Notre Dame Students Throw Snowballs at Their Own Team

File this incident under "never should happen."

During Notre Dame's thoroughly embarrassing 24-23 loss to Syracuse, Irish students (I refuse to call them "fans") pelted their own players with snowballs.  I find this one of the strangest and most disgusting incidents to have happened this year at any game.

Even stranger, it occurred during the first quarter and after three P.A. announcements requesting that the students stop.

One player was hit in the left cheek, according to the Associated Press.  Defensive tackle Pat Kuntz, a senior playing his last game at Notre Dame, was fighting mad after getting hit.  None of the students were man (or woman) enough to take him up on his offer after he invited the offending snowball-thrower to meet him on the field.

After the Syracuse debacle and the student interaction, Kuntz is probably saying, "Good riddance," and I wouldn't blame him one bit.

There have been a lot of ugly fan incidents in recent years, even snowball incidents.  Colorado comes to mind, but I won't expound on that here.

This is the first time in recent memory I recall it happening TO THE HOME TEAM in the FIRST QUARTER by the student section of THE HOME TEAM.

I really want to hear from Irish fans on this.  I want to hear if there is possibly any excuse for this, funny or not. 

I don't care if you blame Charlie Weis, the Virgin Mary, the Hunchback, all Leprechauns, or the Pope for Notre Dame's current travails, I can't imagine what type of Notre Dame student would find this funny in the least bit.

It won't happen because there aren't any home games left, but the students would have deserved to have the section closed for the next game.  Not only are the students who threw the snowballs culpable, but so are the ones who sat there, watched and did nothing, or laughed along with the hooligans.

To the Notre Dame fans who think this is acceptable:  I suggest finding a new activity for Saturday:  pick your favorite B-league European football (soccer) team and become a hooligan, so you can be with like-minded morons.