Clausen's Future Better Than Irish's

The punch, which left him with a black eye outside a South Bend bar in the wee hours, should remind Jimmy Clausen that it's time to go. No matter the circumstances -- even if it was as innocuous as Clausen being coldcocked by a jerk as he and his girlfriend were leaving C.J.'s Pub -- it should have been clear as he was absorbing a sucker punch that there's no good reason to return to Notre Dame next season.

What's lost in the swirl of trouble beneath the Golden Dome is that Clausen, under the tutelage of Charlie (Dead Hoodie Walking) Weis, has developed into a prime NFL prospect. If Weis has accomplished little else on the field, do give him props for grooming two quarterbacks, Clausen and Brady Quinn, and making them first-round draft picks. After two seasons of skittish play that mocked the huge expectations when he arrived on campus -- who will forget the day he showed up in a stretch Hummer limo, his hair spiked and gooped up, and said he wanted to win a few national championships? -- Clausen finally is channeling his raw skill into savvy, high energy and a play-while-injured spunk that has impressed pro executives. Once a yappy punk, he has grown into a feisty young man who was central in organizing the seniors' tribute to Weis last weekend in Notre Dame Stadium, though he is a junior.

I'm certain the NFL doesn't want that spunk played out with late-night fisticuffs. But if Clausen indeed was with his family all night after a tough Saturday loss to Connecticut, left the establishment innocently, went back in to retrieve his girlfriend's purse and was slugged, the next level won't hold it against him -- particularly considering the more serious crimes that commissioner Roger Goodell regularly deals with. "He was not engaged in a fight. He didn't throw any punches. He didn't directly engage the individual," said Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, addressing the dustup during a taping of his weekly radio show. "He just got coldcocked by somebody, and we're very disturbed by that."

That would fall in line with Clausen's self-assessment just last week. "I feel I've grown as a person off the field and on the field," he said. "I was looking forward to coming out of high school (and seeing) how am I going to change on the field and off the field. It's pretty spectacular to see where I've come from."

The incident at C.J.'s sounds pretty spectcular, too, one might say. Weis didn't address the reported altercation Tuesday at his media conference, saying only that Clausen will start Saturday at Stanford in what surely will be The Weis Guy's final game. It also will be Clausen's, if he and his advisers are thinking right.

As the quarterback, he has become the on-field lightning rod of the worst three-year stretch in Notre Dame football history, a 20-losses-in-27-months debacle. Yet this season, he doesn't deserve much of the blame. Weis, in a penetrating Sunday morning interview with FanHouse's John Walters, calls Clausen perhaps the greatest player in Notre Dame history -- "and, remember, I was a student when Joe Montana was here,'' he said. I'd argue that Weis is off his rocker, that Montana and most other Irish legends were big winners. And Clausen does have problems finishing off close games, which became the tipping point of the Weis era. But that's as much a coaching issue as it is a Clausen thing. Fact is, he has done marvelous work in rallying the Irish back from deficits and positioning them to win with a weak defense.

"You always want to have the ball in your hands at crucial times. You always want to win the big games," Clausen said. "You want to do everything you can to help the team win, whether it's hand the ball off or cheering the defense on or throwing a touchdown pass. It really doesn't matter -- all you're trying to do as a quarterback is just help your team win. If that leaves a legacy for yourself, then so be it."

Of all the quarterbacks available in the April draft -- Sam Bradford, Jake Locker, Colt McCoy and Tim Tebow are among the others -- don't be shocked if Clausen goes first. If that's the case, he must consider that his mentor is about to be fired, the defense remains a black hole, he won't be winning a national championship next season even if Bob Stoops comes on board and, in the most important variable, that Bradford cost himself more than $40 million in guaranteed money by staying at Oklahoma this year instead of leaving.

Call it the Sam Bradford Lesson. Though he might have been the No. 1 pick in the draft, the slot where the Detroit Lions selected Matthew Stafford and guaranteed him $41.7 million, Bradford chose to remain in school because he loved playing for the Sooners and being a college kid. It took less than one half of his season opener this year -- when he sprained the acromioclavicular joint in his throwing shoulder -- that his decision became a life mistake. The situation was exacerbated when he reinjured the shoulder Oct. 17. Now, after season-ending surgery was performed by Dr. James Andrews, Bradford will spend the next four to six months recovering -- when the NFL draft is five months away. He is a risk, and even if a team takes him as high as No. 10 and gives him $18 million guaranteed, he cost himself as much as $23.7 million in the process.

"Some people think money is everything, but to me money is not everything," said Bradford, who insists he'd make the same decision again. "To look at these (teammates) and look at the relationships I've built and the experience that I've had here -- not many people can say that. I've been extremely blessed to be here. The past 3½ years have been 3½ of the best years of my life. I wouldn't trade a day of it."

He might feel differently in about 20 years. Clausen can't make the same error, especially with rookie compensation sure to be downsized in the 2011 draft as the NFL and the players' association squabble over radical changes. "I haven't talked to my family, coach Weis or anybody about the future," Clausen said Saturday. "I'm going to go in, watch the tape, see what I could have done better in the game and get ready to go out to California and play Stanford."

Where Notre Dame is going, no one knows. After three straight dud coaching hires, the next one has to stick -- or whatever mystique is left will fade into 21st-century oblivion. Weis no doubt will be fired a day or two after the Stanford game, a fate further sealed when Swarbrick said on his radio show that Weis will return with the team to South Bend instead of recruiting on the West Coast. One thing we know is that the next coach won't be Urban Meyer. The man who once considered Notre Dame to be his "dream job'' now realizes his Florida job is state of the art, far better than the one in South Bend.

"I'm ready to dispel it," Meyer said. "I'm going to be the coach at Florida as long as they'll have me. So I want to make that clear."

Said Tebow, the college legend who will quarterback his final home game in Gainesville on Saturday against Florida State: "I don't think he'll be at Notre Dame. I don't think that's anything he'll do now. I don't think he'll do that ever. I don't think he's really interested. I think he's enjoying his time here. I think he's enjoying being the head coach at the University of Florida and enjoying this senior class and being undefeated; we've won 21 in a row. He loves his players, and I don't think he wants to go to a place where he has to start fresh."

Start fresh. Who ever thought Notre Dame ever would have to start fresh, over and over again? That's why Jimmy Clausen must leave for the NFL. At least he has a glowing future.