Notre Dame Fans

[autiger6 0]

NCAA

Notre Dame has had some bad losses in Charlie Weis' tenure. This was the worst.

Playing in South Bend and leading 2-8 Syracuse (with its lame-duck coach) 20-10 heading to the fourth quarter, the Irish collapsed. Syracuse put together two touchdown drives, Notre Dame missed a pair of field goals - including one on the game's final play - and the Orange pulled out a 24-23 win.

Let me repeat that: The Syracuse Orange. Won. At Notre Dame.

And if that's not bad enough, the Irish's own fans turned on them, pelting the bench with snowballs.

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.

Seriously? Who pelts their own team with snowballs? I mean, in Philadelphia they occasionally throw snowballs at the opposing team ... or at Santa. But this is a new one to me.

When the Irish defense held a meeting on the sideline, injured linebacker Brian Smith stood on a bench to try to shield his teammates. But when a snowball hit defensive tackle Pat Kuntz, he stood and faced the crowd and appeared to challenge whoever threw it to come down on the field.

Now that's just ridiculous.

Perhaps the friendly fire stemmed from the fact that Notre Dame football continues to find new ways to induce head shaking.

As always, you have to give credit to Syracuse for heading into South Bend and coming from behind. I mean, the 'Cuse are bad, but not as bad as people might necessarily think. The Orange quarterback Cameron Dantley has good athleticism and might turn into a pretty solid player eventually, and running back Curtis Brinkley would be a much bigger name if not for playing for Syracuse.

Still, this is pretty unacceptable for Notre Dame.

Less than a week ago, Syracuse fired head caoch Greg Robinson, effective at the end of the season. (Quick note to say that it's hard to not feel happy for Robinson. Watching him on the sidelines, you could see how much this game meant to him).

The Orange have two wins this season - over Louisville and Northeastern. They had not won a road game since beating Louisville on Sept. 22 of last year. They did the job on Saturday, though, despite Weis calling plays again. The Weis- dictated offense generated just 41 rushing yards against Syracuse, and spent its final drive running Hail Mary drills. One of those prayers connected to get Notre Dame into range for a long field goal attempt but, obviously, it missed.

If only kicker Brandon Walker had the aim of those snowball fighters

[rexbo 104]

Sounds like a perfect place for Saban; he would have the misbehaving fans to match his misbehaving players.