Weis's Future Might Depend on Crist's Knee

It doesn't take much to construct a universe in which Charlie Weis is staring down the barrel of an almost certain firing in 2010. Take one play here or there -- or a correct call against Washington -- and put the Irish definitively out of the BCS this year and you're almost there. Without a BCS bid this year to justify the last two years of pain, two events would conspire to make next year an almost inevitable farewell tour. Event the first: ND has lost Dane Crist, the team's backup quarterback, for the remainder of the season. Crist will undergo knee surgery Friday for a torn right ACL. Weis said Crist, a sophomore, will be out from four to six months. That knocks the highly-touted redshirt freshman and Clausen heir apparent out for the rest of this year and through spring practice next year, even if that four-to-six-month recovery period -- which seems optimistic for an ACL tear even in this modern era of surgery -- is realistic. This would be only hypo...