Fighting chance

Charlie Weis wouldn’t mind having that kind of afternoon this season, when he can let his headset down and joke with his quarterback on the sideline, as he used to when he was the Patriots’ offensive coordinator and victory often was secured not long after halftime.

This season, his Irish varsity has been living on the edge, with their last five games not decided until the final minute or in overtime. There were exuberant victories over Michigan State (33-30), Purdue (24-21), and Washington (37-30) and anguished losses to Michigan (38-34) and Southern Cal (34-27).

“We don’t need to be in some of the positions that we put ourselves in,’’ observes cocaptain Kyle McCarthy.

Rarely have the Fighting Irish had to fight so long on Saturdays, and they’re gearing up for another full-length brawl here tomorrow against Boston College, which has had Notre Dame’s number since 2001.

“There’s not a question in my mind they’ll come out fighting again like they’ve been,’’ says Weis, whose squad was shut out by the Eagles last year at Chestnut Hill. “People worry about being flat. How can you be flat when you are playing a team that just beat you six times in a row?’’

If the Irish lose again to BC, the temperature will be turned up again beneath Weis, who has been on the hot seat after 3-9 and 7-6 campaigns that produced the most losses in consecutive seasons in the program’s 121-year history. Not that he wasn’t prepared for the heat.

“I’m the head coach at Notre Dame - welcome to my world,’’ Weis said before the season. “That comes with the territory.’’

Only four men who have held the job have been exempt from the Hibernian anvil chorus - Knute Rockne, Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian, and Lou Holtz - and all of them won national championships. Even when Dan Devine produced one in 1977, “Dump Devine’’ bumper stickers were sold outside the stadium before the USC game.

“It isn’t your football team at Notre Dame,’’ says Holtz. “You’re just a custodian.’’

“You,’’ Parseghian once told Rockne’s bust in the Memorial Building. “You started all this.’’

Every man who has sat in the coach’s chair for the past eight decades has felt the weight of the immortals and the expectation that he’ll wake up the echoes sooner rather than later.

“I felt that tradition is always under construction,’’ says Holtz, who coached here for 11 seasons and is now an ESPN analyst. “Those things are great, but when’s the next one going to come?’’

Impatience for the Next Coming has been building for more than two decades. Since Rockne won the first of the 11 national titles in 1924, the school has never gone this long without one. The Irish haven’t had a Heisman winner since Tim Brown in 1987 or won a major bowl since the 1993 season.

Weis was brought in five years ago to change that. He had won three Super Bowl rings as the Patriots’ offensive coordinator and he was a Domer (Class of 1978), the first graduate to hold the job since Hugh Devore in 1963. He was familiar with the lore, the pressures, the academic/athletic duality of the place.

What he couldn’t have known was the enormous demand on his time from multiple constituencies. As Parseghian said, you can’t understand the job until you’ve walked in the shoes of the man that’s had it.

“There are so many different hats,’’ Weis says. “Between coaching football, dealing with the media, dealing with alumni, dealing with the administration, dealing with academicians, dealing with recruiting. The coaching is the easy part. It’s all the other factors that go with being a head coach.’’

The Seuss-style tower of hats was one thing that drove Parseghian into retirement at 51 after 11 years of 18-hour days.

“I was on a treadmill,’’ he said.

If anything, the treadmill has accelerated amid an always-on media universe. For someone who’d labored for five years in Bill Belichick’s tight-lipped workshop, the sudden spotlight was nearly blinding.

“You go from working for the Patriots, where you never talked to the media, to where you’re always in the media,’’ says Weis. “It’s important to realize that they have a job to do. It’s not the same as when I was in New England, where you would tell them as little as you possibly could.’’

The job will consume you if you don’t know how to manage time, how to delegate, how to say no. When Devine took over in 1975, Parseghian sat down with him for a briefing.

“How much of what Ara told you turned out to be true?’’ Devine was asked after he’d been on the job for four years. “Only 99 and 44-hundredths percent of it,’’ he replied.

Even if Weis hadn’t been leveled by one of his defensive ends on the sideline last year and torn up his left knee, he eventually would have had to be selective with his time.

“He understands his hats more,’’ says Ron Ianello, the assistant coach for offense, “and where and when he needs to put his time.’’

Weis spends Sunday and Monday with the defense, then focuses on the offensive coordinator’s duties that he assumed this year.

“This is like I’m in New England again,’’ he says. “The reason why I felt I could do that is because now I have a veteran defensive staff. I tell them, ‘This is how I would attack you,’ or I ask them, ‘How are you going to stop this?’ rather than tell them what to do.’’

Offense is where Weis made his reputation, and his Super Bowl rings have provided a significant recruiting boost to a program that already had a magnetic draw for several generations.

“Many of our players have aspirations to play on Sunday,’’ says senior guard Chris Stewart. “Why not play for a guy who’s not only been there but has succeeded there?’’

Weis has spent significantly more time on Football 101 here than he had to in Foxborough.

“He really is a teacher,’’ says senior tackle Sam Young. “He’ll go over things and make little coaching points and get you into how his mind approaches things and why he calls the plays he does.’’

“There wasn’t anyone on that sideline that didn’t think they were going to win down 20 points to SC at home,’’ says Weis, whose squad was on the Trojan 4-yard line when time ran out last weekend. “That is how the program has now changed, because you haven’t been able to say that for the last four years.’’

Notre Dame still recruits the same kind of players Rockne did.

“They’ve always wanted to get high-character kids who can read,’’ says Weis. “That was in place long before I got here and it will be in place long after I leave.’’

But Weis and his staff have made a particular point of mental toughness, because the Irish can’t have any more seasons like last year’s when Notre Dame, which won four of its first five, fell apart after dropping a quadruple-overtime decision to Pittsburgh and ended up losing four of its last five, an implosion that even a postseason victory over Hawaii couldn’t erase.

“What do you want me to do? Sit there and do cartwheels over the Hawaii Bowl?’’ Weis said during training camp.

He might be signed through 2015 with a package that reportedly exceeds $25 million with incentives, but Weis still is on probation hereabouts. The 19-6 record over his first two years has been forgotten. A billboard near campus proclaimed before the season, “Best wishes to Charlie Weis in the fifth year of his college internship.’’

Weis is sanguine about the criticism, which he acknowledges comes with being HC of ND.

“I have no problem with it,’’ he says. “If it were just me, I don’t care, but I care for my wife, I care for my son, I care for my staff, I care for my players. For me personally, it goes in one ear and out the other.’’

His players, who view the string of on-the-edge Saturdays as progress, are behind him.

“I don’t think it’s a matter of putting Coach Weis on the hot seat, because he’s put us in a position where we can win every game we’ve been in this season,’’ says cocaptain Eric Olsen. “I think it speaks volumes for how far he’s taken us as a team. He can only do so much and the assistant coaches can only do so much in the meeting rooms and on the sidelines. It’s up to us on the field.’’

At some point, though, positioning isn’t enough. The Irish need to win week after week, starting tomorrow against Leahy’s other school, and Weis accepts that. The country’s most famous fight song, after all, is the “Victory March.’’ Shaking down the thunder is what it’s been about since Rockne was catching passes from Gus Dorais.