All the recent speculation in the press that the Fighting Irish might be laboring under a curse is starting to look less like fiction and more like fact.

Recent uninspired performances and the weirdly inopportune circumstances that have been surrounding the team have some fans talking.

As Notre Dame search for answers after an 0-2 start to the 2011 season, college football’s most celebrated team would be forgiven for thinking there's something supernatural at work behind the scenes.

Notre Dame had a flying start this season. Against South Florida it looked like they had great momentum and it looked like they were going to get an early touchdown until Jonas Gray fumbled the ball right into the hands of cornerback Kayvon Webster.

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This defeat sucked deflated Notre Dame and their 80,000 fans and they don’t seem to have regained their spark since.

Of course it wasn’t helped that the games was stretched over six hours because of the horrendous rain and thunderstorms.

Their game last week against Michigan, the first night game at the Big House, lived up to the hype also but in the final two plays defense collapsed. Eventually Notre Dame was defeated with a touchdown with only two seconds left, an unbelievable end to the game.

How do you explain the relatively quick and near total decline of one of college footballs greatest empires, as the Irish traded their near unassailable status to that of a near to average also-ran?

Maybe all this talk of a voodoo curse is not as eccentric as is seems.