SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Mounted on a wall inside Notre Dame's weight room is a blue sign that counts down, in bright red numbers, the amount of time until the Fighting Irish and Nittany Lions renew their rivalry.
The time is exact to one-hundredth of a second, and underneath the numbers are white, bubbly letters that say "Beat Penn State."
The excitement for tomorrow's game runs rampant through the weight room, the team and the coaches in their practically brand new football building. But venture outside the walls of the Guglielmino Athletics Complex and onto Notre Dame's flat, green, tree-lined campus, and the excitement has apparently evaded the 11,600 students enrolled at the university.
"There's a little less excitement than usual," said Wade Kreider (sophomore-business), who plays the trumpet in the Irish marching band. Kreider and the rest of the band will head to Penn State today.
When they get there, they'll watch a Notre Dame team trying to rebound after losing 33-3 against Georgia Tech last week. They'll see a team that has had to deal with questions about whether its freshman quarterback, Jimmy Clausen, can handle the pressure of playing a night game in Beaver Stadium.
The doubt created by that loss and the uncertainty prompted by those questions have seeped into what's normally known as a rabid football campus. Yesterday afternoon, many students were dubious about the outlook of Notre Dame's 2007 season. Few sported team colors.
"I haven't been looking forward to [this week's game] as much as I've been looking back at last week," said Ben Queen (sophomore-business and psychology), a football team manager.
Queen added that the loss to Georgia Tech had left him frustrated and disappointed.
Even the manager of the university's on-campus, sports-themed restaurant had a grim outlook for the coming weekend.
"If you're logically looking at the game, Notre Dame doesn't have much of a chance," said Rich Jacobs, manager of Legends of Notre Dame, located about 100 yards from Notre Dame Stadium. Its rooms were quiet yesterday, though Jacobs said students would be cheering and lifting each other in the air during tomorrow's game if the Irish do well.
The atmosphere around campus during this week has been similar to what it normally is after a loss, said Matt Mooney (sophomore-computer science). Mooney likened this week to the darkness that settled on the town after the Irish's 47-21 loss to Michigan in the third week of the 2006 season, when expectations were much higher than they are now.
The campus was quiet all day, as if it was already mourning a season that was only one game old. After spending 12 hours on campus, not a single Notre Dame chant rang through the air and not a single student was spotted wearing a jersey. There were few patrons in the university's gift shop and fewer still in the on-campus sports restaurant. No one carried signs of support for the 2007 Irish team.
Still, "most students expect them to do well every year," Mooney said.
Those expectations haven't totally disintegrated after one loss. The same students who were disappointed by Notre Dame's week-one rout also hope that Clausen can turn things around.
"There's a buzz around -- just to see what Clausen can do this weekend," Kreider said. "You just gotta let him play."
But Kreider and other Notre Dame students won't be able to see Clausen in person, at least not at Beaver Stadium. Notre Dame was allotted 5,000 tickets but did not make any available to students, said Josh Berlo, an assistant athletic director.
Notre Dame's office of student affairs and student activities will make tickets available to students for only two road games this season: Sept. 15 at Michigan and Sept. 29 at Purdue. The office looks at the time of the game, how far students would have to travel and the potential for missed classes to determine which games they'll hold lotteries for, Berlo said.
The 5,000 tickets that Notre Dame has for tomorrow's game will go mostly to contributing alumni and campus administrators, Berlo said.
