John, in the nearly 50 years I have been on this planet, I have lived within 25 miles of Notre Dame. I grew up just north of the Indiana Toll Road (I-80/90) off of Juniper Road. There were days in the fall when you could hear the Notre Dame Marching Band practice. We were trapped in our neighborhood for hours on home game weekends as traffic moved towards the campus. So, I've always been close to Notre Dame, even though I spent my college days at Purdue and consider myself a Boilermaker now.
In those 50 years, I had never attended a Notre Dame football game at Rockne Stadium. Sure, I'd been to a number of Blue-Gold games, but that's hardly the same thing. When my neighbor said he had two tickets to the Georgia Tech game two weeks ago, I thought it would be a great father-son bounding adventure (plus, my son is playing in Pop Warner and should see where he could be if he has the ability to stick with it and put his heart into it). So I paid face value for the tickets and we took the shuttle bus from the College Football Hall of Fame instead of fighting with the traffic around campus. We met up with his friend from across the street and listened to the Marching Band in front of the Music Hall. The weather was perfect; a beautiful late summer day on Notre Dame's campus.
Well, we all know how the game turned out (the fumble on the opening kickoff should have clued us in for what the Irish were in for), but I still had a good time, even though my son wanted to bail before the half! I recorded the game on my 622 and I'm glad I did. When #94 was ejected in the 2nd half, I didn't have a clue as to what had happened. Watching it later, it was an incredibly boneheaded penalty as his teammates had stopped the Yellow Jackets on 3rd down. Instead, George Tech got 15 yards closer, a first down, and a few plays later, took it in for GT's first touchdown.
It's funny; with the Irish at 0-2, it feels strangely liberating, as the pressure of a perfect season is gone.