Trapped

 All of which is to say these Irish are going to be a lot more blue-jeans-and-tees than tuxedos most of the time, and that sometime this fall someone likely will beat them ... 

-- Me, six days ago

Well, sure. But I didn't mean this someone.

I didn't mean a guy from a Catholic high school in Fort Wayne (Bishop Luers) bringing a MAC school (Northern Illinois) to the most prominent Catholic university in the nation,  and stunning the No. 5 Irish, 16-14 -- a score that will live in infamy in South Bend, but will be bronzed forever in DeKalb, Ill.

I didn't mean a placekicker whose name (Kanon Woodill) now will also live in infamy in South Bend, just as David Gordon's name lives in infamy. The former drilled the field goal that iced the Irish yesterday with 31 seconds to play; the latter drilled the field goal for Boston College that iced the Irish in Rockne's house 30 years ago. 

Northern Illinois 16, Notre Dame 14.

First observation: Never sleep on a MAC school. Never, ever, ever.

Second observation: Good on Thomas Hammock, the guy from Bishop Luers, who got a career-defining W as a head coach and was overcome with emotion afterward because he knew it. Eons ago he was a truck of a running back for Luers, and later for Northern; now he's the most prominent branch in the Luers coaching tree, if in fact high schools have coaching trees.

Third observation: 

Hmmm.

Maybe it's that I should eat my words from six days ago, when, after Notre Dame gutted out a win at Texas A&M in the screeching sweat lodge of Kyle Field, I wrote that the Irish displayed an element of grit that has not always been in evidence. Of course, that was before they got beat at home by a quarterback with a '70s porn-stache (Ethan Hampton), and a running back (Antario Brown) who found the previously gritty Notre Dame defense most accommodating.

Ran 20 times for 99 yards, Brown did, which worked out to five yards a chunk. Caught two passes for 126 more yards, including the 83-yard score from which the Irish never fully recovered.

Third observation ...

Maybe it's this: Notre Dame paid Northern $1.4 million to come to South Bend to get toe-tagged. Instead, it was "We'll give you $1.4 million to punch us in the face. And no love-taps, either. Make it hurt."

Or maybe it's this: If you should never, ever, ever sleep on the MAC, then this was a classic trap game. Last week you're on the road against a team the wise guys said was the toughest on your schedule; next week you've got decades-old foe Purdue in Ross-Ade Stadium. And in between, the guarantee school.

So you get caught basking in the glow of that leather-tough win at A&M, and looking ahead to a traditional semi-rivalry game. And the guarantee school, which is better than you might have figured, comes in and gets you.

You can blame Marcus Freeman and his coaching staff for that, and certainly there's room to do so. After all, the Irish yesterday didn't look remotely like the outfit that took down A&M a week ago; the defense that was so stubborn in Kyle Field became 11 turnstiles through which Brown and his pals ran for 190 yards, and Northern piled up 388 total yards.

And the Irish offense?

As tough and resilient as Riley Leonard was against A&M, he was just as deer-in-the-headlights lost yesterday. His legs, which sustained Notre Dame a week ago, bought the Irish nothing yesterday; he ran 11 times for just 16 yards, a 1.5-yard average. Throw in the two picks he threw, one of them profoundly clueless, and he looked less like an accomplished field general than a field general who's about to get relieved of his command.

As went Leonard, so went the Irish. After Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price ground-and-pounded A&M, they got the call just 15 times between them yesterday -- even though Love averaged 7.2 yards per carry and Price 6.0.  The Irish wound up with 286 total yards, 102 fewer than Northern Illinois, and were just 3-for-10 on third down.

And now Freeman can look forward to a lovely week of howling from the garden of the aggrieved that is social media, and maybe questions about the status of Leonard as QB1. He'll be asked more than once why the Irish looked so woefully unready yesterday. And he'll be asked if Notre Dame will be ready for Purdue, whom history tells us has shocked the Irish a few times itself.

One thing's for sure: No one's going to be talking about the Irish running the table anymore, the way some of the over-reacting network dopes were a week ago.

That was a dose of unreality Freeman didn't need. And now, for better or worse, has taken care of.