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AVOIDING THE NOISE N otre Dame is the prodigal son of col- lege football. It took its inheritance of benefits of the doubt and long ago squan- dered it on high-priced schematic advan- tages and false gods like George O'Leary. Yet every time a silhouette of what once was appears on the horizon we put a knife to the neck of our fattest calf and rush out the door with robes and rings in hand to greet it. MURPHY'S LAW DAN MURPHY "We're 3-0. We didn't give out any rings yesterday to anybody. We've got a long way to go," head coach Brian Kelly said Tuesday while trying to tighten the screws at least slightly on the busted-fire-hydrant spray of praise his team has received since knocking off then-No. 10 Michigan State on the road. He knew what was coming. Kelly started prepping his team with the "we haven't accomplished anything" clichés before they left the locker room in Spartan Stadium. On Sunday, he publicly implored his players to "avoid the noise" that would inevitably come from the team's best start in a decade. Good luck with that, coach. Kelly's biggest obstacle this week isn't readying his first-year starter Everett Gol- son at quarterback or even finding ways to slow down Michigan's superhuman De- nard Robinson on the other side of the ball. It is making sure to do away with all the distractions and buzz that led his team down a wayward path a year ago before they played another big rival under the lights at Notre Dame Stadium. That time it was Southern California who handed the Irish a 31-17 loss, and most of the hype was self-imposed. This time the noise is louder outside the walls of campus. "It's easy to forget how you got here," Kelly said. "It's easy to listen to how great you are. We've got to avoid the noise and stay disciplined on the process. If we do that, we'll be pretty good in November." But no one is going to wait until then to announce Notre Dame's return. Most al- ready have, or they have at least asked the question. Is Notre Dame back? Of course not. Right now, the Irish have as many wins in 2012 as they did in 2007, arguably the worst year in program history. A three-game hot streak, even if one of its wins came against a strong opponent, is too small a sample size to project big things to come. Everyone who asked the question already knows the answer. If they thought otherwise they would have ended their sentence with a period instead of a question mark. So why ask it in the first place? We all want to be the one on watch when the prodigal son approaches the gate. We all want to be the first to say we saw it com- ing, which perpetually pushes the first word earlier and earlier. All in the name of uttering those three satisfying little words — "Told you so." The rush to be first is as American as Lewis and Clark. Now that we're running out of things to discover in the present day, we look to the future. There's nothing that Americans won't try to predict. Every college football game in the coun- try has a long list of box scores before the teams step on the field. The media are expected to be mediums. We predict every- thing from the path of a hurricane to our next president to what Jennifer Lopez will wear on the next episode of American Idol. Thanks to ESPN's College GameDay, you can even predict predictions. The Sat- urday morning television program is hold- ing a contest this year that asks fans to guess who analyst Lee Corso will pick to Head coach Brian Kelly is doing his best to manage his team's expectations, while avoiding the distractions that come from unwarranted hype. PHOTO BY MIKE BENNETT/LIGHTHOUSE IMAGING win the game of the week. A byproduct of all this prognosticating is often the opposite of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Being crowned the next big thing makes it difficult to become the next big thing. A key ingredient to success to- day is being prepared to deal with success. That's what Kelly and his Irish are dealing with this week. Kelly has a good track record of keep- ing his teams grounded. His Cincinnati teams followed what he considers to be ✦ PAGE 19 their three signature wins while he was there by beating the next week's oppo- nent by an average of 37.33 points. Then again, no one was gearing up to slaughter their fattest calf when the Bearcats showed promise. It would be nice to forego all the pro- jections and just enjoy the season as it unfolds, but I predict that won't be hap- pening anytime soon. ✦ E-mail Dan at dmurphy@blueandgold.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @BGI_DanMurphy.