Posted by BrianBoru at 9/14/2009 2:00 AM EDT

Charlie Weis is a poor head football coach.

Sadly for Notre Dame fans, very few people within the Notre Dame administration seem to care. Accordingly, as long as Charlie Weis continues limping along the Notre Dame sidelines, Notre Dame fans ought to adopt the same outlook toward the football program. Perhaps then the powers that be at Notre Dame will sit up and take notice, and finally begin to demonstrate that they are not content in becoming the Chicago Cubs of college football.

It has been a very long time since Notre Dame Football has been competing for National Titles. However, one needs only to have followed the program since its last National Title, 1988, to understand that these days the people running Notre Dame are positively happy with fielding 9-3 seasons, sprinkled in with an occasional run to a BCS Bowl game.

Need data points to be convinced? Charlie Weis has a record of 1-16 against teams ranked in the Top 25. That remarkably poor statistic, along with two of the most embarrassing defeats in school history, Navy in 2007 and Syracuse last season, should be more than enough justification for Charlie to earn his walking papers. Losing to Navy is akin to the Harlem Globetrotters being defeated by the Washington Generals — it should not happen.

Not since Lou Holtz was run out of South Bend back in 1996 has Notre Dame been a threat for a National Championship. Four head coaches later (including the George O'Leary fiasco), and the Irish are nowhere near a return to the top.

Incompetent leadership from within the administration has led to a football program that is quickly fading from the minds of blue chip high school recruits, none of whom were even alive the last time Notre Dame won the National Championship.

So with that, I offer this humble suggestion to the University of Notre Dame Board of Trustees: Either demonstrate that you are committed to competing for National Championships, or just get it over with and call the Ivy League to ask them if they would be interested in adding another member.

You cannot have it both ways. If your mission is to continue to marginalize football, which many faculty members at Notre Dame would like, then go for it. But please understand that by doing so, your endowment will drop like a rock, moving you from your current No. 2 position (behind Harvard) into mere irrelevance — much like the current state of Notre Dame Football.

You cannot continue to bank on the loyal drones shelling out hard-earned cash to support a product that is quite frankly not worth the cost of its $68 ticket.

If Notre Dame is ever to return to greatness on the football field, its administration must not force the program to play with one arm tied behind its back.