SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- For the past four seasons I have been attending the Notre Dame captains' press conferences inside the spacious and cozy confines of the Gug's auditorium. And for the past four years these sessions have provided me with vivid, uncomfortable flashbacks of lecture hall profs whose monotonous delivery would lead me to daydream about whether they'd be serving chicken patty sammiches for lunch in the South Dining Hall.Dig it: Most of the Irish captains have been extremely bright and charismatic guys. Men such as Brady Quinn, Tom Zbikowski and Maurice Crum come to mind. The problem is always that they seem to be coached the way a defendant is before taking the stand. In fact, the only humorous moment that comes to mind from the past few years happened in 2006. I rose from my seat to grab the microphone from a fellow reporter to ask Zibby a question. As I began to ask the question while trying to sit down, I missed the edge of the theater chair and stumbled to the floor.
More loose ends from Ann Arbor to tie up. First, on Sunday Charlie Weis briefly alluded to players being punched during Saturday's game. No one quite followed up on it. But in the text/Twitter/YouTube age, you cannot hide anything. 
