The Glass Ceiling
UHND.com - By Bob Berry – ndirishbb@hotmail.com
September 16, 2001

A glass ceiling is an invisible barrier that prevents someone or something from reaching certain heights that otherwise could be achieved. 

  For the last four years, there has been a glass ceiling over the Notre Dame football program that was created with the hiring of Bob Davie.  This barrier has prevented and will continue to prevent the Irish from ever recapturing a place among college football’s elite as long as Bob Davie remains head coach.  The 2001 season will be another perfect example of exactly what I mean by this.  Instead of having expectations and goals of winning national championships, the expectations are to hopefully crack the top ten and maybe go to a BCS bowl game.  Once again, we are less than a month into the season, and already Davie has taken the Irish out of national title contention for the rest of the season.  So instead of thinking big, Irish fans and players are now just hoping to salvage a respectful season. 

With the annual early season loss or two, the Irish once again drop down to the bottom or completely out of the national rankings.  This season, as it has been in previous years under Davie, will be a struggle just to get back in the top 20.  The glass ceiling over the Notre Dame program is one that prevents the Irish under any circumstances to reach the top 10 for more than maybe a week.  With Davie still fumbling around at head coach, there is no chance for Notre Dame to ever be familiar with a top 5 or even a top 10 ranking.  Already this season, the glass ceiling has stopped the Irish before they’ve started.  A limit has been placed on what they can achieve this season, and with just one more loss, the BCS will be a lost cause. 

Before the Nebraska game, I was once again guilty of gross optimism as I seemed certain that this year’s team, loaded with talent, would silence the Huskers in Lincoln.  Unfortunately, yet again I was reminded of the glass ceiling that I seemed to forget about, Bob Davie.  Painfully I was reminded that it is virtually impossible for the Irish, no matter how talented they are, to win a big game against a top-10 team on the road.  Davie’s record away from Notre Dame Stadium is absolutely pathetic, as is his overall record since being in South Bend.  Maybe it is no coincidence that since Bob Davie came to South Bend for the 1994 season, the Irish have not come anywhere near competing for a national title.  Ironically, the year before Davie’s arrival the Irish finished eyelashes away from Lou Holtz’s second national championship in what really should have been at least a shared national title with Florida State.  It is puzzling to me, as well as thousands of fans across the nation, what it’s going to take for the university to recognize the seven years of futility that Davie has brought with him to Notre Dame.  It was no coincidence that at virtually the same time Davie’s Irish were fumbling away the game in Lincoln, Holtz was winning a big game on the road for his Gamecocks. 

  For the first time in many years, South Carolina football is higher ranked and probably more respected than Notre Dame football.  Holtz has taken over a program that was arguably the worst in Division I college football, and made them a top 20 team.  Davie took over the most storied program in the history of college football with a team stocked with talent, and has proceeded to turn them into the epitome of mediocrity.  The key reason behind Holtz’s success and Davie’s failure is the way the players believe in their head coach.  At South Carolina, the players buy in, and believe in Holtz and his system with the utmost confidence.  At Notre Dame, the players, whether they say it publicly or not, don’t believe in Davie or his faulty system.  Holtz gets his players to believe that they can beat anyone, no matter how talented the other team may seem.  Davie uses a system that gives an image to his players that if they play well, don’t turn the ball over, and don’t have any penalties, they just might be able to win the game regardless of the opponent.  In Davie’s mind, the only way he believed they had a chance to beat Nebraska was to not turn the ball over even once, and to have little or no penalties.  He believes in this system more so than having a high-powered offense, or a physical hard-hitting defense that teams must prepare for.  Davie’s offensive and defensive schemes are as faceless as the personality he brings as a human being.  Stocked with talent offensively, maybe more so than any team in the nation, he has installed a system that can neither run the ball or pass the ball with any consistent effectiveness.  He brought in an offensive coordinator that was known for creative play calling and for running an exciting offense that had explosive potential.  Kevin Rogers didn’t turn Donovan McNabb into a great college quarterback and a top five NFL pick, by throwing screen passes and fade routes for three seasons at Syracuse.  This is a perfect example of how Davie has installed the glass ceiling over Kevin Rogers and the offense.  

As most of the nation witnessed one week ago in Lincoln, the Irish may have the next Michael Vick.  Carlyle Holiday saw his first snaps of his Notre Dame career in one of the most hostile environments in all of college football, and he showed flashes of Heisman potential.  There is absolutely no reason that he should not be starting, and playing every snap for the rest of this season.  There is no doubt that he gives Notre Dame the best chance of winning.  Just from the few series’ he did play, it was easy to see that he possesses the kind of talent that is overwhelming.  Even the ABC announcers, Brent Musberger and Gary Danielson were highly impressed with Holiday, so much so that Danielson even said he reminded him a lot of Michael Vick.  Throughout the game, ABC flashed graphics on the screen showing the total yardage comparison between Holiday and LoVecchio, almost as a slap in Davie’s face telling him that these two quarterbacks aren’t even close.  Despite the fact that the Irish offense only moved the ball under Holiday, Davie kept LoVecchio in the game the entire fourth quarter.  Not only is Holiday a much better runner than LoVecchio, but he showed the nation that his arm is far stronger than LoVecchio’s as well. 

The Irish now must prepare for Michigan State already knowing that a national championship is no longer possible.  The players who have experienced this for the last three or four years are undoubtedly beginning to see the glass ceiling that is firmly atop the program.  In the last few years, players have been transferring out of Notre Dame at disturbing rates.  Nationally ranked high-school recruits have shunned Notre Dame for schools with chances to win national titles.  Recruits witnessing Notre Dame’s last two games cannot be impressed with a team that gave the impression that they didn’t even belong on the same field. 

Athletic Director Kevin White will be pressured this season into tearing down this glass ceiling that haunts the Irish program, and hiring a coach that understands what Notre Dame is all about.  The Irish need a coach that will remove this ceiling from the program that will allow the stars on this team to shine brightly.  What will it take to finally remove this glass ceiling?  Several more embarrassing losses?  A loss to Air Force, Navy or Army?  Maybe, a bowl game defeat to South Carolina?  Whatever it may be, I will hope that it happens so that Notre Dame can make its return to where it belongs.