Just when it looked like Notre Dame would scrape out a respectable season and end up with a bid to an above-average bowl simply by beating Syracuse, they helped keep some mid-level SEC school’s dream of the Cotton Bowl alive by giving in to a complete fourth quarter capitulation to the Big East’s most feeble offense. Final score? Syracuse 24, Notre Dame 23. If Charlie Weis‘ seat wasn’t hot already, it’s burning up those 44-inch-waisted khakis now.

(This man is a coaching failure. And he beat Notre Dame. Makes sense.)

To their credit, Notre Dame’s fans took things into their own hands, pelting Fighting Irish players with snowballs as they sit on the bench. The fans also had the good taste to pelt an NBC cameraman with snowballs, while they were at it. After all, who needs leis when you’ve got airborne precipitation missles?

Here’s the AP’s account of the snowball-related events:

At first people started by throwing the snow in the air, but then began quickly tossing snowballs toward the Notre Dame sideline. Defensive lineman Ian Williams got hit in the helmet, defensive end Ethan Johnson was struck on the left cheek and a St. Joseph County police officer on the sideline looking into the crowd got hit in the chest. An NBC camera man also was a frequent target and several snowballs reached the field, although none landed near where play was occurring.

Really, you can’t blame the fans when you realize how bad the Orange are. So how bad is Syracuse? They’re 2-8 overall but only 1-5 in the Big East, the only conference which might make the ACC look almost respectable. OK, the Big East isn’t that bad (the ACC, on the other hand, is. UNC gets housed by NC State by 31? Are you serious?), but Syracuse really is. Under now-deposed head coach Greg Robinson, they’ve seamlessly slipped into the role vacated by Temple when the conference re-aligned. They don’t win, they don’t score that much and they play no defense whatsoever.

Still, they were good enough to beat Notre Dame, which missed a potential game-winning, 52-yard field goal as time expired, sending Syracuse players into a jubilant celebration that’s right behind last year’s Navy delirium in the “visiting teams love to win in South Bend” category.

What does Notre Dame do now? Well, they’re still ticketed for a bowl game somewhere, though at 6-6, they’re now a lot more likely to end up playing in the Emerald Bowl than the Outback Bowl. Hey, San Francisco isn’t a bad city, but it’s not exactly the place you draw up as an ideal holiday college football destination. Congratulations, Fighting Irish fans. You continue to make mediocrity look even worse than it is.