It's also no accident that they ran off Holtz...

...which was the original sin of the entire period of decline. Jealous and small men could not abide the prominence of the football program or its head coach. Monk's crowd thought that any guy in turf shoes and a blue windbreaker could keep the ND football machine going, and they set about to prove it by replacing Holtz with Davie. Worse, they were ashamed of having a championship football team, and hit pieces like Under the Tarnished Dome sent them scurrying under their beds. Major college football is d�class� and unaspirational (if I may coin a term). If the administration had to tolerate it as an opiate of the masses of alumni, then they were content to milk the brand. But the commitment to winning that would necessitate the hiring of a charismatic, driven, accomplished coach was not in new strategic plan. Not for this effete generation of clerics and academics. Such a figure would be sure to eclipse them, and that just wouldn't do. And what would the AAU think?