Of the myriad ways by which to measure the excellence of an athletic team, none may be more telling than the persistence of outlandish expectations.

It's a truth that Fighting Irish head coach Charlie Weis understands well as he faces speculation about his future even during a season that found the school with its choice of bowl games.

Like the Yankees in baseball or the Celtics in basketball, Notre Dame occupies a sphere of recognition that far exceeds the boundaries of collegiate football. Bearing a name synonymous with success — Notre Dame has the most national championships (11), All-Americans (96) and College Football Hall of Fame selections (48) of any NCAA Division I school — each new iteration of the team must bear the burden of carrying a record-laden history that spans not just 120-plus years of often great football, but a decidedly unique social and religious significance.

EARLY YEARS

The first Notre Dame football game, an 8-0 loss to Michigan, was staged Nov. 23, 1887. The Irish would lose to the Wolverines twice more before notching their first win, a 20-0 victory over Harvard Prep, in 1888. (The Irish would eventually defeat Michigan in 1909, though subsequently the two programs would not meet again until 1942.)

Notre Dame enjoyed modest success over the next decade in playing a mixed schedule of prep and collegiate teams. By the time the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (later to become the NCAA) was founded around the turn of the century, the collegiate game had taken firm root in towns and cities across the United States, and Notre Dame was on its way to becoming one of the most consistently successful programs.

In 1913, the Irish defeated Army, 35-13, in a game made notable by Notre Dame's use of the forward pass. The offensive innovation had been used before, but never in such a big game, and never as such an integral part of a total offensive scheme. The Irish's air attack that day featured the skills of quarterback Charlie Dorais and an end named Knute Rockne.

THE KNUTE ROCKNE ERA

Rockne would eventually succeed head coach Jesse Harper in 1918, ushering in one of the most storied eras in collegiate athletics. During his 13-year tenure (the longest in the history of the program), Rockne would compile a 105-12-5 record, including five undefeated seasons, six national championships and a victory in the 1925 Rose Bowl.

Rockne immigrated to Chicago from Norway and, as historians have noted, embodied to a growing national audience the American ideal of the self-made man. Before taking the reins at South Bend at age 30, Rockne worked as a post office dispatcher, semi-pro fighter and assistant coach. Along with Amos Alonzo Stagg, Glenn "Pop" Warner, and Dana X. Bible, Rockne would cultivate an image of the collegiate football coach as a tough but compassionate figure with an unwavering dedication to excellence on and off the field that served as a blueprint for future generations of coaches.

Rockne's strong personality and biting wit made him — and by extension Notre Dame — a favorite of local and national media. It was the acclaimed sports writer Grantland Rice who, in a report on the Irish's 1924 victory over Army, dubbed Rockne's backfield of Harry Stuhldreher, Jim Crowley, Don Miller and Elmer Layden "The Four Horsemen" in one of the most famous passages in sports journalism: "Outlined against a blue, gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden."

A student publicity aide later arranged for the four to pose on horseback for the classic photo that was published in newspapers across the country, a ploy that heralded the future of collegiate sports marketing.

Notre Dame's unprecedented success was a source of pride not just for students and alumni of the school, but for a national audience of Roman Catholics who closely identified with the program and who found in the Irish a means of combating religious prejudice and hatred. As noted by Indiana religion professor Mary Jo Weaver, parochial school teachers and administrators would lead weekly prayers for a Notre Dame victory as "an important part of our 'Holy War' against the Protestant majority in America." Thus, Notre Dame was uniquely suited to take advantage of a collegiate sporting world just beginning to evolve from regional identification to a broader national appeal.

The Notre Dame legend was also fertilized by the stuff of legend.

The Irish were suffering through their worst season under Rockne when they faced an undefeated Army team in 1928. Trailing at the half, Rockne recalled a deathbed conversation he supposedly had with former player George Gipp eight years earlier to deliver his famous "Win One For the Gipper" speech. Though Rockne's account of Gipp's final words is widely considered apocryphal, the speech inspired the Irish to upset Army, 12-6.

Ultimately, it was Rockne's contributions to the game that mattered most. His use of the pass went against the established convention of the running game, and he was among the first coaches to use a "two-platoon" system. He was also the first football coach to schedule road games around the country.

The Irish won their sixth national championship under Rockne in 1930. On March 31, 1931, while en route to Los Angeles to film a football demonstration film, Rockne was killed when his plane crashed in a wheat field in Kansas.

LEAHY REVIVAL

The Irish were respectable in the decade following Rockne's death (16-9-2 under Heartley Anderson and 47-13-3 under the former Horseman Layden) but fell short of the heightened expectations of Notre Dame faithful.

The program returned to championship status under Frank Leahy, another former Irish player. Leahy returned to South Bend after successful stints with Fordham and Boston College, whom he led to a national championship the previous year.

It didn't take long for Leahy to make his presence felt. Notre Dame went 8-0-1 in his first season. The next year, despite outrage from Irish fans over his scrapping of Rockne's box formation for the soon-to-be-standard T-formation, they finished 7-2-2.

Leahy won the first of four national championships in 1943, before leaving to join the Navy for two years. (Notre Dame was led by Ed McKeever in 1944 and Hugh Devore in 1945).

Leahy picked up where he left off, winning national championships in 1946 and 1947. Another might have followed in 1948 but the Irish lost their perfect season with a 14-14 tie with USC in the final game.

Leahy won his final national championship in 1949, but the program was beginning to suffer from its success. A year earlier, the administration reduced the number of football scholarships it offered from 33 to 18 as profitable contests against other successful programs became harder to schedule.

In 1953, his final year with the program, Leahy watched as another likely national championship was lost to a 14-14 tie, this time with Iowa.

Leahy resigned after the season, later saying that he felt he was no longer wanted. He left the school with an 87-11-9 record (for the second-highest winning percentage in NCAA history), six undefeated seasons and four national championships.

THE ERA OF ARA

The Irish faltered over the next decade as Terry Brennan, Joe Kuharich (the only Notre Dame coach to leave with a losing record) and Devore tried unsuccessfully to sustain the program's lofty status. But, once again, success was reclaimed quickly with the hiring of a soon-to-be legendary coach: Ara Parseghian.

Parseghian, who played two years with the Cleveland Browns and coached at Miami University and Northwestern, earned coach of the year honors after leading the Irish to a 9-1 record in his first season.

Parseghian was something of an anomaly among Notre Dame coaches, being neither Roman Catholic nor a former Irish player. Yet, his 95-17-4 record and two national championships ultimately earned him a permanent place in South Bend; a statue of Parseghian was installed on campus last fall.

The Irish went undefeated in 1966 but Parseghian endured criticism for playing for a tie against Michigan State that season. In fact, criticism for ties and losses hounded Parseghian throughout his time at Notre Dame, despite his 1966 national championship and Cotton Bowl appearances in 1970 and '71 (the school's first bowl games after a 40-year refusal to participate in postseason play).

Parseghian finally achieved a perfect season in 1973. He retired for health reasons a year later.

DEVINE INTERVENTION

Dan Devine was a finalist for the head coaching position that was ultimately awarded to Parseghian, and he had no qualms about accepting the job after Parseghian retired. With a coaching resume that included stops at Arizona State, Missouri and the Green Bay Packers, Devine had solid credentials but little hope of assuaging restless Irish fans, despite a 53-16-1 record over five years.

Even during the Irish's 11-1 national championship season in 1977, fans outside Notre Dame Stadium sported "Dump Devine" bumper stickers.

Devine led his teams to three major bowl victories, including the infamous "Chicken Soup Game," the 1979 Cotton Bowl, in which an ill Joe Montana returned in the fourth quarter to rally the team from 22 points down with seven and half minutes to go for a thrilling 35-34 win over Houston.

Devine resigned in 1980 after a 9-2-1 season and a Sugar Bowl loss.

HOLTZ YEARS

After a relatively forgettable five-year span presided over by Gerry Faust, Notre Dame turned to veteran coach Lou Holtz.

A decidedly old-school disciplinarian, Holtz's fiery approach was embraced by Irish faithful, even as he led the team to a 5-6 record in his first season. He rewarded Notre Dame fans two years later with an undefeated season and national championship. That year, the Irish upset No. 1 Miami in the so-called "Catholics vs. Convicts" game and defeated West Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl.

That would turn out to be the high point of an 11-year reign that included nine consecutive bowl games and five Associated Press top 10 final rankings. The 1993 Irish finished 11-1, but voters selected Florida State (also 11-1) as the national champion, despite the fact that the Irish had defeated them head-to-head in the regular season.

Holtz resigned in 1996.

A MURKY PRESENT

Recent Irish history has been a mixed bag of moderate success (from the program's perspective) and embarrassing controversies.

Bob Davie succeeded Holtz in 1997, leading the Irish to three bowl appearances and, unacceptable to Notre Dame fans, three bowl losses. His tenure was also marked by a successful age-discrimination lawsuit by fired offensive line coach Joe Moore and NCAA probation as a result of improper gifts given to Irish players by booster Kim Dunbar.

Davie was fired in 2001 and replaced, temporarily as it turned out, by George O'Leary.

O'Leary's term lasted just five days. He was fired after it was discovered that he had falsified parts of his resume.

The school recovered by hiring Stanford head coach Tyrone Willingham, the first African-American head coach in Notre Dame history. Willingham led the Irish to a 10-2 record and a No. 4 ranking in his first season, but managed just 11 wins against 12 losses over the next two seasons, leading Notre Dame to buy out the remainder of his five-year contract in 2004.

After an unsuccessful courtship of Urban Meyer, the Irish hired former New England Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie Weis.

Weis reenergized the Irish with a 9-3 record and an appearance in the 2005 Fiesta Bowl, where the Irish lost to Ohio State. The squad improved to 10-2 the following season but lost in the Sugar Bowl to Louisiana State, setting an NCAA record with nine consecutive post-season losses.

Last year, the program suffered through a 3-9 record and Irish faithful bemoaned the school's first six-game home losing streak and the first time it lost to two military academies (Navy and Air Force) in the same season.

This season, the Irish used a strong 4-1 start to finish 6-6 overall.