Barkley and Galippo think Notre Dame quit...so what!

The twists and turns of this story have been interesting over the pat 24 hours...

It all started when Chris Galippo thought the Irish "quit" (or gave up) towards the end of the game on Saturday...

"At the end there, when they didn't call those timeouts, they just quit," USC linebacker Chris Galippo said. "And that's what Notre Dame football's about. They're not anything like USC."

Galippo has a history with Notre Dame. He has often mentioned, during his USC career, his official visit to Notre Dame as a prep, when he came along with Jimmy Clausen and felt virtually ignored by then-coach Charlie Weis and his staff, and he'd kept that moment with him throughout his college career and used it as motivation Saturday.

OK, so Galippo has an axe to grind...but the winner gets to talk trash.

Welcome to big-time college sports!

Then, Galippo and Kiffin apologized for those comments...

"If I offended anyone with my postgame comments Saturday, I do apologize," Galippo tweeted. "I have great respect for their players and their program. It was a great game by both sides. Time to focus on Stanford!!!"

Kiffin called Notre Dame Coach Brian Kelly to apologize.

"On behalf of our football program, I apologize for Chris Galippo's statements after the game. I've addressed this with Chris and he is remorseful," Kiffin said in a statement. "I also called Coach [Brian] Kelly to personally apologize. As I said to the media immediately after the game, I thought Notre Dame played extremely hard throughout the game. It was another classic rivalry game and we feel fortunate to have won."

Only to have Barkley reaffirm those comments later...

"I would agree with that," Barkley said in an interview with Max Kellerman and Marcellus Wiley on 710 ESPN. "I was shocked that they didn't use the timeouts because we got on the field with … about seven minutes left, and I thought they were planning on stopping us and saving their timeouts for the end when they had the ball. …

Color me perplexed...I mean, really, who cares?

We all saw Kiffin asking Pat Haden on the sidelines...."what is he doing?"

I realize Kiffin is probably worried about said comments being used as bulletin board material next year, but Galippo will be gone and Barkley may be gone as well.

Look, Kiffin can't control everything. These kids have been beat down for 18-months with all the negative press. This was a huge win for them, so if they blow off some steam then fine.

They earned it.

The only ones that seemed bothered by it are some UCLA fans because they have nothing better to do with their joke of a program and joke of a coach.....who they are desperately trying to get fired. And some ND fans who are pissed that they ain't there yet.

Got a problem with it then go win the game...

Final thought....

Does Pat Haden want to rethink those comments about the players not taking this rivalry seriously???