Eric Hansen

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - He has valiantly, perhaps stubbornly as well, climbed the stairs back to his office after every press conference since the sideline accident on Sept. 13.

Sunday Notre Dame head football coach Charlie Weis’ left knee would no longer cooperate. The torn ligaments, perhaps aching from the long flights to Seattle and back over the weekend, forced him onto the elevator in the Guglielmino Athletics Complex but not any closer to the surgery that is inevitable once this season is finished redefining him as a college head coach.

At least he doesn’t have a heavy heart to schlep around -- this week anyway. The whole protracted Tyrone Willingham comparison -- that neither man asked for or perpetuated -- died in Husky Stadium Saturday night during Notre Dame’s 33-7 pummeling of the former Irish coach and his 0-7 football team. On Monday Willingham was forced to resign, effective the end of this season.

Weis also seems to have distanced himself and his program from last year’s 3-9 lost season. At least for now. 

But the trajectory of where this team will land by season’s end is difficult to track. It’s a team that’s changing, growing, fluid -- with new stars emerging seemingly each week -- and one that's offset by the inconsistency of so many sophomores and freshmen intermittently acting their age.

It’s a team with more mysteries than absolutes, which is not all bad. Just hard on Vegas odds-makers and people trying to buy cheap airline tickets for a bowl game.

Here are the four most-pressing questions and a stab at some pressing answers as the Irish (5-2) gear up for their final five regular-season games:

What are Weis biggest challenges?
They seem to be locust-like in their persistence this year, when Weis is reshaping his image.

For the fourth-year head coach, he seems to always be fighting two fronts -- practical challenges and perceptual ones. Sometimes they come intertwined in the same package. Saturday’s home game against Pittsburgh is one such example.

Practically, Pittsburgh offers the Irish another opportunity to see if they can shut down a running game with a truly elite running back. And can the Irish pile up points and yards against statistically the best defense they’ve seen to date? Will ND’s own running game keep moving forward? Can Weis coax Clausen past the game-changing turnovers that defused potential road upsets at Michigan State and North Carolina?

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From a perceptual standpoint, Weis and Pittsburgh coach Dave Wannstedt came from the NFL into college football the same season (2005), and Weis’ heavy-underdog Irish pounded Pittsburgh in the Era opener for both coaches. If ND truly has recruited better, if Weis is truly the superior coach, if this is a team that truly has big designs in 2009, anything less than a victory -- convincing or otherwise -- puts Weis back in a place where his four Super Bowl rings can’t help him.

The Pittsburgh-Boston College-Navy stretch on the Irish schedule the next three weeks not only will determine ND’s bowl fate but also just how much of a climb Weis has left until all the doubts go from soundtrack to background noise.

There is no elevator, no easy way up this time. Just improve, evolve, and win.

Is Notre Dame a top 25 team?
The best argument against the Irish joining the mishmash of transient teams in the bottom of the poll is that Notre Dame has yet to play a team with either a top 50 offense or a No. 49 or better defensive ranking nationally among the 119 FBS (formerly Division I-A) schools.

They will see one in Pittsburgh this coming weekend that is both (37th in total offense and 32nd in total defense). But the Panthers’ 54-34 loss at home to Rutgers last Saturday takes some sizzle out of this matchup. USC is the only other top 50 offense the Irish will see this season. Eight of their past or future opponents in 2008 are in the bottom 50.

The best argument that the Irish do belong is that they’re improving. They themselves have a top 50 offense (45) and top 50 defense (41) for the first time in 10 years. They’re No. 1 in the nation in kickoff return coverage. They do a lot of the little things right and are getting better at the places where they’re most vulnerable (rushing offense and pass protection).

They have stars on both side of the ball. And they may finally be moving toward reliability in the place-kicking department. Potential still trumps performance, but by increasingly smaller margins.

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