Bury the hatchet job: I'm here to praise Navy and classy Charlie

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- I know why you're here. You're here to revel in rock bottom for the Notre Dame football team. What a coincidence. That's kind of why I'm here, too.

The bosses would never say such a thing, but it's safe to assume I wasn't sent to South Bend on Saturday in anticipation of another Notre Dame victory against Navy.

Charlie Weis and his son look on stoically as the Midshipmen celebrate. (US Presswire)

I was sent here to watch the Irish lose, and they did not disappoint. Notre Dame's 46-44 triple-overtime loss to Navy ended the Irish's 43-game winning streak against Navy, the longest such streak in college football history.

For Notre Dame (1-8), heading toward the worst season in program history, this was rock bottom. Not its 38-0 loss to region-rival Michigan or its 38-0 loss to national-rival Southern California. This one.

This was different, and by different I mean worse. Navy should never, and I mean ever, beat Notre Dame.

Navy isn't as good as it has been under sixth-year head coach Paul Johnson, but Johnson has an excuse. He's been trying to recruit players to the Naval Academy with the country at war. Playing football for Navy today means fighting in a war tomorrow. Playing football for Navy is literally a matter of life and death.

Playing for Notre Dame only seems that way.

The Irish got their own taste of life and death -- the real kind -- one day earlier when more than half the team helped freshman running back Robert Hughes bury his brother in Chicago. Earl "Tony" Hughes, 24, was shot and killed on Tuesday. The funeral was Friday. With Touchdown Jesus looking on, life went on Saturday at Notre Dame Stadium.

"Obviously they're very disappointed," Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis said of his players. "It's been a very emotional week. They'd (hoped) to win a game for Robert."

This whole thing is somber. The whole thing bums me out. So if you came here to read a gleeful obituary of the Notre Dame football program, you came to the wrong place. This is the wrong day, and Notre Dame was playing the wrong team.

What you will read, though, is an appreciation of Navy, which plays a remarkable brand of football despite its inherent disadvantages in college football's highest classification. And you'll read an appreciation of Weis, who pulled two classy, classy moves.

Weis was so classy early and then late that it doesn't seem right to dwell on how incompetent he seemed in the middle, when he repeatedly put the game in the hands of his game-if-incapable quarterback, Evan Sharpley. So I won't spend any more time on that.

What I will highlight instead are two of Weis' decisions that literally gave me goose bumps up in the press box.