Not this past weekend, though.

Boston College's improbable fourth straight victory over Notre Dame, which had finally reached the nation's Top 25 (No. 24), would have resurrected the ghosts of Grantland Rice, not to mention the voices of Lindsey Nelson and Harry Wismer and two legendary athletic directors -- Bill Flynn of Boston College and Notre Dame's Ed "Moose" Krause.

All of this didn't stop the 5,500 or so B.C. alumni and fans in the usual Notre Dame Stadium sellout of 80,795 from savoring yet another triumph over the nation's most publicized college football program.

It was yet another weird finish. What started all this insanity back in 1993, a 40-yard field goal by David Gordon that knocked the top-ranked FIghting Irish from the ranks of the unbeaten and wiped out a possible national championship run, is just part of a long list of college football's goofiest moments.

In beating the Fighting Irish Saturday, 24-23 Paul Peterson -- a Utah Mormon who somehow evaded the reach of Gary Crowton and Brigham Young -- lofted a feathery throw toward Tony Gonzalez in the end zone with just 54 seconds left.

The challenge was to somehow lift the pass over or around cornerback Mike Richardson, who was covering Gonzalez to near-perfection. For a change. Richardson, a veteran junior cornerback with fairly solid credentials, had missed a bunch of tackles that converted several short-yardage B.C. passing plays into major gains.

"Every time we break the huddle in practice, we say 'Playmaker,' " Gonzalez told the Boston Herald's Mike Shalin. "Every receiver on this team is a playmaker. It was just my turn."

Gonzalez plucked the ball away from Richardson and when Ryan Ohlinger kicked the extra point, the vocal B.C. contingent reacted like a super-sized Daisy Buchanan's crowd after a game breaking David Ortiz homer against the hated Yankees.

If you have been paying attention to this wacko series, it seems like nearly every B.C. victory over Notre Dame has brought with it a series of goblinesque events that conspire to do in the Irish.

Cases in point Saturday...

• A seemingly innocuous extra-point miss by D.J. Fitzpatrick after Darius Walker's nine-yard run had given the Irish a 20-7 lead with 6:54 left in the first half. Who knew? The football gods who regulate this series, that's who.

• An Irish defense, that for nearly three quarters, seemed up to the task, collapsing in the fourth. This after Derek Landri had blocked a 22-yard Ohlinger field goal attempt after B.C. had driven from its 9 to the Notre Dame 4. It all went south from there.

• A wacko, totally improvised fourth-and-13 rollout by Peterson with B.C. out of timeouts and beyond desperate to try and make something positive -- anything -- happen. As he was being chased out of bounds, Peterson flung the ball toward Larry Lester, who leapt and snared it at the N.D. 43, then sprinted out at the 38, a 17-yard gain that gave the Eagles one last hope.

"Of course," you could almost hear the Irish pessimists mutter together. By then, it didn't seem a matter of if, but when.

"It's a glaring (mistake)," Notre Dame defensive coordinator Kent Baer admitted on a day when Peterson completed 27-of-41 passes for a staggering 383 yards and touchdowns to Joel Hazard (third quarter, cutting the Irish lead to 20-14) and Gonzalez.

"We didn't get the coverage on fourth down. We had a breakdown. There were a lot of missed tackles, too, and there're no excuses for that." Baer assessed. "(Lester's catch, and Gonzalez's two plays later were) the game right there, in the situation we got ourselves into."

In Notre Dame's three losses -- to the aforementioned Brigham Young, Purdue, which rolled for over 500 yards' offense, and B.C., critical defensive mistakes played the defining role.

Notre Dame's haphazard, scrambling attempt to field-position itself for a final push to a winning field goal was a too-often-seen Keystone Kops routine that brought more than a few boos down from the disgruntled faithful. It ended with Fitzpatrick trying a hurried, impossible 57-yard field goal that fluttered 10 yards short.

More than a few sets of eyes rolled as they contemplated the fact coach Tyrone Willingham, who is producing Stanfordlike results in South Bend, has two more years to run on his contract. Not good enough, any N.D. fan worth his shamrock will proclaim.

The irony of this whole situation was that for 30 minutes, it all seemed to finally be coming together for Notre Dame. In building the 20-7 lead, they had put constant pressure on Peterson and, after an opening 86-yard-drive where the Irish defense played soft, N.D. looked like it was in position to make a statement against a fairly good opponent.

But the collapse came with sudden swiftness.

"It's hard to say about the second half," Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn said. His passing numbers were respectable enough -- 20-of-33, 231 yards and a 33-yard first-quarter game-tying touchdown to Matt Shelton. "But I wouldn't just say it was the second half. It was the first half where there were times we weren't scoring or producing when we needed to."

Part of that was Quinn's ongoing maturing process. Certain situations called for touch passes and Quinn tried to rifle the ball past the Eagles' defenders. Unfortunately for the Irish, such passes invariably evaded their receivers as well.

The two first half interceptions he threw broke a string of 92 consecutive passes without a pick.

"It wasn't just one thing or one play that beat us," Quinn reiterated. "A lot of things contributed.

And so Notre Dame fans wonder what next (a nearly certain defeat at Tennessee Nov. 6 for starters), while B.C. (5-2) gets a week to prepare for a Rutgers team that took a 41-17 beatdown at Pitt.

Following the Scarlet Knights, will be a possibly-winnable visit to West Virginia, then Temple and Syracuse.

You couldn't blame Boston College folks, New Englanders real and adopted, if they allowed themselves to dream, considering they reside in an area where the local baseball team is on the verge of busting an 86-year curse and the local pro football team has won 21 in a row.

Notable — The rivalry, as you might expect when Division I-A's only Catholic schools butt heads, has been testy at times, including a couple of instances where Boston College players plucked large clumps of sod from the stadium field. The Eagles' classy coach, Tom O'Brien made it clear that would not happen Saturday. "That was not a proud moment for us (in the past)," O'Brien said. "I stayed out there this time to make sure there was no repeat." What was impressive was the post-game camaraderie and conversations between players as they headed up the north-end tunnel toward their locker rooms...With 3,721 career passing yards, Quinn has already climbed to No. 8 on the all-time Irish list. Notre Dame still leads the all-time B.C. series 9-7, but the Eagles have won 5 of the last 6.