For Faust and Irish : Pinkett, Beuerlein Will Shoulder Load

Notre Dame’s football hopes and possibly the future of Coach Gerry Faust will rest on the shoulders of quarterback Steve Beuerlein and tailback Allen Pinkett, literally and figuratively.

Beuerlein and Pinkett both have undergone shoulder surgery, and both expect to be ready when the Irish open the 1985 season Sept. 14 at Michigan.

The two, along with a dozen other players, missed the annual Blue-Gold spring game last Saturday although Pinkett claimed, “I could have played if it were a real game.”

Pinkett is farther along with his recovery than Beuerlein since he had the operation sooner. Beuerlein didn’t undergo surgery until April 16 but expects to be throwing again in a couple of months.

The two will be key factors in the Notre Dame offense this fall, and both have high hopes for the team.

“I have felt for four years that we have had the talent and the potential, but it hasn’t worked that way,” said Pinkett. “Maybe this is the year.”

Beuerlein wants more than just another bowl game. He wants to go to a major bowl like “the Sugar Bowl or the Orange Bowl so we can show people we can play the best teams in the country.”

Faust, who goes into the fifth and last year of his first contract as head coach at Notre Dame, feels the Irish will be playing some of the best teams in the country this fall.

“Eight of the teams we’re playing went to bowl games last season,” Faust said. “Nobody has a tougher schedule, but we always seem to play better against the tougher teams.”

Faust tried to sidestep questions concerning his position at Notre Dame.

“I’m not interested in that stuff,” Faust said. “I’ll talk to you about that after the season. I don’t want to detract from this team. I’m not worried about it, so why should you guys be worried about it.”

In his four years at Notre Dame, the Irish have had seasons of 5-6, 6-4-1, 7-5 and 7-5 for an overall record of 25-20-1. They’ve been to the Liberty Bowl and the Aloha Bowl but have yet to make a major bowl under Faust.

“You can’t label us as a team that can’t win at the start, the middle or the end,” Faust said. “We’ve won four at the start, five in the middle and four at the end. If we can put all that together, what a year we can have.”

The Irish won their first four games under Faust in 1982, his second season. They won five straight in the middle of the 1983 season, and they closed the regular season in 1984 with four straight victories.

Those were significant victories. Going into the last four games, the Irish were 3-4 and facing almost certain losses against LSU, Penn State and USC.

But Notre Dame won all three of those games and tossed in an exciting, come-from-behind victory over Navy.

After a 44-7 walloping of Penn State at home, the “Oust Faust” bumper stickers began disappearing and the boos that were heard during three straight home losses to Miami, Air Force and South Carolina turned into chants of “Five More Years.”

A winning season and a bid to a major bowl would certainly assure Faust of remaining at Notre Dame.

Faust thinks the team can win if it stays healthy. That was proved last season.

“We didn’t have any injuries last spring but got them all in the fall,” Faust said. “When the injured players got well, we started to win. I hope this year it’s just the other way around. We’ve had a lot of injuries this spring but hope to be at full strength this fall.”