Seattle – Every day, Washington football coach Tyrone Willingham passes a display of gaudy trophies in glass showcases across the hall from his modest corner office on campus.
Smack in the middle is the hulking prize from Washington’s share of its only national championship, in 1991 – the season the Huskies went 12-0, won the Rose Bowl and split the mythical title in the polls with Miami.
The most recent national title Charlie Weis can boast about at Notre Dame came in 1988 – though mystique-minded Fighting Irish fans are quick to summon up the 11 consensus championships the school has won going back to the days of Knute Rockne.
Saturday’s game between Washington (1-2) and No. 16 Notre Dame (2-1) marks more than the first clash between Willingham and Weis, Fighting Irish coaches past and present, nine months after their careers unexpectedly intersected.
It’s a game that reminds both schools of wrenching upheavals, the long-lost glory of their football programs and decisions they hope will put them both back on track to be title contenders again.
But it won’t prove who’s the better coach, who was right and who was wrong when Notre Dame hired Weis last December after abruptly and controversially firing Willingham.
Willingham and Weis never have spoke about what happened at Notre Dame. Never discussed the players Willingham recruited and Weis inherited when he returned to his alma mater, bejeweled with three Super Bowl champ- ionship rings as the New England Patriots’ offensive coordinator.
“I think he didn’t feel like he needed any assistance,” Willingham said. “I think he felt that with his Notre Dame background he was in pretty good shape in terms of understanding the program, what he wanted to do. I think he wanted to come in and have a fresh, brand new approach.”
They aren’t planning to sit down for a chat before or after they cross paths again this time. For each, this game is about the players, not the coaches.
It is not, as Weis facetiously called it recently, “The Ty Bowl.” Willingham had gone 21-15 at Notre Dame, winning fewer games than he wanted or Irish fans expected. After an 8-0 start his first year, the program stalled, and Willingham was let go three years into his six-year deal, making him the first Notre Dame coach in 70 years who was not allowed to finish his first contract.
Was race a factor? Willingham was Notre Dame’s first black coach and one of the few in college football. Or was it because Willingham, a buttoned-up outsider who ran a disciplined but uninspired offense, never quite clicked with the powerful Notre Dame alumni? Willingham blamed himself, never pointed fingers and didn’t talk of racism. Asked now about not making more of an effort to defend himself, when so many others at Notre Dame and elsewhere condemned his firing, Willingham rebuffed that notion.
“Whoa, wait, we’ve got to be careful there,” he said. “Because sometimes a defense is not visible. What did I do wrong? I think I coached our young men well. I think I finished with a winning record. Did I win as many games as I wanted to? I said it from Day One: No, I did not.
“I did speak out about the situation. My problem is I didn’t say what somebody else wanted to hear. … I haven’t bit my tongue. I said exactly what Tyrone Willingham wanted to say. The world’s not ready for what I wanted to say.”
Did he feel bitterness toward Notre Dame?
“I moved on,” he said.
With his integrity intact, Willingham landed on his feet quickly – richer yet with a five-year Huskies contract worth $1.43 million in guaranteed annual salary, plus incentives that could boost it to $2 million annually – when he took on a Washington program that was coming off its worst season in history. The Huskies, 1-10 under Keith Gilbertson, had been in turmoil since Rick Neuheisel was fired the year before for gambling on NCAA basketball. Willingham called himself “impatiently patient” to turn Washington back into a winner.
Notre Dame signed a coach who could dazzle recruits with his glittering Super Bowl rings, turn on his blunt native New Jersey charm, and get misty-eyed talking about the Fighting Irish past. He can trot out a long list of Irish who have played in the NFL, and speak to teenagers convincingly about what it takes to get to the pros and win big there.
Weis’ Notre Dame credentials also gave him a big boost on campus.
“The alumni certainly think that,” said Chuck Lennon, executive director of the Notre Dame Alumni Association. “We’re not better than anybody else. We’re different.
“It’s the first time in over 40 years we’ve had a Notre Dame guy doing it. … Charlie, as an alumnus, brings a different dimension, that tradition and history of it that’s already ingrained in him. It didn’t have to be learned when he came.”
Willingham gained friends fast at Notre Dame when he won his first eight games. He remains respected in South Bend, Ind., even with all the differences in style between him and Weis.
