Another Day, Another Sucker Punch for Notre Dame Fans

Can we start calling Notre Dame “Sucker Punch U” now? At least for this week?

The sucker punching started this past Saturday, when Mike Brey, Tyler Harangody, and the Fighting Irish lost to Jim Calhoun and the UCONN Husk–wait a minute, crap…got that mixed up.

Let’s start over.

The sucker punching started this past Saturday when Charlie Weis, Jimmy Pickles, and the Fighting Irish lost to Randy Edsall and the Connecticut Huskies in South Bend.

It continued early on Sunday morning when Jimmy Clausen was sucker punched at a bar in the wee hours of the morning.

And then this morning there was more sucker punching with the reports that Clausen’s family has sold their home in South Bend.

But does this latest sucker punch really amount to much, or is it much ado about nothing?

Here is the report on the Clausen family selling their home from the Chicago Tribune (via The Big Lead):

Century 21 real estate agent Kathye Currey told the Tribune on Tuesday that the house Clausen’s family owns at 703 E. Angela Blvd. in South Bend has been sold.

“It has an accepted offer on it right now,” Currey said of the property that is mere steps from campus. “It was for sale, it listed on the middle of July of this year. And it just went pending last week.

“Pending (means) the sellers have accepted an offer on it. It’s sold. It just has not closed with the title company yet.”

Now, at first glance, news of the Clausens (who are from California and use the house during the season) selling their home seems like a pretty strong indication that Jimmy will forego his senior season and enter the NFL draft.

However, allow me to play devil’s advocate here for a second. I don’t recall coming into the season a feeling that Clausen’s departure was a foregone conclusion. Yet, the article states that the house went on the market in the middle of July.

If that is the case, then the Clausens selling their home is not a knee-jerk reaction to Charlie Weis’ job status or the punch-heard-round-the-world. Perhaps they had already been planning to do so, regardless of whether Jimmy would be in South Bend for his senior season or not.

How would they have known in July?

I guess they could have been sitting on an offer and waiting for the “right time” to accept it, and that the last week has offered up the perfect confluence of events for the “right time” to be declared, but who knows. That’s a lot of speculating.

So while every story involving the words and “Notre” and “Dame” is so hot right now, I’m not sure that this story really amounts to all that much. His parents are selling their house. Fine. They were apparently willing to do it in July and I didn’t hear anyone squawking about it then.

Still, add up the disappointing season, the likelihood that Charlie Weis will be gone, the likelihood that Golden Tate will be gone, and the fact that random South Bend residents are punching him in the face, and it’s a pretty good bet that Jimmy Clausen will be in this year’s draft.

From the timeline of events, I’m just not sure much can really be read into the ownership status of his parents’ house.

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