The Fella Expects To Win: Notre Dame coach LOU HOLTZ

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Take a peek at the guy in the baseball cap. Short fella. Kinda homely. Ears hanging out there like wind spoilers. Talks with a trace of a lisp. Looks like he'd be at home on the showroom floor of any Sears store in Middle America, moving metal. Appliances, that is. Be good at it too. Get you right into that Kenmore 831 series washer when what you were really thinking about was the 701 at 56 bucks less. But oh so politely, so that you later reckon it was your idea in the first place. Bet he loves to fish and swap tall tales. Family man. Churchgoer. Never kicked the dog.

Look again.

The short fella is not so short, not quite so homely. It just seems that way because his 5-ft. 10-in., 148-lb. frame is diminished, standing, as he is, at the edge of a grove of young Paul Bunyans. He's talking to -- no, he's shouting at -- one of them. About the option play. How to execute it correctly. As he plants one foot and pivots decisively, moving his hands in a precise pattern that he's repeated thousands of times before, the young man in the football jersey barks, "Yes, sir! Yes, sir!"

The lisp is less evident now, and any thoughts one may have had of this man idling afternoons away over a fishing rod disappear. Abruptly, he turns away from his quarterback and stalks downfield toward the defense. Out of the corners of their eyes, the helmeted giants and his assistant coaches see him coming. Chests tighten. The execution and speed of the defensive drills rev up a notch. The simple reason: no one is eager to receive one-on-one remedial instruction from Louis Leo Holtz on this or any upcoming autumn afternoon.

Just plain Lou Holtz. The name doesn't resonate like Knute Rockne or George Gipp, men around whom the legend of Notre Dame football has been molded. It doesn't sound larger than life, like the Four Horsemen or the Golden Boy, players who subsequently graced the annals of the Fighting Irish. Nor does it seem of sufficient luster to be mentioned in the same sentence with Frank Leahy and Ara Parseghian, coaches who won multiple national championships and were subsequently canonized by fanatic subway alumni. Holtz would be the first to agree with all this. "All I ever wanted was a job in the mill, a car, $5 in my pocket and a girl," he says with his sly, lopsided grin.

So much for aiming low. In four seasons as coach at the University of Notre Dame, Holtz has returned the school to the pinnacle of college football from which it had fallen in mortification under the earnest but inept Gerry Faust. Last year Holtz drove a young, tentative team to a 12-0 record and a national championship with a variation of the message that ugly ducklings can become beautiful swans if they work hard, love one another and believe they can be great. Holtz fervently believes that. He also devoutly embraces traditional values, specifically the importance of having on his side God, ferocious linebackers and halfbacks who, once they are given the football, run like scalded dogs.

This year Notre Dame is 11-0 after last Saturday's 34-23 defeat of Penn State, and two wins away from a second consecutive national title. The Irish could conceivably stumble this weekend against Miami or on New Year's night against undefeated Big Eight champion Colorado. But the 23 consecutive victories Holtz has directed add up to an achievement unmatched by any of his more illustrious predecessors.