FanHouse Jasper Howard

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Outside Notre Dame Stadium, where Touchdown Jesus is considering whether to hold his nose and wear a brown bag over his head, a student waved two tickets at anyone who walked past. "Freebies. Who wants free tickets?'' he hawked Saturday.

There were no takers.

"After we lost to Navy,'' he said, "everyone gave up.''

Juxtapose that scene against one inside the famed bowl, where Charlie Weis did something we'd never seen him do. Locked arm-in-arm with his 33 seniors, who were playing their final home game, he wept openly as they emerged from the tunnel and walked onto the field. Weis initially was standing in the back, wanting the seniors to have their day, when he was told to join them at the front. This was their show of support for a man about to lose yet another maddening game -- and, ultimately, his job as Notre Dame coach.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) -- The Connecticut Huskies finally won one for their slain teammate, handing Notre Dame and coach Charlie Weis a second straight bitter defeat on senior day.

Andre Dixon (pictured, right) scored on a 4-yard touchdown run in the second overtime to give the Huskies a 33-30 victory, their first win since cornerback Jasper Howard was stabbed to death.

"Jazz this is for you," coach Randy Edsall said, referring to Howard by his nickname. "Best win we have ever had."

The loss was the third straight for Notre Dame (6-5) and will add to the mounting calls for Weis to be fired. The Irish led 14-0 early in the second quarter but didn't score another touchdown until the first overtime.

Technically Notre Dame is a bowl partner with the Big East Conference and the Fighting Irish is a full-member of the Big East, except for football.

Yet, even with the Irish's ties to the Big East, when they play host to UConn Saturday there won't be one person affiliated with the league that will be rooting for the Irish -- well, except for, the entire city of Cincinnati.

Bearcats Nation will be pulling for Notre Dame to win so that ND coach Charlie Weis will not become former ND coach Charlie Weis. And, in turn, current Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly won't become future Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly.

Other than Cincinnati, the rest of the league will be pulling for the Huskies. The reason is if Notre Dame (6-4) wins at least seven games, by either defeating UConn Saturday or Stanford next week, the Irish is a virtual lock to take the Big East's spot in the Gator Bowl. That would shuffle the Cincinnati-Pittsburgh loser down to the Meineke Car Care Bowl.

Each Friday, FanHouse's Brett McMurphy will preview the Big East and make his weekly predictions.

So how was your week? Much better than Syracuse's, I hope.

Let's quickly recap the past few days for Syracuse.

Saturday afternoon, the Orange lost to Cincinnati 28-7 as the home crowd booed quarterback Greg Paulus.

Sunday morning at 5:30, four players, including star wide receiver Mike Williams, were involved in a car accident.

Monday, Williams quit the team and the other three players were suspended. That day in an emotional press conference, Syracuse coach Doug Marrone, fighting back tears, defends Paulus. The school announces that defensive end Jarred Kimmel will undergo season-ending knee surgery.

Also, the Syracuse Post-Standard reports that cornerback JohnMark Henderson left the team. Henderson was the 21st player to leave the team since Marrone was hired in December.

And then things really got interesting.

EAST HARTFORD, Conn. -- No, way. The universe isn't meant to be this cruel. Time was supposed to stop with 38 seconds remaining on the clock, just this once. Just for Jazz. It wouldn't have healed the broken hearts stretching from Connecticut to South Florida, but it sure would have inspired an outbreak of happy hugs and welcome smiles.

But the ripples generated by the murder of UConn cornerback Jasper "Jazz" Howard travel far beyond a mere game of football, so perhaps this is how it was destined to end, with the scoreboard flashing Rutgers 28, Connecticut 24, with Tim Brown, Howard's best friend from childhood, choking back tears after scoring an improbable, last-second touchdown for the winning side. As much as it hurt the crowd on hand for the Huskies' first home game since Howard was killed -- and "hurt" is a gentle description, because the emotions that overtook Rentschler Field were funereal and raw following Brown's stunning 81-yard TD with 22 seconds left -- there is beauty in how it ended.

And love.

And a friendship that will live forever.

EAST HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- On a day Connecticut honored slain teammate Jasper Howard, one of his best friends won the game for Rutgers.

Tim Brown, who grew up with Howard in Miami, scored on an 81-yard touchdown pass from Tom Savage with 22 seconds left to give the Scarlet Knights a 28-24 victory over the Huskies in UConn's first home game since Howard was stabbed to death.

"I just went out there and played that game for my friend," Brown said. "He was a special guy to me and I just went out there and dedicated that game to him."

STORRS, Conn. -- Connecticut coach Randy Edsall is good at many things -- such as refining football skills, leading a group of young men and supporting them through the tragedy of Jasper Howard's murder.

He has had little time to make sure his pop culture references were up to date.

"I am Sergeant Schultz, I know nothing," Edsall said earlier this week, when pressed about details surrounding the murder investigation. Just minutes later, in a separate media conference, the arrests of three men were announced.

Ironically, Edsall, especially in recent days, is very little like Schultz, whose character on "Hogan's Heroes" -- a TV show that ran from 1965-71 -- was a bumbling, borderline incompetent mess (Trust me, I looked it up).

Edsall recited Schultz's famous slogan, but that's where the similarities end.

STORRS, Conn. -- Connecticut police have charged a man with the murder of UConn football player Jasper Howard. John William Lomax III, 21, was charged with murder and conspiracy to commit assault.

"There is no system of justice that can bring back someone who has been taken from us," UConn Commissioner of Public Safety John A. Danaher III said Tuesday. "But we can do all in our power to investigate, arrest and assist in prosecuting those who commit a crime such as this, and we did so in this case."

Bond was set at $2 million for Lomax of Bloomfield, Conn., which is about 30 miles from UConn's campus.

Connecticut police have charged a man with the murder of Connecticut football player Jasper Howard. John William Lomax, 21, has been charged with murder and conspiracy to commit assault.

His attorney insists Lomax was attempting to break up the fight. His bond was set at $2 million.

Police charged Hakim Muhammad, 20, with conspiracy to commit assault, and 21-year-old Jamal Todd with pulling the fire alarm, which reportedly began the fight.

None of the three men are listed as students or employees at the university, according to the school's Web site.

Howard, 20, was stabbed just after 12:30AM, Oct. 18, following a school-sanctioned dance on the Connecticut campus. He was airlifted to a Hartford hospital where he died later that morning.

Just three weeks ago, we called Pittsburgh the Pitts-ophrenic Panthers after their up-and-down performances earlier this season against Buffalo, N.C. State, Louisville and UConn.

Uh, is it too late to take that all back?

As impressive as Cincinnati has been all season, Pittsburgh might be playing the best overall of any Big East team. The offense is balanced and the defense gets more dominating each week. Saturday, the Panthers (7-1, 4-0 Big East) scorched South Florida 41-14.

Since allowing 505 yards at N.C. State, the Panthers have improved their defensive numbers in each of the past four games. Pitt allowed 305 yards to Louisville on Oct. 2, 303 to UConn on Oct. 10, 286 to Rutgers on Oct. 16 and 212 to USF on Saturday.