Nov. 16--SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- After Notre Dame completed a sullen version of its alma mater, school president Rev. John Jenkins turned away from the crowd, his face looking like he had eaten a bad clam.
Athletic director Jack Swarbrick came from behind Jenkins and patted him on the back.
"Let's go," Swarbrick told him and the two proceeded to walk into the tunnel with the rest of the Irish, their heads hanging, taking one slow, stunned step after stunned step.
That was the end result of Saturday's debacle at Notre Dame Stadium, a 43-40 overtime loss to Northwestern the Irish did their best to give away and eventually did.
"We're not making small errors, we're making critical errors ..." Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said. "You can't start winning until you stop losing."
The list of mistakes is mind-boggling and the Irish are almost helpless to explain why they can't correct them, especially after a five-turnover performance last week against Arizona State.
The Irish committed four turnovers Saturday, three at the most inopportune moments --on the Northwestern 1-yard line (Chris Brown fumble), on the Wildcats' 7-yard line (Everett Golson fumble) and one trying to run out the clock at the end of regulation (Cam McDaniel fumble).
"For me to do that, the amount of self-loathing that's going on right now is pretty unimaginable," McDaniel said.
And their coach did not escape the lapses, with Kelly going for a questionable two-point conversion with the Irish ahead by 11 in the fourth quarter and deciding to run the ball with Northwestern out of timeouts when kneeling would have meant punting with less than 20 seconds remaining. McDaniel then fumbled, leading to Northwestern's tying field goal.
To explain the latter decision, Kelly said: "I don't know that I've ever in my college career taken a knee and punted."
To explain the two-point try, Kelly said he had little confidence in his kick operation, which had botched a point-after try with new holder Malik Zaire earlier that resulted in a two-point conversion for the Wildcats -- another folly in the comedy of errors. This was the third game this season the hold operation on kick attempts nagged the Irish.
Later, Kelly copped to his mistake, saying there was "no advantage in retrospect" to going for two.
But the failure was the sum of several opportunities gone wrong in just about the worst way possible for Notre Dame and the Irish are clueless to come up with answers.
They say they were excited to play, even after playoff hopes vanished at Arizona State.
"We want to come out and play," said tailback Tarean Folston, who rushed for 106 yards and a touchdown. "Everybody said to get that bitter taste out of your mouth. A lot of people were motivated to play and came up short."
They said, for the umpteenth consecutive week, they had worked on correcting their turnover problem, yet the miscues won't stop.
"I feel like everything was the same, but obviously it wasn't," cornerback Cole Luke said. "But going into it I feel like we were well prepared."
Said McDaniel: "I felt like we had a great week of practice and it has been that way. ... I've been with this team for four years now and I feel like we practiced really well and this team works hard. We just haven't executed and we can't not execute on Saturdays."
Their actions after the game displayed how puzzled they were. Freshman safety Drue Tranquill took a knee on the field after the game, strength coach Paul Longo had to yell at players to come back to midfield to congratulate the Wildcats while cornerback Cody Riggs stayed motionless staring into the distance.
It was a fitting reaction to problems that seem to stick to the Irish like a rash.
"We just don't play clean enough as a team," Kelly said. "And those are the things that prevent us from winning."
chine@tribune.com
Twitter @ChristopherHine
