Ty’s Tenure Season-by-Season: 2002: 10 wins, 3 losses 2003: 5 wins, 7 losses 2004: 6 wins, 5 losses Total: 21 wins, 15 losses Bowl Appearances: 2002: Gator Bowl, lost 28-6 2004: Invited to Insight Bowl Honors: ESPN/Home Depot Coach of the Year in 2002.

Much as coach Tyrone Willingham's oft-criticized Notre Dame offense encountered that unenviable game situation, particularly in the past two seasons, it becomes a metaphor for his days in South Bend.

Three years and Tyrone Willingham, never the Fighting Irish's leading choice to take over the struggling football program, which hasn't won a bowl game in 10 years, is out as Irish coach.

For the first time since Hunk Anderson's 1931-33 stretch in South Bend, an Irish head coach did not stay for the length of his initial five-year contract.

Many N.D. insiders were not as shocked as Irish fandom's huge national rank-and-filers. One Monogram Clubber put it this way: "We knew Kevin (athletic director Kevin White) was meeting with him Sunday night and that could very well mean he was gone."

He referred to that often-stalled-out offense that drove many Irish fans over the edge this past fall.

"From what I hear, Kevin told (Willingham) to get rid of (offensive coordinator Bill) Diedrick last summer and he resisted; he said he's been with him for a lot of years (when Willingham was coaching Stanford) and he was loyal to him," the Monogram Club source said.

It was seemingly an innocuous difference of opinion and White, sometimes feeling pressure to rebuild the football program pronto, filed that away and perhaps employed that as a negative marker on Willingham's balance sheet.

Unlike the rancorous Bob Davie aftermath in 2001, White took the high road, taking pains to point out Willingham's mostly-positive imagery.

"Sunday through Friday, he was a great coach, on Saturdays, it was up and down," the Irish A.D. proclaimed at Tuesday afternoon's press conference at Joyce Center's Monogram Room.

"In another way," White continued, "Ty has been an excellent football coach. He displayed impeccable integrity and character. The football program has never been stronger academically, but we simply have not made the progress on the field we need to make, nor have we been able to create the positive momentum necessary in our efforts to return the Notre Dame football program to elite status."

More importantly, as rumors of Willingham's possible ouster after next season sent not-so-subtle messages through the critical period of recruiting season, White was faced with the uncomfortable choice of enduring an uncertain 2005 and possible weak recruiting class or cutting his losses.

In so doing, though, he leaves the school open to another set of criticisms. With Willingham's firing, there remain only two Division I-A African-American head coaches -- U.C.L.A.'s Karl Dorrell and Sylvester Croom of Mississippi State.

"In three years, I think he has done everything short of winning a national championship and I don't think he inherited national championship talent," Black Coaches Association Executive Director Floyd Keith told The Associated Press.

In his three years, Willingham's teams compiled a 21-15 record, but it can be split into two separate, but distinct periods...The first eight games, the next 28. They were as different as Willingham and Knute Rockne.

The sting of the awkward hiring-then-firing of Davie replacement George O'Leary, who was shown to have doctored his resume in a couple of key places, seemed to have died off. Gone were memories of the resultant dog-and-pony show that saw Notre Dame court the likes of current pro coaches Jon Gruden, Steve Mariucci and Mike Shanahan before finally settling on Willingham.

The Irish rolled to an 8-0 start in the fall of '02, with stirring victories over three ranked teams -- Purdue, Michigan and Florida State. But then in came a Boston College team that became an exclamation point in Willingham's brief Notre Dame portfolio, popping the Irish's national championship dream with a 14-7 upset that stunned a raucous Notre Dame Stadium crowd.

It was the first of three consecutive defeats by the feisty Eagles, the only other Catholic-affiliated I-A football team. This year's come-from-ahead 24-23 defeat by B.C. represented the fifth Irish loss in the past six outings against a program with considerably less tradition than Notre Dame's. That, along with three straight 31-point losses to U.S.C. weighed heavily in Willingham's fate. Toss in a heartburning 2004 opening-season loss at Brigham Young, plus a perceived quality dropoff in recruiting, a 13-15 record in his last 28 games and the rest was mere formality.

"The decision was made by the university leadership," White said, referring to Rev. Edward A. Malloy, C.S.C., Notre Dame's president, a couple of key trustees and himself. "Coach Willingham was aware of this."

And so the Irish, for the third time in seven years, in White's words, "...Immediately begin a national search for a coach who gives us a chance to return to the elite level of the college football world."

The list varies from minute to minute. Generally, it is conceded that Utah coach Urban Meyer, a five year assistant in the late 1990s under Lou Holtz, then Davie, is a key focus.

But one Notre Dame source says there are at least a couple of red flags that may steer the search elsewhere. "There are just a couple of things I hear that some administrators are not comfortable with," he said.

Meyer, a 1986 graduate of the University of Cincinnati, has a long resume as a successful assistant, most noticeably at Ohio State, before coming to South Bend. He went on to guide Bowling Green State University to a 17-6 two-year record, and has taken a Utah team to the top of the Mountain West Athletic Conference and, this year, a Bowl Championship Series berth, compiling a spectacular 38-8 record.

Not surprisingly, Florida, which enjoyed a dizzying level of success with Steve Spurrier and fired Ron Zook for failing to come close to Spurrier's standard, has expressed interest in Meyer, an Ashtabula, Ohio native.

As is the case with a few other coaches, Meyer has a provisional Notre Dame out-clause in his Utah contract. "I have great respect for that university," he told The Associated Press after Utah's practice Tuesday. "That's the reason it's in my contract. I grew up in that part of the country.

"I think a lot of people look into it more than what it is. I'm sure this is going to spark a lot of discussion, but I'm just trying to get a team ready to play in a bowl game."

There are other intriguing names surfacing -- Wisconsin coach/athletic director Barry Alvarez, who was Holtz's defensive coordinator 1987-1989, Cal's Jeff Tedford, Bobby Petrino of Louisville, who has led the Cardinals to a 19-5 record over the past two years, Gruden again, recently fired Cleveland Browns coach Butch Davis, who was a huge college success at Miami (Fla.).

"There is a blockbuster name that just came up this week," the Monogram Clubber pointed out.

Possibly, the BLITZ has learned, Detroit Lions coach Steve Mariucci, who expressed strong interest in the job in 2001 only to relent to the wishes of his wife and remain with the San Francisco 49ers.

There are two certainties that surface here:

• "There will be a full interviewing process for the first time in a long time," the Monogram Club source said.

• "It will happen pretty quickly, because they'll want to have a coach in place to conduct the recruiting."

It will be a fastidious process, because, as several Notre Dame sources said, White's future may well rest on the result.