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?

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Tomorrow’s Stanford-Notre Dame matchup just got a whole lot more interesting thanks to Cardinal offensive lineman Chris Marinelli, who decided not to follow the unwritten rule of being gracious and respectful toward your upcoming opponent.

Marinelli, who apparently grew up in an Irish-Italian Catholic area in Massachusetts, doesn’t think too highly of Notre Dame. Nor does he think too highly of their stadium, or the entire South Bend metropolitan area for that matter. And those Catholics among whom he grew up? He doesn’t think much of them either.

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