Published: December 01, 2008 07:45 am         

Chariie Weis' future at ND being discussed

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said three weeks ago that he looked forward to Charlie Weis being football coach “for a long time.”

That statement now seems like it was made a long time ago.

Since then, the Irish have:

—Survived Navy nearly rallying from being 20 points down to come within a play of beating Notre Dame a second straight year.

—Given up two fourth-quarter touchdowns to Syracuse to lose 24-23 to an Orange squad that finished with nine losses.

—Lost 38-3 to USC, the second most lopsided loss for the Irish in the 80-year rivalry. The most lopsided loss was last year’s 38-0.

That unpleasant run to finish the season is just one factor Swarbrick will have to consider in deciding whether to bring back Weis, who has seven years left on the 10-year contract he signed midway through his first season as Irish coach.

Swarbrick has repeatedly said he will look at a myriad of factors when evaluating Weis, including the team’s graduation rate, grade-point average and other issues, such as recruiting and the relationship between players and coaches, which he termed as “great.”

According to statistics from the Department of Education and the NCAA, Notre Dame ranks high in graduation rates for football players. The federal government ranks Notre Dame sixth in the nation, graduating 79 percent of its football players, while the NCAA ranks it third, with a 93 percent graduation rate. The NCAA said the GSR is more accurate than the federal rate because it includes athletes who transfer into a university and deletes those who transfer out.

Notre Dame has tracked the football team’s GPA since 1992. Before Weis arrived, the highest team GPA was 2.911. Since Weis arrived, the team’s GPA has been 3.0 or above for six straight semesters.

Weis hasn’t graded out nearly as well on the field. The Irish have lost 15 games the past two seasons, two more losses than the previous high in a two-year span.

The loss to USC leaves Weis with a 28-21 record through four seasons. That’s a percentage of .571, below the .583 of Tyrone Willingham and Bob Davie.

Weis did not hold his usual postgame news conference Sunday because he stayed on the West Coast to recruit. He’s expected to return to South Bend on Thursday, a day before the team’s annual banquet.

When asked immediately after the game whether he had received any assurances about his job, Weis said he wasn’t worried about that, saying he was going to continue working as the head coach until he’s told not to. He said while he was disappointed in his team’s play against USC, he wasn’t disappointed in the effort.

“That still not enough to win, but that’s still the fact,” he said. “It’s the fourth quarter and these guys are still fighting their butts off. If you would have seen that not being the case, besides the production and the X’s and O’s, then you’d see there’s a major problem.”

The Irish did not have a single first down against USC until the final play of the third quarter. The Trojans finished with 22 first downs and 449 yards of total offense while ND had four first downs and 91 yards.

USC visits another rival, UCLA, next week in Pasadena and the Trojans could also meet Penn State there in the Rose Bowl.

“This was a terrific way to send the seniors out,” USC coach Pete Carroll said following the Trojans’ final home game. “We’re not done yet. We just keep playing. We’re going to the Rose Bowl, one way or another.

“Is this the best group we have had? Well, it’s the best we’ve ever played on defense,” said Carroll, whose team has allowed just 10 touchdowns in 11 games and an NCAA low 7.8 points per game this season.

After it was over, Weis patiently answered questions about his future.

“I’m the head coach at Notre Dame,” he said. “When the time comes sometime in my career, either by my choice or their choice, they’re going to tell me I’m not the head coach at Notre Dame. But right now, my intent is to finish this press conference, be cordial, worry about my players, get them off to the airport and go on this recruiting trip tomorrow.”

Notre Dame defensive end Pat Kuntz said he believes the Irish aren’t far away from becoming a top-notch team.

“We have the talent,” he said. “They made more plays than we did, and that’s what good teams do.”