With a bright, young head coach, All-American leaders on both offense and defense and a Top 20 preseason ranking, Notre Dame entered the 2011 season with some of the highest expectations the team has had in years, but all of those high hopes quickly came crashing down to earth with one turnover-filled, rain-soaked nightmare loss to South Florida on Saturday night.
The loss leaves the Irish staring at three-straight very losable games against Michigan, Michigan State and Pittsburgh and the very real possibility of starting the year at 2-2 and maybe even 1-3.
The season certainly wasn’t supposed to start like this.
Notre Dame wasn’t supposed to lose to a Big East team on its home field in the first game of the season.
Not this year.
This was the season when coach Brian Kelly, now in his second year in South Bend, was going to have his team take the next step.
A double-digit win campaign and a trip back to a BCS bowl game were talked about as very real possibilities for a team that returned 17 starters, including two future first round NFL draft picks, WR Michael Floyd and LB Manti Te’o.
This was the year when Kelly’s spread passing attack was going to light up stat sheets and scoreboards all season long and it was the year when those vaunted big recruits were going to help turn the defense into a stout and stifling unit.
And then it came.
That one moment.
When South Florida cornerback Kayvon Webster picked up Jonas Gray’s goal line fumble early in the first quarter on Saturday, you could almost hear the air deflate out of Notre Dame’s balloon of hope, as Webster raced 94-yards for a huge momentum-swinging score.
Oh no, we all thought, it’s the same old Notre Dame again.
No, not that Notre Dame.
Not Knute Rockne’s Notre Dame, or Ara Parseghian’s Notre Dame or even Lou Holtz’s Notre Dame.
No, this same old Notre Dame team is the one that we’ve gotten all too familiar with in recent years.
The one that got our hopes up before the start of the season, only to fall flat when it came time to get it done out on the field.
Ty Willingham did it, Charlie Weis did it and dare I say it, Brian Kelly did it as well.
We watched the SportsCenter behind-the-scenes specials, we read all the magazine articles and we got sucked in once again.
We believed in Brian Kelly, because we thought Kelly was different. Different from Weis, different from Willingham, different from all the other coaches who failed to recapture Notre Dame’s prestigious magic.
Kelly looked like the kind of coach who could accomplish what all those other recent predecessors failed to do—get the most out of his talented team.
As we saw on Saturday, however, that was most certainly not the case.
Notre Dame played an undisciplined, mistake-ridden brand of football that was in no way reminiscent of the glory days of the program.
When Kelly first got the job, he made it clear that he wanted Notre Dame to stay an independent football team, even with all the rumors swirling about an invitation to join the Big Ten.
"From my standpoint, being the head football coach at Notre Dame, there's nothing better than being an independent football school."
“Let me tell you one thing, the history, the tradition of Notre Dame football is steeped in that independence."
Well coach, it may finally be time to rethink that idea.
The problem is that history and tradition means nothing if you can’t get the job done against teams you’re supposed to beat.
Yes, South Florida was a solid squad with good athletes, but they weren’t the type of team you lose to if you’re really the Notre Dame you say you are.
The reality is, though, Notre Dame has lost its mystique.
The history and tradition are still there, sure, but what does it all mean if it doesn’t chalk up to results?
Notre Dame has begun to lose its identity and it looks like it's time for the Irish to part ways with their stubborn attitude and give up on independence.
With super conferences looking more and more like the future reality for college football, the time seems right for Notre Dame to find itself a home before it's too late.
We thought it was a very real possibility that Notre Dame could end up in the Big Ten when an invitation was reportedly extended to them last summer, but that never came to fruition and it was Nebraska who made the move instead.
Notre Dame might love all the freedom and financial benefits that being an independent provides, but you can tell, it’s starting to hurt the program.
As we begin to embark on a possible new era of college football, now is definitely not the time to be living in the past, remembering how great things were in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
Times have changed.
Notre Dame has to realize that giving up its independent status and joining a conference is the right move for both the present and the future.
Having history and tradition is terrific, but as we’ve seen in recent years, it doesn’t help you win ball games.
If Notre Dame wants its identity back, the Irish have to find a real home first.
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