Joe Raymond / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen will lead a Notre Dame youth movement that may see several freshmen and sophomores playing major roles.

"Michael Floyd," said recruiting analyst Tom Lemming, "will be able to run the routes, will be able to block, will be able to handle the pressure of being the best wide receiver prospect to walk in the door since Randy Moss tried to (and was turned away in 1995), because Michael has both feet on the ground.

"He sees the big picture. He’s not going to have the highs and lows of being a prodigy. He’s got such an even temperament and mature perspective. And he’s a leader, so people will follow him."

There are days when Weis tries to roll back the anticipation, spewing vanilla descriptions and monosyllabic reports on the progress of the 6-foot-3, 205-pounder. Too bad he has an online poker face.

"I’m just trying to make my way," said Floyd, a genuinely humble kid who was so concerned about his celebrity diluting team goals at Cretin-Derham Hall High School in St. Paul, Minn., that he limited what kind of questions the media could ask him his final two years there.

"I’m just trying to move the chains, catch balls, just kind of make the bus and travel with the team," he said. "I don’t know where I am on the depth chart right now."

Wherever it is today, it stands to be more upwardly mobile as the season progresses.

Last fall when Floyd verbally committed to Notre Dame on the same weekend the Irish were humiliated by arch-rival USC (38-0), it squelched the perceptual hemorrhaging to Weis’ still-pliable coaching image that maybe the Mark Mays of the world were right and perhaps Weis really was too NFL, too corporate to succeed at his alma mater.

From that point in mid-October forward, the freshman class continued to add big names and reputations, while only losing one (defensive lineman Omar Hunter to Florida). They texted, e-mailed and bonded electronically through the winter months. Then they did it for real this summer.

"I think that kind of defined their character," Weis said of the class unity. "Before they got here, you knew you had a special group, because they were getting hammered every day, everywhere they went. By their peers. At school. At the grocery store. And certainly by every other college in America. So that’s one of the reasons you know they’re special."

The unity thing doesn’t always work out perfectly. The offensive freshmen recently decided to shave their heads, for instance, but before they consulted Robinson — whose hair extends a third of the way down his back — and center Mike Golic Jr. — whose full beard and wavy hair were the kind of fashion statement he wants to make.

"We’re the good-looking ones," Golic reasoned.

"The reason we did it was just kind of like a fun thing," quarterback Dayne Crist said. "It was like a clean start. It was a good time."

Crist said running backs Armando Allen and James Aldridge, and punter Eric Maust — none of whom are freshmen — served as barbers.

"It was voluntary," Crist insisted. "It’s camp. It will grow back."

Weis is determined the initial bullish impression he made on the college football world three seasons ago — even with a new dose of adversity — will be repeated.

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Joe Raymond / AP

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