WEIS CONSIDERED LEAVING NOTRE DAME

While Notre Dame fans are cautiously optimistic about the upcoming season, last year’s season had a series of highs and lows, with the bottom coming during a stretch that saw Notre Dame lose at home on Senior Day to a woeful Syracuse team and get skunked by USC to end their regular season.(The loss to Syracuse had little Charlie skipping three days of school after the embarrassing defeat.)In a 35-minute interview with the Chicago Tribune’s Teddy Greenstein, Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis said he considered leaving Notre Dame to return to the NFL as a coordinator."We talked about all that as a family, and we felt that we didn’t want to leave that way,” Weis said. “That would have been the easy way out. That’s not why we came here."Weis spoke candidly about the issues of his last two years at Notre Dame, where he’s failed to replicate the early success he had with two BCS appearances.While Weis is saying all the right things during this offseason, it’s very clearly a make-or-break season for the Irish. That said, Weis has to be confident about his team’s chances this season or he wouldn’t be opening up for several high-profile interviews.