New Gold Standard: Charlie Weiss and Notre Dame's Rise to Glory

The Gold Standard -- abandoned by most of the world in the 1930s -- has been an article of faith in South Bend, Indiana, for almost a century. Mere winning records and second-tier bowl games Not good enough for Fighting Irish fans. No college football program has produced more national championships, more All-Americans, and more Heisman Trophy winners than Notre Dame. But recently, not so much: no national championship since 1988, only one All-American since 1994, and a combined 1112 record in the 2003-2004 seasons. So out went Tyrone Willingham, fired just three years into a five-year contract, the first Irish coach ever to be dismissed before the end of his deal. In came Charlie Weis, a forty-nine-year-old Notre Dame grad with no head coaching experience but four Super Bowl rings as an assistant coach. Weis proved, in the space of a single season, to be a football maestro with a hard edge, a brilliant mind, an affinity for detail, and an uncanny sense of how to motivate people. He returned a program mired in the blahs to its rightful (and historic) place among college football's elite. This book takes you inside a season unlike any other in Fighting Irish history -- and inside Weis's master plan for restoring the Gold Standard in South Bend.