Above: An AP photo of Brady and Rhema leading the crowd in chants of “Beat ‘SC! Beat ‘SC!”
Below: A Brendan Loy video of same.

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While we’re at it, here’s a combination of several videos of the crowd chanting “GOOOO IRISH, BEEEEAT TROJANS” and “BEAT ‘SC! BEAT ‘SC!”

Like you can hear me briefly chanting in the first video: “Not. Gonna. Happen.”

:)

That said — and I gotta get this out now, because it’s the last nice thing I’ll be saying about ND football for about a week — my final home game was a fantastic experience. The green jerseys and the raging marshmellow wars were awesome, and the tributes to the seniors were great, from the final curtain call for Brady & co. orchestrated by Coach Weis, to the seniors’ victory lap around the field, to the lingering goodbye in the corner of the field nearest the students. Also, the unbridled enthusiasm of the anti-USC cheers was very entertaining, in a quaint, oh-isn’t-that-nice-and-won’t-it-be-even-nicer-when-their-hopes-and-dreams-are-crushed-next-week sort of way. … Oh, sorry, I forgot, I was being nice. ;) No, but seriously, it was really cool that virtually everyone in the stadium stuck around, right to the very end of this blowout and beyond, to pay tribute to the seniors and get psyched for the ‘SC game — especially given that there was an epic college-football battle happening on TV that lots of people who stayed must have been tempted to go home and watch. Check out this shot of the crowd (largely the freshman and sophomore sections, plus some non-student areas) in the waning seconds:

Pretty impressive. Notre Dame fans truly are loyal, dedicated, and — in most cases — pretty darn awesome.

There. That’s officially the last nice thing I’ll say about Notre Dame football until the clock at the Coliseum hits 0:00 next Saturday. Hate the Irish. Hate. HATE! ;)

Incidentally, if anyone is wondering about my wardrobe choices: I had five layers of shirts (it was a cold day), starting with my favorite USC t-shirt (the Orange Bowl shirt from my senior year, when Carson Palmer’s Trojans crushed Iowa), then a Brady Quinn green-jersey t-shirt on top of that (little did I know how appropriate that would be!), then a navy-blue Notre Dame hooded sweatshirt, then my USC Athletics t-shirt, and finally “The Shirt” on top of everything else. I kept The Shirt on all game long, and I kept my USC hat put away in my sweatshirt’s pouch (except during tailgating), so I was all-ND throughout the game. After all, it was an ND game, not an ‘SC game. But I knew, thanks to ND Nation, that attention was going to turn to USC after the game, so that’s why I decided to be a bit subversive with my shirts. :) As soon as the “GOOOO IRISH, BEEEEAT TROJANS” chant started, I took off The Shirt — so the USC Athletics shirt was my top layer — and put on the USC hat. After all, at that point, USC Week had officially begun, the one week per year when I’m not a Notre Dame fan. FIGHT ON, TROJANS!!! BEAT THE IRISH!!!

Anyway, more ND-Army videos to follow. Stay tuned; I’ll post ‘em below shortly.

CORRECTION: Okay, uploading these videos is taking longer than I thought, and I’m sleepy. So I’m going to bed. I’ll try to post ‘em tomorrow — but they’ll be in a new post.