Bob Davie must send his résumé elsewhere. Someone is already coaching nose tackles at Slippery Rock. And he isn't going anywhere.

	It looks like Bob Davie will have to call on another Division II program.

"He can come and apply for my job, but I'm going to go down swinging. I'll fight for it," Slippery Rock, Pa., defensive line coach Shawn Lutz said. "Coach Mihalik is also my son's godfather, and family is important, and so he may not want to fire me."

No, Slippery Rock coach George Mihalik won't fire Lutz, even if he's already received a bunch of e-mails congratulating him on hiring Davie for the job. "Shawn's our defensive line coach," he said. "That's not to say Bob Davie is not an outstanding football coach, and if something opened up, we would love to have him on the staff."

Of course, Mihalik added, "There would be a slight reduction in his salary."

All this Davie to Slippery Rock University stuff started innocently a couple of weeks ago when reporters asked Davie to speculate on his future if Notre Dame fired him. He replied he and his family would be happy even "if I coach the nose tackles tomorrow at Slippery Rock ... "

No one outside South Bend, Ind., paid much attention at the time, but when Notre Dame did fire Davie over the weekend, ESPN aired that quote, and ever since, Lutz said, "I'm like a celebrity at Slippery Rock."

The phone rings in his office so often you would think a long distance carrier wanted to offer a new "7 cents a minute" service. Lutz is on the road recruiting, so the messages pile up. He cleared his voice mail Tuesday morning, and it was full again by early afternoon.

"They're calling up and saying, 'Coach if you need a job ...' and 'I didn't know you were leaving ...' or 'Are you getting fired?' " Lutz said. "I'm like, 'What's going on?' I'm getting Division I coaches calling me up.

"Even my wife called and asked whether I still had a job. She had heard something about it from friends. I told her not to worry, that I'm in good shape, as far as I know. Unless Bob Davie calls the president."

Lutz said he hopes when he visits recruits, "They won't be confused and think that Bob Davie is going to be coaching the defensive line. But maybe that will help us recruit. Maybe they'll say, 'All right! Bob Davie is going to coach there.' "

Then again, given Davie's record at Notre Dame, maybe they won't be so excited at that prospect.

"Yeah," he laughed, "that might hurt us, too."

	“	Even my wife called and asked whether I still had a job. She had heard something about it from friends. I told her not to worry, that I'm in good shape, as far as I know. Unless Bob Davie calls the president. ”
		— Shawn Lutz, Slippery Rock defensive line coach

Lutz has football in his blood. He grew up in Massillon, Ohio, where, as he says, "They put a football in your cradle." He played tight end at West Virginia during its 1993 Sugar Bowl season and set his goal on being a head coach when he graduated. This is his sixth year at Slippery Rock, which has one of the most successful programs in Division II.

"I'm not saying I'd never want to go Division I," Lutz said, "but it would have to be the right situation, because I'm very happy at Slippery Rock."

Besides, Notre Dame might be the most famous and storied program in college football, but Slippery Rock is nearly as well known, thanks to its strange name and the old ABC halftime reports. "Around here I ask, 'What are the two most famous names in college football?' " Mihalik said. "Notre Dame and Slippery Rock."

"I go to Florida." Lutz said, "and I'm wearing my Slippery Rock shirt, and they'll buy it off my back for $25 or $30."

And while Notre Dame has some of college football's most famous landmarks, Slippery Rock has its monument, too. "They have Touchdown Jesus and the Golden Dome, and we have a real big rock by the corner of the end zone," Mihalik said. "I climb up on it every Friday to talk to the team. It's about 6 feet high, and it seems to get bigger every year. Or maybe I'm just getting old."

So Notre Dame and Slippery Rock have plenty in common -- aside from Notre Dame's money, prestige, pressure, national championships, movies and Heisman Trophy winners, that is.

And Lutz knows there is one other very important difference between his job and Davie's old one.

"There's a world of difference between being a head coach at Division I and a position coach at Division II," Lutz said. "The biggest difference is I have a job right now."

Jim Caple is a senior writer for Page 2.