Nobody dreams of being a middle manager. Nobody dreams of driving a Dodge Stratus to the suburbs from their Ikea laden condo – the one they bought for 400K and is now valued at 200K – and then trying to coordinate some destined-to-fail-anyway project dreamed up by executives and being implemented by guys who list their World of Warcraft accomplishments on their resume next to their Microsoft certifications. But the world needs Middle Managers just like the world needs ditch diggers. Luckily for most middle managers, they usually possess some level of ability that could and would be good enough to move up in the world or at least find a more compelling, satisfying role if only they’d live up to their potential. That’s exactly where the Notre Dame football team is today. Last weekend, they got a big hint that their potential might be in the elite class of college football, but they also got a big reminder that they’re still dwelling away in their windowless office, not quite sure how to move up in the world.

John Walters took a look at the Irish’s last 20 games and found some astonishing evidence that the Irish might want to browse the local Barnes and Noble for a few editions of “7 Habits.”

[In] fourteen games, or 70 percent [of the last 20]. In all but one game — the 2008 win versus Purdue — the margin between the two sides was a touchdown or less. In all but two games — Purdue and, one week earlier, Michigan State — the team trailing by a touchdown or less in the fourth quarter had the football. That is to say, in twelve of those fourteen games one fourth-quarter play could have changed the outcome.

What is it that Weis’ favorite New Jersey musician says? “Whoa, oh, livin’ on a prayer!”

The Irish, it so happens, are 8-6 in those games. For every jig-worthy, good-til-the-last-dropped-pass win the past two years against Navy or Washington, there have been mind-numbing losses to Pittsburgh and Syracuse and Michigan. Exciting? Sure. Impressive. Hardly.

Hey, we’ve all talked to the Bobs, and we see what they see: The Irish have a potential for greatness. But thus far, to put it kindly, the Irish haven’t “applied” themselves.

Perhaps it’s confusion born from the last time the Irish were great. Even in Lou Holtz’ day, the Irish seemed to have the likes of Army threatening to win a game. But the funny thing about those teams that should have never beaten Notre Dame back then, they used those wins, oftentimes, to catapult their seasons into the story books. These days, the teams that compete against Notre Dame hardly make it to one of the 84 bowl games in the winter.

Maybe it’s that the Irish have struggled in mediocrity for so long that it’s developed a defeatist culture. Perhaps the Irish players and coaching staff all possess an external locus of control and fully believe that destiny is holding them back from accomplishing their dreams.

Perhaps.

And perhaps it’s about time that the Irish look at the furious comeback last week, where they scored 4 TDs against a defense that only gave up about 1 TD per game in every other game this season and even, momentarily, managed to take that glow out of Pete Carroll’s eyes, and use that to launch themselves to a new career arch; One in which the Irish obliterate the competiton in the first half and throat-stomp the wounded in the 2nd. Maybe it’s time for many of the team to look at the way Manti T’eo plays every down like it’s a mini-war, or the way Golden Tate punctuates every TD with a walk that tells all the alpha dogs on the field that he’s the alpha-f’ing-lion, and decide that if they don’t at least believe right down to the core that they actually can be like that, they can at least fake it.

Now excuse me, but I’ve got some P&L forms to fill out, an annual budget request to complete, my lunch from TGI Friday’s just arrived, and I need to call the auto shop back in regard to an estimate on my Saturn.

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