ND won the Big East regular season title and its 5th straight Big East tournament championship, and earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Lexington Regional, with a 45-15 record and national poll rankings from 15-20. But then ND belly-flopped, losing both tournament games. Shortly thereafter, Paul Mainieri left to take the LSU job, and ND has gone from 8 NCAA bids in 8 years to 1 in the last 10.

It seems to me that ND has lucked into most of its better coaching hires, and I dread the prospect of having to replace Corrigan.

Is GB our coach in waiting? I don't think I've ever seen anything in print to that effect. I think he could be a very good head coach-- but I greatly fear the program will take a big step backwards once Corrigan leaves/retires without the right hire.

KC leaves, I think GB could be a very effective head coach, particularly if he's paired with an effective and dedicated offensive coach.

If other candidates were to come in (and one hired), it would be great to pair the two together, much like the defensive coordinator at Va Tech was kept when Beamer moved on....

Is that Byrne is only about 2-3 years younger than Corrigan. If Corrigan leaves for the Virginia job now, then slapping a "coach in waiting" tag on Byrne is appropriate. If not, well . . .

For that matter, if Byrne has head coaching aspirations, I see him leaving in the very near future unless Corrigan takes the Virginia job.

Mainieri led LSU to the national championship in 2009.