Notre Dame fans still see as their birthright. Even Americans who may not support the Irish agree — Notre Dame is a great team. ESPN conducted a poll on its website last week asking who would win the game between the Irish and the Trojans, and voters overwhelmingly picked the Irish.

But the evidence is there for those who value the truth. The truth is that Notre Dame has not beaten one good team this year. The truth is that it needed last-ditch comebacks against Michigan State and UCLA, two teams who are near the bottom of the elite college football pile. The Irish have beat up on three of the worst teams in college football — Stanford, Air Force and Army. Quinn, of course, had big numbers in each game. Weis, of course, was nothing less than a genius. Notre Dame's humiliation at home to Michigan was an aberration, people seemed to think.

So when USC dominated the Irish from start to finish, winning 44-24 but controlling the entire game and making Notre Dame look positively second rate, what was conspirators' reaction? Weis and Quinn, of course, could have little to say. Weis went for it on fourth down numerous times and failed each time, showing himself to be more of a frustrated Madden player than a great coach in the process. Quinn was positively terrible. He held the ball too long and did not throw an accurate pass all night. Zbikowski, too, was exposed: he is a one-trick pony, a hard hitter who cannot cover a receiver worth a lick.

But the reaction of the outsiders speaks volumes. Musburger praised Quinn for his toughness every time he picked himself off the cool Southern California grass, not realizing the obvious evidence in front of his eyes: Quinn, because of Weis' system and his own indecisiveness, was getting killed by the Trojan pass rush. Absolutely obliterated. He made so few positive plays that the Heisman talk never came up among the announcers in what seemed to be a way of respecting the dead.

Those tens of thousands who voted on ESPN may have taken the same course. They may have made excuses for the Irish instead of praising the Trojans and their quarterback, John David Booty, who is twice the player that Quinn is. Just as they ignored the evidence of Notre Dame's faults in the team's close wins over Michigan State and UCLA, perhaps many Americans ignored the evidence on display Saturday night.

The great lie, then, may or may not have been exposed, its conspirators not yet outed. Announcers, commentators and fans want Notre Dame to be good — they think it's good for the sport. The TV networks want Notre Dame to be good — it's good for their ratings. The cameras love Weis, Quinn and Zbikowski — the genius, the pretty boy and the tough guy. The networks create storylines where there are none, such as Quinn's competition with Smith for the Heisman, and ignore the evidence. The smoke and mirrors conceal what is, in truth, a decent football team comprised of some solid players. Here's hoping more people will come to see them as such.