What happened to Notre Dame?

I love Notre Dame. Now here's the problem. All of the players these days want number 1. Good Weather

Number 2. With the newfound success of the SEC and the Pac 10 kids don't care about tradition.

Well there are a few reasons

1) Kids don't want to go to a cold-weather school

2) The "Notre Dame" Brand used to sell itself to recruits, now the university cannot count on that solely to get the players they need to compete

3) The schedule is very tough, and don't rip into me, I know it's soft this year, but look at the past schedules, they're ridicuous. Join a conference!

4) The Academic Standards are tougher than the schedule, much higher than the NCAA standards.

5) Some really, really bad coaching hires the past 15 years or so (not counting Charie Weis)

I do believe ND is on the rebound though; they have a solid core of young players. However, they will never be elite again unless they join a conference.

Mediocre head coaches.

Bob Davie and Tyrone Willingham were not the answer. I'm not sure if Charlie Weis is either... sure he was a good NFL offense coordinator and produced two good seasons with Brady Quinn as the starter, but his past two seasons are not any better than Davie and Willingham: 3-9 and 6-6. I think Holtz was the last great head coach that the program had and that's where the problem has been. Just look at USC... Pete Carroll is arrogant and cocky, much like Weis, but he's energetic, aggressive and a damn good coach when it comes to winning big games... that is what the Irish need. Believe me, ND is tired of losing to USC, Boston College and Michigan State year-in and year-out, as well as losing games they shouldn't (Navy, Syracuse). If they can find a solid head coach, I think they will vastly improve.

Easy answer. For decades the top blue chip high school prospects from around the US went to Notre Dame and USC predominately. Competition has changed and Notre Dame has been steadily getting fewer and fewer of those top prospects.

Lou Holtz is Predicting a Notre Dame/Florida game for the championship

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw5JmGCKNLY

their national rating is for 10th, not that bad?

Lots of different factors. Tradition is a big part lots of players want to play now and not sit on the bench. With new outlets for communication (iternet and cell phones) smaller colleges can now pull some of the recruits that normally would have gone to bigger colleges. Bad coaching. bad coaching and bad coaching

Bad coaching,Recruiting has made Notre Dame a below average football team.

Geepa nailed it