Making a move on offense, whatever it looks like, is one thing. How you make the move is another. Late in his ND head coaching career, Bob Davie wrested the defense from coordinator Greg Mattison in a very public midseason transition. And while the Irish defense did improve in the short-term, Davie lost respect from his players and assistants in the long run.

And eventually his job.

There are subtler, but still-powerful, ways of finding middle ground. And if there’s one thing Weis learned in his reinvention last offseason it’s that how you do things is as important as what you do.

“I talked to the captains and the leadership committee to tell them what I was going to do against Navy,” Weis said. “I think that it was very important to me that when I was going to tell the team that I was going to run the offense, that there was no mistake that this was not about throwing coach Haywood or any of the offensive coaches under the bus.

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“I just think it was extenuating circumstances that led to this, and I think it was very important, because that is one of my greatest pet peeves -- people who do exactly that. That being said, I think that the team, because I've stepped in to take over this week, can sense a greater or heightened sense of urgency because of the fact that it's now not the assistants doing it, it's now the head coaches in there.”

One powerful phenomenon amid a zig-zaggy bottom line that the decision-makers at Notre Dame can hold onto as they ponder a fifth season for Weis in South Bend, is that when Weis was pushed by adversity to jump back to his old NFL ways, he didn’t give back the growth or the evolution he worked so hard to attain.

The one promise, though, that might not be worth keeping for the long term is keeping his hands out of the offense. That doesn’t mean pulling the plug on Haywood. It means keep searching for the right way until you find it.

Weis and Clausen will both say that the QB’s biggest leap toward coming of age came during a two-game stretch on the sideline late last season in which he watched instead of playing. Maybe that’s the best thing for Haywood’s learning curve too.

A promise broken? A promise bent? A new and better promise?

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