Tyrone Willingham will be on the visitor’s sidelines at the Carrier Dome Friday night.

You can count on three things:

1. His posture will be as straight as a goalpost.

2. He’ll be as disciplined as the most earnest nun.

3. His shirt will be purple and gold – not blue and gold.

You might remember Willingham. He was the National Coach of the Year in 2002 after leading Notre Dame to a 10-2 record. His success was symbolic, too – if Willingham, who’s black, can win at perhaps the most decorated football program, then the glaring shortage of black college football coaches might change. His dignified presence helped land him a spot on the cover of The Sporting News, labeling the stoic coach ‘Sportsman of the Year.’

Two years later, Willingham was fired. Mortgage rates didn’t fall faster than he did.

‘From Sunday through Friday, our football program has exceeded all expectations in every way,’ Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White said upon firing Willingham. ‘But on Saturday, we struggled.’

Willingham is now with Washington, a storied program within itself.

But it’s not Notre Dame. The Notre Dame shadow continues to loom over Willingham as he brings Washington into Syracuse this weekend. And one can’t help but wonder what might have been had Willingham’s last visit to the Carrier Dome been different.

It was Dec. 6, 2003 – Willingham’s second season with the Irish – and his honeymoon was clearly finished. His team was 5-6, although after starting the year 2-6, three straight wins brought the Fighting Irish back in bowl discussions. College football is much different when your team goes to a bowl, especially when it’s Notre Dame, who could draw fans from Bangladesh if they wanted.

The Irish needed to beat Syracuse, which had just lost to Rutgers in an era before the Scarlet Knights lit up the Empire State Building. SU entered the game the opposite of Notre Dame, losing three straight.

Then, SU’s Walter Reyes ran for a touchdown. And another, and another, and another and another. By game’s end, Reyes rushed for a Dome-record five touchdowns, and Syracuse won, 38-12.

Notre Dame didn’t reach a bowl game. Tyrone Willingham hasn’t coached one since.

When Willingham met with the media Monday, he didn’t want to rehash that game or his experience at Notre Dame.

‘I’m having trouble looking back,’ Willingham said.

But that Syracuse game was particularly stinging.

‘You don’t ever forget,’ Willingham later admitted. ‘You always remember certain things from certain ballgames. When you’re unsuccessful at it, you remember more parts than others.’

Willingham coached his final season at Notre Dame amid speculation of his job security. There was a push and pull between the struggling performance on the field on Saturdays and the respect showered upon Willingham off the field throughout the week.

After Willingham’s dismissal, suitors were lining up to hire him.

‘I was a week late to get Ty Willingham,’ Syracuse director of athletics Daryl Gross said in a Feb. 3, 2005 ESPN.com article. ‘He fit the model perfectly. … He would’ve been a prime candidate.’

Gross confirmed his high regards for Willingham when asked about the statement on Tuesday.

Willingham’s characters was one of the main reasons Washington starting quarterback Jake Locker landed at with his hometown Huskies, spurning scholarship offers from Southern California and Michigan, among others.

‘He was a coach that stood for all the things that I believe in,’ Locker said. ‘He was going to run (the program) the right way. He was not only going to make good football players but also teaching them and turning them into good men. That was important to me and my family.’

It’s up to Locker to help Willingham with the one day that plagued his tenure at Notre Dame: Saturday. He was 11-12 in his final two seasons at Notre Dame. Even at Washington, the issue for Willingham has been Saturdays – he’s 7-16 in two seasons with the Huskies.

But if there’s a coach who can survive pressure, it’s Willingham. When he coached Stanford, he followed Bill Walsh, which is like following John F. Kennedy at the State of the Union or teeing up behind Tiger Woods. All he did was take Stanford to the Rose Bowl. The Cardinal is now on its third coach after Willingham.

He entered Notre Dame as the first black coach in the program’s history and left with his ego bruised but his back still straight.

Now he has the challenge of fixing Washington, and he’s faced with the toughest schedule in the country, a quarterback who hasn’t taken a college snap and a road game at the site of one of his toughest losses.

The knock on Willingham has been winning on Saturday. Maybe his best news is this game is on a Friday.

Zach Berman is the sports columnist for The Daily Orange, where his column will appear every Wednesday and other select days throughout the semester. E-mail him at zberman@syr.edu.

Published on September 2, 2007 at 12:00 pm