He's had plenty of talent and has built some outstanding regular season teams, but if he's failed in the playoffs. His inability to get some really great teams over the hump killed a lot of the interest in the team.
The other problem is that ND doesn't actually care about sports. Lax is a great sport, but ND is never going to promote it the was they need to. If it weren't for the ND FB players going to the UVA game, 95% of ND fans would have been aware that a game of the magnitude was even played.