SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Tyrone Willingham, the new Notre Dame football coach, and Paul Hornung, the 1956 Heisman Trophy winner starting his 33rd year as a commentator on Irish game broadcasts, were at a banquet in Toledo, Ohio, earlier this year when the discussion turned to strategic philosophy.

        “He's got a great sense of humor,” Hornung remembers. “We were talking about the West Coast offense, and he said, "I don't know what the West Coast offense is. What is it?'

        “I said, "Tyrone, the West Coast offense, for any Notre Dame football fan, is any offense that throws at least one pass a year on first down.' ”

        That is the nature of the simultaneous educations of Willingham and the following that redefines the coach's standing after each game.

        The start of practice Saturday marked the resumption of an increasingly complex effort to awaken echoes and compete at the championship level required by history, myth, ghosts, ticketholders and all those alumni - degree holders, subway and otherwise.

        The return to the field also marked an escape from a 5-6 season, followed by an offseason that included:

        — The firing of Bob Davie a season after the coach had been rewarded with a five-year contract.

        — The incorrect and painfully costly resume of deposed successor George O'Leary, now an assistant on the Minnesota Vikings staff.

        — The eventual hiring of Willingham.

        — The departure of four players following charges relating to an alleged rape of a Notre Dame student.

        — And the loss of six players overall, including transferred quarterback Matt LoVecchio and academic casualty Julius Jones.

        But the controversies and embarrassments have obscured a larger pattern of inconsistency, beginning three seasons before Davie's five-year tenure as head coach, that continues to threaten Notre Dame's credibility as a championship-caliber program.

        Notre Dame's recent plateau suggests the Irish have been unable, or unwilling, to attract the level of talent a championship requires. The president of the university says that notion is incorrect.

        “We have a good situation in the admissions office, knowing the primary responsibility is to only admit students, including student-athletes, who can legitimately make it at Notre Dame,” the Rev. Edward Malloy says, “and the coaches knowing it's in the best interest to only recruit student-athletes who fit at Notre Dame.

        “I am convinced that if both of those units do their job effectively, we can recruit well and recruit successfully and have a program that can compete with the best programs in the country.”

        Indeed, data supplied by the Notre Dame athletic department supports Malloy's contention. The average Scholastic Assessment Test scores of incoming Notre Dame football players from 1990-93 were the eighth highest among all Division I-A schools. By 1993-96 they had fallen to 48th.

        Malloy says the pool of available candidates for football scholarships has not been reduced since Lou Holtz and his staff constructed the 1988 champions.

        “Not that I know of,” Malloy says. “The only thing that would make the pool smaller is that high schools are not doing as good a job. We haven't changed, overtly, our standards over 15 years. ... There has been no tightening of the standards of admission over that period of time.”

        The areas that became a concern for the administration at the end of the Holtz era in 1996 - attrition of players and misconduct that contributed to major NCAA violations - are an issue again. Athletic director Kevin White says a new curriculum, communicated in regular meetings, will intensify the messages about misbehavior and its implications.

        “We're going to be more aggressive, more pointed and extremely graphic,” White says.

        Says Malloy of the rape charges: “I'm not happy with situations that happen of that nature. And in the end we want to convince student-athletes that they are going to be held accountable for their behavior as any other student would be held accountable. If someone misbehaves, they're going to know we're going to act fairly, but we're going to act decisively.”

        Scheduling nightmares

        The intense internal debate over Notre Dame's athletic ambitions and its place in the national landscape can be traced to the end of the Frank Leahy era nearly a half century ago.

        Consider that the academic credentials of freshman classes increase each year, the team's schedule presents constant challenges and the Bowl Championship Series format restricts any championship hope to two or possibly three bowl participants. So Notre Dame's potential frustrations have advanced beyond the routine grousing about any specific coach.

        The most recent decline began after the 1993 season, the eighth of Holtz's 11 years, when that last-second field goal by Boston College's David Gordon wrecked Notre Dame's perfect record and championship chances. In the eight seasons since, the Irish have averaged 4.5 losses, and they have an 0-5 bowl record with an average losing margin of 15.8 points.

        Oakland Raiders receiver Tim Brown, the 1987 Heisman winner and record seventh Irish player to earn the award, is the school's only recipient in the last 37 years. Notre Dame has not had a top-10 finisher in Heisman balloting the last nine seasons. In the 67-year history of the award, the longest previous span without an Irish player in the top 10 was from 1960-63.

        The immediate expectation of outsiders was made clear with a 46th-place finish in each major preseason poll. In the USA TODAY/ESPN poll of coaches, the Irish received 18 points, placing them between Stanford and Hawaii. They received three points in the Associated Press media poll, one less than Boise State.

        Last Friday, when the 2002 Irish appeared on campus, the championship talk did not take long.

        “I think you have to think national championship right now,” senior placekicker Nicholas Setta says. “You have to have that goal, and it has to be a legit goal. It's what you have to strive for.”

        Jeff Faine, a senior center and emotional leader of the offensive line, noticed something different about the atmosphere at the beginning of camp.

        “Every year everybody's excited,” he says. “But you've got a feeling it's going to last.”

        White says the bowl system's emphasis on strength of schedule will eventually benefit the Irish: “The BCS does reward programs for playing a very high-end schedule. My sense is we're in a position where we can get rewarded for the kind of schedule we play.”

        Penn State was recently added for two years, including a 2006 appearance on a schedule that already included Georgia Tech, Michigan, North Carolina, UCLA and Southern California.

        “Everyone always says that at Notre Dame the schedules are made 10 years in advance,” Davie says. “In 2006 no one knows who the coach is going to be. But I can say this: That schedule is ridiculous. Are you really scheduling for the opportunity to win a national championship? Obviously, they're going to continue to schedule the way they've scheduled. That discussion is falling on deaf ears.”

        Willingham will be tested

        The new coach's honeymoon has been marked by standing ovations and the optimism of spring and summer. Malloy says the evidence of Willingham's status as a second choice “has become irrelevant. We made a serious decision. I think the only ones that pay attention to the intervening step is the media. I'm happy (O'Leary) has a job. I wish him well. He has moved on. We've moved on.”

        Jack Connor, author of “Leahy's Lads” and a former Irish player, says his expectations are simple.

        “I look for a team that is well-coached, well-conditioned, well-disciplined and plays what I call Notre Dame football,” Connor says. “Which is never give up. Just play very hard. And if you're in most of the ballgames and you play that way and you're 7-4, I'm happy. You can't go all the way every year, and I don't expect them to. I do expect them to play hard.”

        By the end of the 2004 season, Willingham's progress will be measured against the demanding backdrop of Notre Dame's three-year itch. A consensus national championship in a coach's third season has elevated the status of Holtz (1988), Dan Devine (1977), Ara Parseghian (1966), and Leahy (1943) from their Irish peers.

        Before the introduction of the modern national poll, Knute Rockne did not direct a consensus champion until his seventh season. His third team, in 1920, merely won all nine of its games.

        All those emotional calendars already feature circles around the 2004 season.

        “Although I'm not objective,” White says, “I really like our position. ... We're working hard at not looking back but looking forward. There have been times that we have been competitively challenged, but we've always found our way. I really, in my heart of hearts, believe we've on one of those journeys again.”