ANN ARBOR, Mich. - As president and athletic director at Notre Dame, here’s what should be the week’s first order of business for Father Jenkins and Kevin White: Petition the NCAA and NFL to extend to coaches the rule that forbids players from leaving campus for the pros until at least three years after they’ve arrived.

Either that, or they’d better be prepared to tear up Charlie Weis’ contract and double it. Because if you think some ambitious NFL owner sick of seeing Tom Brady caress the Vince Lombardi Trophy isn’t coming after the most popular man in South Bend someday soon, well ...

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Charlie Weis surely isn’t.

Some well-intentioned questioner asked Weis what he thought of the fact that among the legends of Notre Dame, only he and Knute Rockne, 87 years ago, won their first two games away from South Bend.

“If I dignified that,” Weis grinned, standing amid the bowels of steamy Michigan Stadium — another place that’s witnessed a fair amount of football history — after the Irish held on for a 17-10 win over the No. 3 Wolverines, “Parcells and Belichick would just humiliate me.

“I’ve won two games. No, I’ve coached two games. Let’s come back and revisit that in about 10 years.”

They can only hope Weis still has a South Bend mailing address when the 10-year revisitation occurs.

Is this the wrong time to bring up the fact that three years ago, Ty Willingham was also 2-0 in his Notre Dame debut, en route to an 8-0 start that had Touchdown Jesus standing a little taller and Golden Domers convinced the echoes had been permanently reawakened?

Willingham never touched their souls, though, never conveyed the sense to Irish insiders that he truly understood what comprised the very DNA in Notre Dame’s genes.

Weis won them over in that respect almost immediately, long before they hit the field at Pitt last week. And for all the gaudy lines on his resume and all the offensive wizardry he displayed as New England’s offensive coordinator, surely it was his time as a Notre Dame undergrad that completes the circle and ushers him inside its boundaries.

“I’m happy for our kids,” Weis said, striking just the right mix of satisfaction for a win well earned and caution for a long season still ahead. “They’re starting to figure it out. I’m proud of the team, I’m proud of the coaching staff, I’m proud of the players. This is a tough place to win.

“There’s mixed emotions. You start worrying about their heads and getting beyond themselves. I start worrying about Michigan State already. That was the first thing I said in our locker room.”

Something else that should hearten the Notre Dame faithful about Weis: He seems to have taken New England’s uncanny knack for doing whatever it takes to win football games with him to South Bend.

The Irish pounded Pitt with offense, scoring touchdowns on six of their first seven possessions. And they began Saturday similarly, carving up Michigan’s suspect defense on a masterful 12-play, 76-yard drive after the opening kickoff without so much as facing a third-down situation as Weis employed a no-huddle offense — “but not a hurry-up offense,” he said.

But Michigan’s defense played superbly thereafter, limiting Weis’ smorgasbord offense to just 168 more yards, and that put the game in the hands of Notre Dame’s equally questionable defense.

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