While the crowd cheered when the Irish scored and made noise for UConn on third down, it was hollow. For this Fighting Irishman, who attended his first Notre Dame football game at the age of 11 years old, it felt like the next-to-last performance of a burned-out theater troupe—everyone saying their lines and hitting their marks, even as the spark went out of both the actors and the audience. As the game wore on, a deadly, heavy blanket of inevitability descended. By the middle of the third quarter, I knew we would lose this game.

What's left to say? With one game to go, Notre Dame Nation has already turned the page. Jimmy and Golden are as good as gone, and Charlie Weis is a dead man walking. The real driver of the ND story now ...

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