CHESTNUT HILL, MA -- Notre Dame, and Charlie Weis' reputation, took another beating Saturday night at Boston College.

A week after blowing a two-touchdown halftime lead at home and losing in four overtimes to Pitt -- which had given up six TD passes and 54 points to Rutgers the previous Saturday -- the Flailing Irish were whitewashed, 17-0, by the Eagles, who had given up an average of 31.5 points a game in their last four ACC games, including a 27-21, home field loss to Clemson, and a 45-24 trouncing at North Carolina.

Notre Dame's highly-touted sophomore quarterback, Jimmy Clausen, threw four interceptions, and the Struggling Irish special teams were terrible -- having a punt blocked for the second straight week, fumbling way another punt early in the second half that paved the way to BC opening up a commanding, 17-0 lead, and picking up penalties on kickoff returns that left ND with poor field position.

"Am I disappointed we lost to Pitt in four overtimes? Yes, I am," Weis said Saturday night. "Am I disappointed we were up at North Carolina and lost in the fourth quarter? You betcha. But, right now, I'm more concerned that we lost to BC."

It was Notre Dame's sixth straight loss to the Eagles -- the last two on Weis' watch -- and marked the seventh time in the last eight games that BC beat the Bumbling Irish.
"I'm not taking anything away from the BC defense," said Weis, "But pitching a goose egg is unacceptable."

What's difficult for Patriots fans who watched Weis' offense help New England win three Super Bowls to accept is that Notre Dame is sorely lacking in firepower, despite a number of highly-recruited young players.

"We had no continuity on offense," Weis said, "which led to no production."

Early on, Notre Dame also had no field position.

"We committed penalties early in the game that put us in bad down-and-distance situations. It took us a quarter to get into any kind of (offensive) flow. We had two, little mini-drives where I actually felt we had something going, but we came up short (on fourth down) on one and threw a 'pick' on the other."

That "pick" was returned 76 yards for BC's first touchdown.

"The ball sailed on him," Weis said of the first of Clausen's four interceptions.

"A couple of those, it goes back to a guy trying to make plays when the plays aren't there to be made. He was pressing. Any quarterback wants to make plays that will change things around. Sometimes, that can have a detrimental effect."
It was only on defense that Notre Dame played well.

"I got the first defense together," Weis said, "and told them: 'Unless you pitched a shutout, we were going to lose this game.' "

The Irish now have lost two in a row, and three of four, to drop to 5-4 in Weis' fourth season. He was only 3-9 last year, and had to beat Duke and Stanford in the final two games to do that.

With Navy sailing into South Bend next weekend -- Weis is the only Notre Dame coach in 45 years to lose to the Midshipmen -- Charlie says he's considering taking greater control of the offense.

"I may become more involved," he said Saturday night. "Those things start going through your mind. I'm going to devote a lot more energy (this week) to offense and special teams."

At a school were Knute Rockne, Frank Leahy, and Ara Parseghian became legends, and, more recently, Dan Devine and Lou Holtz also won national championships, Weis knows -- especially since he's also an alum (class of '78) -- the heat always is on the head coach.

"I'm the boss," he said. "Ultimately, the criticism comes to me."