This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
So, who do you think is happier that the private plane from Notre Dame left Utah without coach Urban Meyer or his signature aboard last winter - the Florida Gators, or the Fighting Irish themselves?
Tough call, I know.
Maybe this weekend will help.
That's when Meyer and the No. 6 Gators get their first real test of the season in a bitter rivalry matchup against coach Phil Fulmer and the hated Tennessee Volunteers, who are ranked fifth and have won three of the last four meetings, including the last two in Gainesville.
And by the time that game starts, the Irish will know whether they should keep working so feverishly on that statue of new coach Charlie Weis.
All Weis has done is become the first Notre Dame coach since some guy named Rockne to begin a season with two wins on the road, instantaneously transforming the Irish into a national championship contender despite being the guy to whom the Irish turned only after Meyer spurned their cheapskate deal and headed south.
Remember all that?
Everybody figured Meyer was a lock to replace Ty Willingham at Notre Dame in the days after leading Utah to its undefeated regular season, considering he was named after a pope, for crying out loud, and had forged much of his coaching reputation as a hard-charging assistant under both Bob Davie and Lou Holtz in South Bend.
But despite his personal visit, Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White overplayed his hand by trying to lowball Meyer, who was hardly so devoted to the Golden Dome that he was willing to give up $1 million a year. That's all the Irish offered Meyer, who wound up accepting a seven-year deal with the Gators worth $2 million a year.
Curiously, that's what the Irish wound up giving Weis to lure him away from his job as offensive coordinator for the two-time defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots of the NFL - albeit for only six years - yet it was arguably a better bargain than landing Meyer.
Already, Weis has energized a once moribund offense, transformed quarterback Brady Quinn from the guy who couldn't beat BYU last year into a Heisman Trophy candidate and led the Irish over Pittsburgh and Michigan -both ranked teams - going into their home opener against Michigan State on Saturday.
"I can't let them feel too good about themselves," Weis said, "because we do play . . . against a team that has definitely got the best of the rivalry here in the last bunch of years."
Similar to the Volunteers in Florida, the Spartans - coached by former Utah State head man John L. Smith - have won four straight at Notre Dame Stadium, as well as 11 games overall, more than any other team.
"That's the first thing they're going to be hearing," Weis said.
Not that Notre Dame fans are necessarily more patient than their Florida counterparts, but Weis would seem to have more room for error at the moment.
In part, that's because he already has proven more with his team than Meyer in his two games against lightly regarded opponents. But it's also because Meyer put so much more effort into fueling the offseason hype about what he could do for the Gators and how much they could expect to improve under him.
Lose to the Vols?
He will have a lot more convincing to do.
"Everything is going to come down to this game," Florida's Mike Degory said. "This is our measuring stick for how well our offense is going to do in the SEC and where we're going to end up in the SEC. If we're going to take back the Swamp, it's going to start Saturday."
And if not?
Probably a lot of Fighting Irish fans will say they're happy that airplane returned home without Meyer on it.
RIVALRY CASUALTY
The side judge whose controversial personal-foul call helped Tennessee beat Florida last season has been reassigned from this year's game because of the death threats he received from furious Gators fans.
"The media would have exposed it and the fans would have eaten him alive," said Bobby Gaston, the supervisor of officials in the SEC.
Gaston told Florida Today that he re-assigned side judge Bobby Moreau to the Vanderbilt-Mississippi game in Nashville, rather than have him re-live the error-filled final 55 seconds of last season's 30-28 game in Knoxville. Moreau was suspended for two weeks for his mistakes, and nearly resigned because of the subsequent fan abuse, including weeks of threatening messages on his home and cell phones.