Already, George O'Leary has been forgotten by Notre Dame, and it only took a couple of weeks' abject humiliation.

	Tyrone Willingham has overachieved with his last two Stanford teams.

Of course, one could suggest that hiring Tyrone Willingham as the new football coach of the Fighting Irish the first time would have solved all their problems. One could point out that Willingham had been there all along, just waiting for a call.

And one could make the point that, lustrous though Notre Dame might be among those who believe that football ends when NCAA eligibility does, Willingham could have done better.

Because it's true. Willingham could have done better, even by waiting just a couple of weeks.

First things first, though. Notre Dame hired well here, in fact hired better than they would have even if O'Leary's bio had been on the up-and-up. Even those who saw creeping racism in the school's choice not to interview Willingham after Bob Davie was fired must now admit that such was not the case. Racists do not take the cure this readily, and Willingham didn't suddenly turn white in two weeks.

Put simply, Notre Dame thought Tyrone Willingham was the best guy after George O'Leary, because sometimes things just look the way they look.

But the more burning question is whether this was best for Willingham. Plainly he must think so, since he took the job, and nobody ever made money underestimating Willingham's brainbox.

Still, Willingham did not come to Stanford seven years ago from college. He was one of Dennis Green's most trusted assistants with the Minnesota Vikings and had shown all the football aptitude a person could ask. He had been mentioned often for vacant NFL jobs (although mentions and interviews are two entirely different things), and he was going to be mentioned for more.

In addition, he had taken Stanford to the Rose Bowl in 1999 and nearly insinuated the school into the BCS picture in 2001, both times with teams considered no better than sixth best in the Pac-10 when those seasons began.

And let's be frank here. Stanford has boosted more coaches into the NFL (Green and Bill Walsh) in the last quarter-century than Notre Dame.

This last item does not suggest that somehow Stanford is superior to Notre Dame. We'll let the respective alumni slug that one out in the parking lot.

It does, however, indicate fairly strongly that Stanford is a more natural springboard to the pros, while Notre Dame has made the case with varying success over the years that Notre Dame is its own reward.

And one must wonder if that's enough for Tyrone Willingham.

Willingham won't let on, of course. He is only slightly less guarded than the No. 3 guy at the CIA's Really Dirty Jobs department. We suspect that he would deny he was Tyrone Willingham if he thought he could get away with it.

In fact, some people suspect that Notre Dame's many public demands could snap someone as rigid in the world of public relations as Willingham. He had it all his own way at Stanford -- mild interest from the outside, unconditional support from the inside, a largely casual media and an expectation-free environment. His team's trip to the Rose Bowl was the school's first in 28 years, so his ticket at the school was punched for all eternity.

This assessment probably shorts Willingham, who can be as charming as he needs to be, even if the art of the schmooze doesn't come that naturally.

But if he could charm a hardened audience like Notre Dame's, it only stands to reason that he could do the same in the NFL, where there are nothing but expectations and where team owners are a lot less forgiving than any university president we know.

In short, if Willingham can do Notre Dame, he can do the NFL. And the NFL is, for a coach, a much better gig.

One, it pays more, even if Willingham has tripled his salary by going to South Bend, as has been guesstimated. Two, there is more autonomy for those NFL coaches who can negotiate it. Three, there is no recruiting to speak of, and making sure players go to class is, we would argue, more arduous than making sure players don't go to jail.

The wild card here is that perhaps Willingham didn't see the NFL job opportunities others see for him. After all, Notre Dame didn't see him until after O'Leary claimed that he had discovered radium and invented the electric guitar. Maybe his sense of what passes for progress in the NFL (three African American head coaches out of 32 teams) is not as developed as what passes for progress in Division 1 (five African American head coaches in 115 programs).

I mean, he seems happy enough. And few people know the pain of waiting quite like an African American football coach.

But we still suspect he could have waited a bit longer, and done better. Notre Dame is easier to turn around than say, the Arizona Cardinals or Cincinnati Bengals, but not as easy as, say, the Indianapolis Colts or Jacksonville Jaguars.

Anyway, good on Tyrone Willingham, and good on Notre Dame. Maybe they'll be as happy about this two years from now as they are now. We'll just have to wait and see.

Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.