John Walters

LOS ANGELES - Tonight, they were laughing.

Last Saturday they were booing. Tonight, they were laughing.

On the final play of the third quarter of Notre Dame’s game at USC, Irish running back James Aldridge burst through a hole up the middle and into the Trojans secondary. As Aldridge galloped past the USC linemen in what was the most pedestrian of offensive play calls, an audible “Ah!” arose from the startled 90,689 inside the Los Angeles Coliseum.

They knew.

When USC safety Will Harris tackled Aldridge 16 yards later, many of them stood and cheered. These were cheers of derision: a standing ovation for a first down, Notre Dame’s first of the evening. It had only taken 45 minutes.

The 38-3 final score — that drive would culminate in a 41-yard field goal for the Irish, ending USC’s streak of 69 straight points scored against them dating back to 2006 — was not the worst defeat of the Charlie Weis era. In fact, it was not even Weis’ worst defeat to USC, which has now beaten Notre Dame seven straight (Bob Davie was the last Irish coach to sack Troy). However, that moment registers as the most openly public mocking of the Notre Dame football program in memory.

Notre Dame engenders many visceral feelings: envy, at the university’s spoiled-child syndrome in everything from TV contracts to bowl deals; scorn, whenever it is seen as positioning itself above the fray; admiration, albeit grudging, at a graduation rate amongst its players that this year is second to none among FBS programs; wonder, at the golden helmets and the lore that extends from Rockne to Rudy; and good old-fashioned hatred, directed at everything mentioned above.

But pity? That was a new one.

On Saturday evening, Notre Dame started a bunch of underclassmen and a whole offensive unit’s worth of outclassed men. At halftime the Irish had run 20 offensive plays for a total of 9 yards. That’s less than half a yard per play. If you or I, at a far lower rate of remuneration, had simply called a quarterback sneak on every play of the first half, that average would not have been any worse.

As he walked off the field following the loss, first-year Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said that no monumental announcements were in the offing. “It’s always a mistake to evaluate this soon,” Swarbrick said, referring to the notion of a job evaluation of Weis coming soon enough to appease any members of the ever-growing lynch mob.

The popular parlor game this week was to guess how little Notre Dame would have to lose by against USC for Weis to retain his job? Less than 35? Less than 40? USC would beat the Irish, certainly. But would they humiliate them? And if so, would that, the culmination of a six-week binge of gridiron embarrassment and failure, compel the Notre Dame administration to hire its fourth head coach in the past six years?

The answer to that question hinges on this: Is it about what you expect of Notre Dame, or what you have come to expect from Notre Dame?

Special feature Notre Dame Nation Take a look at the Fighting Irish faithful cheering on Notre Dame.

If you expect the Irish to be a perennial top-10 program and keep its nose clean while graduating players at a Duke-Stanford-Vanderbilt level, then Saturday’s Coliseum beatdown — the Trojans were simply toying with their supposed nemeses in the second half — was unacceptable.

But what should we expect from them? Well, with the admittedly monumental exception of the 11 years Lou Holtz spent at Notre Dame, tonight marked the 200th game of the combined coaching eras of Gerry Faust, Bob Davie, Tyrone Willingham and Weis. Those four coaches have a combined record of 114-86. That is, they have won 57 percent of their games.

Fifth-seven percent.

In any sport, that’s just average. Academically, it’s a failing grade. But, again, with the sizeable exception of Holtz (100-30-2), that’s the reality for Notre Dame in the past nearly three decades. Average.

Weis (28-21 in four seasons) said that before kickoff his primary concern was “Were we going to play with passion and devotion?"

Weis believed that his players did. You can argue that his defense did, at least for the game’s first 21 minutes. USC’s first four drives ended in an interception, a touchdown and two punts. A 7-0 deficit to the Trojans nearly midway through the second quarter? Well, what Domer would not have been pleased with that?

This is where Notre Dame stands in the post-Holtz era. The Irish and their fans expect to defeat unranked teams. They expect to be competitive with those outside the top 10. And, while no one within this program would admit as much, they don’t expect — at least not yet — anything more than to hopefully be competitive against top-10 teams. Which they last were three years ago against USC. Since then, Notre Dame has not come within two touchdowns of any opponent ranked in the top 15 (in seven tries, including Saturday night).