Super recruit Jimmy Clausen has struggled mightily, and Notre Dame's offense ranks last in total offense with 218 yards per game. Al Tielemans/SI

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Poor technique is a far more plausible explanation than lack of talent -- because the Irish, while young, are plenty talented.

Weis' past two recruiting classes both garnered consensus top-10 ratings. ND's roster situation -- which includes 22 first- or second-year players on the 44-man two-deep -- is not all that different than that of 7-3 Florida, which has started 20 such players at various points this season, including sophomore stars Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin.

Yet for all their acclaim as recruits, first- and second-year Irish players like quarterback Jimmy Clausen, tailbacks James Aldridge and Armando Allen, tackle Sam Young and cornerbacks Darrin Walls and Rasheon McNeil look overwhelmed whenever they step on the field. "Notre Dame has a lot of players who could have gone wherever they wanted," said Wallace. "It doesn't look like some of them have improved very much."

Notre Dame is not the first school to learn the perils of hiring an NFL-bred head coach, most of whom, like Weis, are almost robotic in their approach to the game.

Nebraska's Bill Callahan (who led the Oakland Raiders to a Super Bowl) and UCLA's Karl Dorrell (a former Denver Broncos position coach) are likely down to their last days. Their teams, much like the coaches, have been marked not only by their underachieving record but a visible lack of emotion. Similarly, Pittsburgh's Dave Wannstedt, a 10-year NFL head coach, is just 15-17 in three seasons at his alma mater. Georgia Tech has a modest .581 winning percentage (about the same as Weis' .571 mark) in six seasons under former Cowboys coach Chan Gailey.

"It's very interesting how success in the college game requires a much more flexible person," said Wallace. "You're talking about younger athletes who don't have as much time to learn their playbooks. They're powered much more by factors like emotion, not paychecks."

It's no coincidence that one consistent exception recently to this NFL/college paradigm has been USC's Pete Carroll, a guy who wears his emotion on his sleeve and whose success is attributed in large part to the way he "connects" with his players. (Is it any coincidence that those same methods drew scorn and two pink slips in the pros?) Sarkisian, Carroll's offensive coordinator, echoes Wallace's sentiment that Xs and Os play a lesser role in the success of a college coach.

"The hardest part, until you deal with it, is that you're managing 110 kids, and they all have their problems and their issues, whether it's their classes or their girlfriend or not playing enough," said Sarkisian. "Not every kid's going to come in and rush for 1,000 yards. They all think they will, but for the most part it's not going to happen. How do you keep them motivated? A lot of stuff goes into that."

Over the past six years, USC's coaches have shown little hesitation throwing some of their more highly touted recruits into the fire as freshmen, from former stars Shaun Cody, Mike Williams and LenDale White to current standouts Keith Rivers, Taylor Mays and current freshmen Everson Griffin and Joe McKnight. That doesn't necessarily mean the coaches throw the full playbook at them, said Sarkisian.

"We try to identify what they do best within the first four or five days of training camp," he said. "When we go into games, we try to use them in a way where they know what they're doing well."

Failure to adapt

Through comments made over the course of the season, it's become evident that Weis -- despite knowing he'd be relying heavily this season on younger players -- was slow to adapt accordingly, and, in fact, made several decisions that showed little regard for the unique nature of coaching younger players:

• In a philosophy straight out of the NFL handbook but practically unheard of in college, Weis limited full-contact preseason practices to keep his players "fresh" for the season opener and limited "live" action during the first few weeks of in-season practices. Never mind that many of his key contributors had never played in a live college game.

Only after watching Michigan push his team around in a 38-0 loss the third week of the season did Weis institute more full-contact practices, but there's still an evident lack of physicality when watching their games.

"The pace of practice is quite a bit slower in the NFL," said USC's Sarkisian, whose team goes "full contact" nearly every day in the preseason and three days a week in-season. "We practice at a very high level. There's a lot of competition going on."

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