Quoted from Blue Gray Sky (March 25, 2010) (sic):
It's interesting to look back to that Winter of 2004. Eight years of mediocrity were capped by the controversial firing of Willingham, and many people -- including some of our own alums in the national media -- were proclaiming that Notre Dame was beyond salvaging; that the Irish would never again compete for a national champsionship; that, indeed, "the mystique [was] dead." Then, the rejection by Urban Meyer, a bitter pill that seemed to confirm our worst fears about the future of the program. Notre Dame was done.
Then Charlie walked in the door. He came in with bluster and bravado, saying, in effect [screw] that, we're not dead yet, Notre Dame can still compete. And I'm going to lead the charge. From today's vantage point looking back, Charlie's words might seem empty, nothing but a lot of talk and a badge. And he certainly didn't fulfill his early promises. But at the time, the attitude was critical. Charlie was a shot in the arm that was sorely needed. After being rebuffed and rejected and discounted by everyone, here was somebody -- one of our own, too -- who was willing to take that dead-end Notre Dame job, not make excuses, and try to turn this thing around. That five years later he's fallen short and been replaced doesn't mean we should turn those early statements against him. We were reeling, and his attitude and willingness to lead was exactly what we needed at the time.
If anything, Charlie proved that Notre Dame can still compete. He put the lie to the lazy, armchair conclusions about academic standards being too stringent, or that top-flight recruits wouldn't give South Bend a second look, or that Notre Dame could no longer go up against Southern Cal and Michigan and Florida and steal players out from under them. All of those built-in excuses that were proffered by Bob Davie, calcified via Willingham and lazily adopted by the blinkered national media (and much of their mouth-breathing readership) have been systematically disproven over the last five years. Can Notre Dame recruit? Notre Dame can recruit. Can it win? Notre Dame can win. No excuses, indeed. We can compete. We can win. Charlie might not have accomplished it, but he proved it possible. The failures of Charlie Weis are not endemic to Notre Dame. Today, when looking back on the Weis era, we hold him to his own standard, and can say that he did not get the job done; but proudly so, for without him, there might be no more standard.
End quote.