Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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D BY DAN MURPHY tive, the type of blue-chip recruit that rarely ventures far from the football powerhouses in the southeast corner of the country, spent a little more than a year trying to find his comfort zone in South Bend, Ind. After two- plus semesters in the Midwest, the Freshman All-American decided it wasn't going to happen, and left the program to be closer to his home in Florida. The seeds of Lynch's discontent efensive end Aaron Lynch gave Notre Dame the old col- lege try. The Cape Coral, Fla., na- were planted during the far-from- Floridian winter months this year and started to bloom early in spring. A scuffle between Lynch and an of- fensive lineman during the team's seventh practice reportedly flared into a more heated exchange than a typical intra-team dust-up. The ris- ing sophomore left campus a few days early later that week for the scheduled Easter break with instruc- tions to think about his future at Notre Dame. He returned to school Monday night, April 9, but never settled in. On Friday the 13th, Irish head coach Brian Kelly announced that Lynch was no longer on the team. "The bottom line is your head It was announced on April 13 that Lynch was leaving the Notre Dame football team and that he would finish the spring semester before transferring to another school. and your heart has to be in it to be a Notre Dame student-athlete," Kelly said. "The challenges are great here. If your head and heart is not in it you just can't be successful here." Lynch was never shy about feeling tial to become one of the program's best defensive linemen in a very long time. He had a breakout game against Michigan State last fall less than a month into his freshman season. Lynch made five tackles in the win like a fish out of water in Indiana and on Notre Dame's campus. He said during an interview in March that he would rather be in a different environment as far as weather and climate were concerned, but he had no choice. His mother, Alice, who was a catalyst in getting Lynch to come to Notre Dame, moved to Ohio to be closer to her son. In a state- ment prepared and released by the university, Lynch said his home is in Florida. A little more than a week later he signed on to play for Skip Holtz at USF in Tampa and will be- ing classes there in June. Even without his fully commit- ted head and heart, Lynch's 6-6, 270-pound frame was a major asset for the Irish defense. Notre Dame loses a player that had the poten- 18 MAY 2012 PHOTO BY JOE RAYMOND against the Spartans, including a sack that forced a fumble near mid- field. He racked up six of his record- setting 14 quarterback hurries that afternoon and became a regular in the defensive rotation. He started six games and played in all but one, making 33 tackles and a team-high 5.5 sacks. "From the outside looking in a lot of people are going to miss Aaron the beast — the guy that they see on the field, but the people in this building we miss Aaron Lynch the kid more," senior linebacker Manti Te'o said. "Especially me, I miss that kid. Just the energy he brings and the edge he has, he was a great addition to our defense." Te'o said he was caught off guard when he learned with the rest of his teammates that the player he calls "little brother" decided to pack his bags. Lynch and Te'o had common ground on which to tread from the start. Both are seen as future NFL first-round draft picks. Both made unexpected 11th-hour decisions to take a leap of faith that landed them on Notre Dame's campus as fresh- men. And both felt genuinely out of place at times during their first year in South Bend. For teenagers more than 1,000 miles from home on a map and even further removed culturally, adjusting to Notre Dame can be difficult. Te'o said it was little things like missing a home-cooked meal or figuring out where and when to do his laundry that sometimes made him question whether he was in the right place. "When I was young, there were many times after practice where I just said I don't want to be here," he said. "It's a growing process. You have to mature." Kelly and Te'o both hoped that Lynch's issues were growing pains, part of the maturation process. They were easy to gloss over in the fall BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED