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

Introduction by Lou Holtz. 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 consensus All-Americans, and more Heisman Trophy winners than Notre Dame. But recently, not so much: no national championship since 1988 and a combined 11-13 record in the 2003-2004 seasons. So out went Tyrone Willingham, fired just three years into his tenure, the first Irish coach ever to be dismissed before the end of his original deal. In came Charlie Weis, a 48-year-old Notre Dame grad with 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. Weiscrafted and executed a stunning game plan that returned a program mired in the blahs to its rightful (and historic) place among college football??‘s elite. The 2005 season was unlike any other in Fighting Irish history. This book takes you inside that season, and inside Weis??’s master plan for restoring the Gold Standard in South Bend.