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On Saturday, Notre Dame ended it's season with another last minute heartbreaker at Stanford. Although the game was exciting, the loss dropped the Irish to 6-6 for the regular season for the second straight year.

The difference is that this year expectations were so much higher than that. The team was fully expecting to be contending for a BCS bowl. The way the season started, it appeared as though that expectation was becoming a reality. The Irish opened the year by completely dominating Nevada.

Then they had a string of close games in which they won all but the ones against USC and Michigan. In both games, Notre Dame played well despite the loss. During that run the Irish got the Boston College and Michigan State monkeys off their back.

Remember the Alamo? Notre Dame sat at 5-2 and a win would clinch bowl eligibility. More importantly it would set the Irish up to make a move up the BCS polls. Notre Dame completely dominated Washington State in that game. At that point, if anybody told an Irish fan that they would finish 6-6, they would get laughed at.

Then it happened. Notre Dame suffered four straight heartbreaking losses. All the games came down to the last minute. The first half of the year Notre Dame was finding a way to win these games. Now they found ways to lose.

In all honesty, the loss to Stanford would not have been a bad loss if not for the other three losses. Jimmy Clausen had a great game along with Golden Tate and Michael Floyd.

It was only fitting that Charlie Weis made a controversial call at the end of what will be his last as Notre Dame head coach. With a minute to go, he instructed the defense to let Stanford score. He had to given the situation. If he didn't, the Cardinal would have ran the clock down and got an easy field goal with no time left.

Looking at the state of the program, it is clear that there will be a new coach next season. What isn't clear though is whether or not Notre Dame will accept a bid to play in another small bowl game and whether Weis will coach in it if they do.

Last year a 6-6 team went to the Hawaii Bowl and dominated. That felt different though. Even with an embarrassing loss late in the year to Syracuse, the team did look improved from the year before. The bowl game appeared to be the game that reinvented the program.

This year it won't feel the same. Say the Irish go to the International Bowl and dominate a MAC team. What will that prove? It won't provide the same spark last year's bowl game did. The only benefit I can see is that it would be nice to see Clausen and Tate one last time before both make early entries to the NFL.

This article is also posted on http://fightingirishgameday.com/

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