(This is an article I wrote in the beginning of college football season.)

Weis like a Fox

There was a point not too long ago when the Notre Dame Fighting Irish had one of the best quarterbacking situations in the country, even despite having lost Brady Quinn to the NFL Draft. Head coach Charlie Weis had a foursome of startable QBs in Evan Sharlpey, Zach Frazer, Demetrious Jones and Jimmy Clausen, and plenty of reasons to start all of them. Meanwhile, Weis had just recruited Dayne Crist, a five-star quarterback prospect right out of USC’s backyard. Charlie Weis had a rather delightful little problem on his hands. He was overloaded with talent at what he described in August as one out of the two jobs in America that everybody knows, the President of the United States and the quarterback of Notre Dame.

But he sure got rid of that problem quickly. In what could best be described as The Quarterbachelorette Rose Ceremony, Weis announced at the start of the summer that Sharpley, Jones and Clausen would be given the opportunity to fight for the starting spot, with Frazer the lone, obvious exception standing on the preverbal stage, without a preverbal rose. Shortly thereafter, Frazer left South Bend with the hopes of finding a starting job somewhere else, eventually ending up at UConn. Joe Quarterback was down to three contestants, with the next elimination round due at the start of the season.

The producers of this reality series kept people interested when there were no elimination episodes by giving clues as to who the frontrunner was in Weis’ mind. The stage was clearly set, not just between individual players, but between traits, demographics and personalities. Said Coach Weis after the spring scrimmage, “Each of these three young men brought something unique to the QB competition. Evan ran the operation the best, Jimmy threw the ball the best, and Demetrius made the most plays. For these reasons, they will compete for playing time.”

Typically, these reality decisions are made between clear-cut labels, like the cute one, the rich one, and the funny (ugly) one. Only for the Irish QB situation it was more like Weis had to choose between nominations for the Democratic Party– the one with experience, the face, and the black guy.

Episodes leading up to the conclusion included the one where young Jimmy got in trouble with John Law for driving his older friends to get beer. Then there was the surgery scare. Jones sparked some interest when his high school coach concluded that Weis must be anticipating his protégé’s start on opening day, as Jones had been getting the most snaps in practice. But as we know from such competitions, the one who gets the most face time might not be the one that’s already chosen.

All the while Weis would not budge when prompted to give the name of the man who would start in the home opener versus Georgia Tech. Though his decision was made weeks before the game, Weis would not even tell the athletes themselves. He then contended that the quarterbacks would certainly know who the winner was without his telling them, saying at a press conference in the weeks leading up to the first game, “I think if they haven’t figured it out by now then they’re not very smart.”

With Weis controlling the flow of information like a well-cut trailer sneak-peak at the final hour-long episode, the stage was set for the first game of the season. The winner of American Quarterback would trot out onto the field for the first play from scrimmage. Demetrious was the one who entered the game first, but by the time the clock ran out that day, all three quarterbacks had played. And Weis had a new secret to tell.

Apparently Jones was only starting the first game because Jimmy Clausen was not 100% ready for Georgia Tech. The extra week before the Penn State game was just enough to allow for Clausen to heal completely from his earlier bone spur surgery. Jimmy was actually the starting quarterback all along. What? That wasn’t obvious?

The next week in Happy Valley Demetrious Jones rode the pine while Jimmy Clausen started and played the entire game. The true freshman did about as well as anybody who is given as much time to find a receiver as Google takes to find 10,000 websites dedicated to firing Charlie Weis. By the end of the game it was clear that Weis had his man in Golden Boy Jimmy, and that Jones’ chance had come and gone.

Conflicting versions of the story aside, Demetrious Jones didn’t get on the bus ride to Michigan the following week. Instead he attended Northern Illinois’ game in DeKalb, Illinois, later implying that he was transferring from Notre Dame to NIU, though no formal agreement had been reached. Notre Dame’s athletic department fired back by saying that they wouldn’t approve of any transfer for Jones, thereby forcing the sophomore with three years of eligibility to pay his own way at Northern Illinois or any other school to which he transfers. Notre Dame went back on that decision less than 48 hours later.

Meanwhile, Charlie Weis actually let Evan Sharpley have the ball for five attempts at the end of the Michigan game. Afterwards he announced that the Fighting Irish would go back “just as if it were the first day of training camp. And everything is even Steven, like it’s the first day out there and everything’s up for grabs.”

Demetrious probably didn’t buy it. He is currently in the process of transferring from Notre Dame to a place where he can become a starter next season, sans getting jerked around.

Weis has managed to turn a bullpen of four blue-chip quarterbacks into two. The mobile quarterback he needs to escape the endless blitzes the Irish suffer through each week has made a run for it, but perhaps to an opponent that Weis will have to coach against next season. One wonders what Dayne Crist has been told about his future in the Notre Dame program, and what Weis will tell him in the second season of post-Brady drama.

It’s too bad that Notre Dame is contracted with NBC, because Weis’ handling of the quarterback situation was tailor-made for FOX.