Through the smiling Irish eyes of an Armenian-American fan, Notre Dame still can be what it used to be. Ara Parseghian, 86, rages against the notion that Saturday afternoons in South Bend are as outdated as your grandmother’s rotary phone.

Parseghian understands that Brian Kelly is not walking through the door with the Four Horsemen and Grantland Rice at his side. He understands that college football has undergone a radical transformation, that the proliferation of media outlets has introduced high school stars to a whole new world of options and stripped Notre Dame of its only-game-in-town feel.
It doesn’t matter. Parseghian has lived this movie before.
“When I left Northwestern for Notre Dame in 1964, and when Lou Holtz followed Gerry Faust, all the articles said the same thing,” Parseghian said from his Florida home. “The academic standards are too high. It’s too difficult to win. You can’t bring back the glory of the past.
“The stories were word for word the same as when I started at Notre Dame, and I think I did OK in my 11 years there.”
Parseghian won two national titles and finished in the top five of at least one of the two ruling polls (AP and UPI) in eight of those 11 years. He was on the phone Thursday a few hours before Kelly and Notre Dame agreed to a deal that wasn’t exactly heartwarming news to those very same Cincinnati Bearcats recently assured by Kelly that he was staying put.
The NCAA comes across as a practical joke when it allows coaches of 12-0 teams heading for BCS bowls to flee for greener pastures and contracts, without penalty, while benching student-athletes for a year when they transfer in simple pursuit of more playing time and a better shot at the pros.
But in South Bend, nobody was spending time sweating the small stuff. There was no room on the agenda for double Division I standards, not when Charlie Weis was long gone and the next can’t-miss coach was heading into his annual football banquet at Cincinnati, a Judas enjoying his last supper with the Bearcats before heading off to meet Touchdown Jesus.
“Thrilled to be the coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish,” Kelly posted on his Twitter page before he could digest his dinner and his ex-players could digest his departure. “Committed to stirring People with PASSION and PURPOSE.”
Days after scolding the news media for asking him about Notre Dame, Kelly already listed his location as South Bend, Ind. Whatever.
Parseghian said he was impressed with Kelly’s sideline presence against Pittsburgh, and with the poise he saw on his TV screen while watching the Cincinnati coach steer his team from a 31-10 deficit to a harrowing 45-44 triumph. As for advice for the new guy, well, Parseghian probably would tell Kelly the same thing he told Weis.
“I said, ’Charlie, it’s a great job, but you’ve got to put up the Ws,’” Parseghian recalled. “I only asked for a three-year contract, and I think they gave me four. I knew the Midwest. I knew Notre Dame. I didn’t want the abuse Charlie would experience for himself and his family, so we built it up fast.”
Parseghian took over a 2-7 Irish team, nearly went undefeated in his first season, and won his first national title in his third. Everyone thought Weis might enjoy the same kind of ride.
“But you need a guy at Notre Dame with Division I head coaching experience, and Charlie didn’t have that,” Parseghian said. “He came from the pros, and he was an offensive coordinator. You have to be able to coach both sides of the ball.”
Kelly delivered a dream football season to a basketball school in a basketball conference, and as the son of an Irish-Catholic alderman from Boston, he has a lot going for him on arrival in South Bend.
Only Notre Dame hasn’t won a national title since Holtz went 12-0 in 1988. Their drought is nearly as long as the Mets’.
The Irish have no candidates at Saturday night’s Heisman ceremony, they have no place in the national championship conversation and they have no spot in a BCS bowl, or any bowl.
Not only did Urban Meyer and Bob Stoops reject them, but someone named Gary Patterson chose to stay at TCU — TCU — before he could officially do the same.
“But I would jump at the Notre Dame opportunity all over again,” Parseghian said. “They’ve improved the facilities there fantastically, and there seems to be a disconnect between the quality of talent they’ve recruited and the results.
“With (Jimmy) Clausen and (Golden) Tate, they’ve got two high draft picks in the NFL, and every year you hear they have a top 10 recruiting class, so I think you just need the right coach.”
Is the new man with the Emerald Isle name the right coach? There’s no honor in big-time college athletics anymore and, predictably enough, Kelly got out of the gate with a misdirection play that fooled his unbeaten team.
This was Cincinnati receiver Mardy Gilyard after Saturday’s victory over Pitt: “It’s almost like when your mom tells you the sky is blue, and you just know it’s blue. You don’t even have to look outside. With Coach Kelly telling us he’s not leaving, we know he’s not going anywhere.”
This was Gilyard at Thursday night’s banquet, as quoted by the Cincinnati Enquirer: “I feel like there was a little lying in this thing; I feel like he’s known the whole time. ... It ain’t cool to lie. I’m hot about that.”
Gilyard would tell the AP that Kelly “went for the money. I’m fairly disgusted with the situation ...”
His was a silent scream. When Kelly absorbs the sight of the Golden Dome, Cincinnati’s Sugar Bowl matchup with Florida will be the last thing on his mind.
“I’d sure like to see another (national title) at Notre Dame because it’s been awhile,” Parseghian said. “I’m getting older, so they’d better hurry.”
As a transferring coach, rather than a transferring quarterback or safety, Kelly won’t have to sit out a year. He gets to go to work right away.
This is his big chance to be another Ara Parseghian, or another Charlie Weis, and his clock starts now.