Skip Holtz Talks Return to Notre Dame as USF Head Coach

Certain names and terms conjure images of Notre Dame’s illustrious history: The Four Horseman, Paul Hornung, Frank Leahy, Rudy. Lou Holtz is another Notre Dame icon as synonymous with the program as the gold, logo-less helmets or Touchdown Jesus. His son Skip is a UND alum and former Irish offensive coordinator. He left the program in 1993 to forge his one path out of the humongous shadow his father cast in South Bend. A week from this Saturday, the prodigal son returns as head coach of the USF Bulls, Notre Dame’s first opponent in the 2011 season.

“From an emotional standpoint…it won’t be as hard [as if] my father was on the opposite sideline,” Holtz said on his Monday morning teleconference. It will be a lot like the last game [Lou Holtz coached there in 1996]. That’s a day I will always remember.”

Holtz, then head coach at Connecticut, joined his family on the sidelines for what he described as a frigid, late November game.

“I still have the pictures of [the family] on the sidelines,” he said.

Holtz has been around the country, carving a niche for himself at stops in Connecticut, South Carolina, East Carolina and now South Florida. He had a seven-season gap between head coaching positions, leaving UConn after his mother, Beth, was stricken with cancer.

The road back to a head coaching job included reuniting with his father at South Carolina, a partnership that wasn’t without tumult. ECU snatched up Skip not long after he was moved from offensive coordinator to quarterbacks coach, and the Pirates’ piracy paid dividends. ECU became one of the most consistent non-BCS conference programs in the last half-decade.

Yet for all the stops elsewhere in nearly two decades, Holtz’s connection to Notre Dame is undeniably strong. He spoke highly of his time there as a student.

“I had a great experience there being an undergrad,” he said. “The atmosphere with the dorms, no Greek life, everyone living on campus is tremendous.

“Bookstore basketball is special,” he added, recognizing the university’s intramural basketball tournament. “We reached the Final Four twice. One year we lost to Bubba Starling and Steve Beuerline’s team.”

Holtz is more famous for his success on the gridiron than on the pick-up basketball court, of course. His father is the last head coach to lead a national champion at UND; Skip’s last season there was one play removed from playing for another title. Both his father’s and his success have made Skip’s a name that frequently comes up in hypothetical discussions for the program’s future.

The murmurings are understandable. But such chatter is exactly what Holtz said he wants to avoid in preparation for Week 1.

“Once the ball is on the tee, we have to play the game. We can’t the [media] circus to take away from our focus,” he said.

That wasn’t the only circus scenario Holtz said he wants to avoid. In addition, Holtz shied away from the unavoidable comparisons to his father.

“I’m not trying to be the next Lou Holtz. I would look like Bozo the Clown walking around wearing shoes that big,” he said.

And for the foreseeable future, UND has its coach. Brian Kelly set the benchmark Big East coaches like Holtz current aspire for while at Cincinnati. Kelly’s first season at Notre Dame has the Irish back in the national consciousness.

UND heads into the USF game with the momentum of a strong finish to 2010, in which it showed improvement both offensively and defensively. Holtz, a coach whose defenses at both USF and East Carolina excelled, had particular praise for the Irish on that side of the ball.

“The defense allowed a combined 22 points per game…the best since 1993,” he said.

The No. 22 ranked Bull defense will get a stiff challenge from an experienced offense as well.

“[Kelly] has a mindset to put the ball in the air,” Holtz said. “[Theo] Riddick and [Michael] Floyd make the engine go.

“[Kelly] is an emotional coach, a competitive coach…the team feeds off his energy. He’s doing a great job there…as he’s building the program.”

Doing so is a tall order, but knocking off Notre Dame on its homefield would be a tremendous feather in the cap of a USF program that has taken yearly strides toward forming its own tradition. Amazingly, Lou Holtz has been off the South Bend sidelines longer than the Bull program has even existed.

“The best thing I can do is coach USF. It was a great move for us as a family. This is a program with a lot of upside that’s growing on and off the field,” he said.

And it can grow just a little stronger off its head coach’s roots.