Notre Dame Football

Postgame scenes at Notre Dame Stadium include the obligatory handshakes among the teams. Not long after, the ND band takes over the field. Then, the Irish players head to the northwest corner of the stadium and salute the students. Armando Allen has developed his own little postgame ritual. “I do a lot of weird things sometimes,” Allen said with a smile. “A lot of the guys joke about me being short, so I looked at the leprechaun and I’m like, ‘The leprechaun is short too, so I might as well put on the leprechaun hat.’ “I did it one time and I never gave it up after that.

Current Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick continues to tweak predecessor Kevin White’s vision for off-site “home” football games for the Irish. The latest to be unveiled – a Nov. 12, 2011 matchup with Maryland at FedExField in Landover, Md. – is the first to break through the web of television rites and conference red tape and allow Notre Dame to play a team within that school’s own conference footprint. "As we have looked to move one game a season around the country, playing in the Washington, D.C., area seemed a natural for us in terms of institutional fit," Swarbrick said.

SOUTH BEND -- Jimmy Clausen won’t throw. Golden Tate probably won’t run the 40-yard dash. Sam Young won’t lift. And first-year Notre Dame head football coach Brian Kelly won’t even so much as eavesdrop. Still, there’ll be enough activity at ND’s Pro Day Tuesday at the Loftus Center that NFL scouts representing anywhere from 20 to 32 teams will show up and take notes. The centers of attention will be the eight former ND players who will try to slip through the back door into the NFL Draft discussion, none of whom were invited to the high-profile auditions at the Senior Bowl or the NFL Combine.

SOUTH BEND — Football years, like dog years, are a complicated calibration of time. According to calendars, Bob Diaco will turn 37 next month. Just a pup, in some regards. In football years, Notre Dame's new defensive coordinator is a grizzled mutt. Eight stops in 14 years, enough to form a qualified opinion on rating moving companies. An Iowa playing pedigree touched by the thumbprint of Hayden Fry. In his first year with Cincinnati, retooling a 2009 defense that lost 10 starters and making it through the regular season without a loss.

SOUTH BEND — It rolled off Brian Kelly's tongue like a punch line. It was anything but. "Our players are committed, they're excited, and they want to win," Kelly related Friday at a meet-and-greet press conference with the first-year Notre Dame head football coach and his staff. "Having said that, I think we had seven guys who threw up before we got through stretching. " Thursday was the first day of Kelly's offseason conditioning program. It was the first touchstone of the coach to find out just what he had inherited from deposed chief Charlie Weis.

Danny Spond, a four-star recruit who plays both quarterback and linebacker and projects potentially at several positions, has committed to Notre Dame. "He’s ecstatic about it. He committed last night," said his Columbine High School coach Andy Lowry after talking to Spond earlier Monday. "He just loved it. He thought it was the greatest. He loved the coaches, he’s excited to go up there and play. " Spond, a high school quarterback who ran the option offense at the Littleton, Colo.

Jimmy Clausen sent his NFL Draft stock skyrocketing when he not only played through pain, but did so with record-breaking production. Tuesday, the former Notre Dame quarterback will have to deal with a second shot of adversity. According to a report by ESPN.com's Tom Friend, Clausen will undergo surgery to repair torn ligaments in his right big toe and is expected to be sidelined two to three months. That knocks Clausen out of the physical portion of the NFL Scouting Combine, the invitation-only audition of sorts for NFL personnel, Feb. 24-March 2 in Indianapolis.

In 1995, Notre Dame brought in one of its best recruiting classes ever. Then-recruiting coordinator Bob Chmiel oversaw an effort that landed big names such as Raki Nelson, Jarious Jackson, Kory Minor, Autry Denson and Mike Rosenthal. In 2007, it was a similar story. Rob Ianello, then the recruiting coordinator and now the head coach at Akron, helped land a class that included Jimmy Clausen, Mike Ragone, Robert Hughes and Duval Kamara. Those two classes, recruiting analyst Tom Lemming says, had something in common: Both were launched the previous springs when the players were juniors.

SOUTH BEND -- Strong. But, football strong? Maybe now. From the day he started with the Notre Dame football team, Braxston Cave was a physical brute. His longtime zest for the weight room showed up in the 520-pound bench press Cave hoisted, just one of the many numbers he put up that were as gaudy as a bowl rep's sportcoat. Something's been missing, though. Pure strength didn't translate directly into playing time on the offensive line. Add speed, endurance and two years worth of experience and the Penn High grad may finally be in position to claim a position.

SOUTH BEND - Is different necessarily better? That is where those covering Notre Dame football spring practice have to put their focus every day. Dig through the skepticism built up from the hyperventilating in the early days of the last three coaching regimes. Realize there is more than one template that produces consistent BCS teams. Look for the little things that add up to meaningful change in the big picture. By the time the Irish stage their first Blue-Gold Game under first-year coach Brian Kelly, April 24 at Notre Dame Stadium, the hints about where the program is headed will still far outnumber the conclusions.