Gut Reaction, Nine Hours Later

Hey guys. Notre Game is overrated. We all know that. Take away the Touchdown Jesus, the Knute Rockne, the stupid gold helmets, the Rudy, the this, and the Jabba the Weis, and you're left with a mediocre 4-1 team who beat no teams with a winning record. But when you slap a fat TV contract, a stupid BCS bowl rule, a Heisman candidate for lack of any competition, and a cheerleader inexplicably given hours of airtime, and people think you are a "resurgent power." I think that had two big implications for this game:
1) Nobody will notice SC sucked it up today. People will look at the scoreboard, see it was a tight game, and assume that is because Notre Dame is a good team. Ugh. This is great; we have gotten a virtual pass for playing poorly, simply because we played America's Team. A 34-27 victory over UCLA or ASU would come with boatloads of skepticism and etc. But when you beat Notre Dame 34-27 it is gritty and a slugfest and you duked it out down to the wire. Fine. Whatever.

2) SC should not have sucked this up that much. 27 points? Ridiculous. The last team to score that many points on us: Nebraska. 31 points, 9/15/07. I had forgotten we even played Nebraska until I looked that up. My point being, SC got way up in the game, stepped off the gas, and then inexplicably forgot where their foot was, ended up in a Flintstones car, and then proceeded to crash but there was only 1 second left, and then the clock was out. Good metaphor. I know people will say Jimmy Clausen's tears cure incompletions (huh?), but we are supposed to be an elite defense, and an elite defense doesn't a) give up fake field goals (although Pete is calling foul) b) don't give up a huge 45-yard TD pass to Golden Tate c) don't force four fumbles and recover zero and d) don't give up 27 points.

2 Bonus Points:
-That unsportsmanlike conduct call on Everson Griffen was total bunk. I watched Keith Rivers and Lawrence Jackson do the same (flex muscles) or even more (crazy shark, gator chomp dance) and never get flagged. Griffen looked to the stands, muscled, got 15 yards. Maybe there was something I didn't see, because (spoiler) I am not all-football-knowing, but looked pretty ridiculous to me. Oh just kidding, it's because when you go to Notre Dame, you are set to a higher standard because you are playing where The Greats did and nobody understands football like the Irish so why don't you just go back to surfing and handing out envelopes of cash.

-We'll leave you with the sage wisdom of Joe McKnight: "Just to have them crying after the game is a good thing for everyone on the team."