Notre Dame played with fire a few times this year.
It caught up with them two weeks ago when they fell in the final seconds against Ohio State.
It nearly happened a week ago before a miracle of sorts saved the day late at Duke.
And reality hit in a hard and heavy dose Saturday night as Louisville embarrassed No. 10 Notre Dame, 33-20.
What went wrong for Notre Dame as their dreams of a trip to the College Football Playoff were officially dashed?
We try to start to pick up the pieces to Saturday night’s disastrous performance with our instant takeaways below.