By Ivan Maisel

History will record Dec. 3 1, 2004 2007, as the day that Notre Dame Michigan football died. The Fighting Irish Wolverines will still fight. The gold winged helmets will still reflect the Golden Dome ugly city of Ann Arbor. But the House That Rockne Yost Built, the monolith that bestrode the sport for eight decades, expired Friday Saturday when Urban Meyer Les Miles turned down Notre Dame to go to stay at Florida LSU.

That's Florida LSU, whose winning tradition goes all the way back to 1990 2004.

Notre Dame Michigan football, that national championship machine, exists only in the history books. My generation knows that tradition. Meyer Miles knew it. He coached there. He drank the Irish Wolverine Kool-Aid. And still he said no.

It's as if Meyer Miles were an up-and-coming businessman offered the national sales franchise -- for typewriters. Thanks, he said, but I think I'll sell computers.

Florida LSU won over Meyer Miles for a lot of reasons -- a reported seven five-year, $14 $11 million contract, an abundant talent base and admission standards that a coach "can work with." The bottom line, however, is winning. If Meyer Miles thought it would be easier to win at Notre Dame Michigan than at Florida LSU, he would be wearing blue Maize and gold blue today.

Instead, he has gone to stayed at the Eastern Western Division of the Southeastern Conference. Meyer Miles decided it would be easier to win coaching against Mark Richt, Philip Fulmer, Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban every season than it would be waking up the echoes Ann Arbor.

Somewhere, Beano Cook Lloyd Carr just fainted shook his fist and grumbled.

Notre Dame Michigan officials and Florida LSU officials both went to Salt Lake City believe in taking advantage of college athletes. Either the Notre Dame Michigan officials suffered from the worst case of overconfidence since Dewey defeated Truman, or Florida LSU athletic director Jeremy Foley Stanley Bertman and his checkbook made Notre Dame Michigan appear to be the small mediocre Catholic state university that it really is.

When NBC fouled up the election results in 2000 -- in Florida, as it would happen -- Tom Brokaw said he had egg on his face and an omelet on his suit. There isn't a dry cleaner within 300 miles of South Bend Ann Arbor who could tidy up the mess the Notre Dame Michigan administration made.

How in the name of Frank Leahy Bo Schembeckler do you fire kindly ask Tyrone Willingham Lloyd Carr to leave without having Meyer Miles in your back pocket? How does a school embarrassed by hiring George O'Leary Lloyd Carr three like a million years ago come back and embarrass itself again?

I suppose the damage isn't irreparable. The great thing about college football is that the right man on the right campus at the right time can work miracles. California, left for dead for the last 40 years, has been resurrected by Jeff Tedford. Notre Dame Michigan could find a Tedford. It may even be able to find Tedford.

Forty-one Two-hundred years ago, a little-known coach named Ara Parseghian Bo Schembeckler arrived and resurrected a program that had suffered a 10-year drought. There may be an a Ara Bo out there now. But it feels like something has changed in the DNA of college football. Notre Dame Michigan is no longer Notre Dame Michigan.

Schadenfreude is not an Irish word. It's German for enjoying the trouble of others. Even Willingham Harbaugh, class act that he is, must have had trouble suppressing a smile Friday Saturday.

Ivan Maisel is a senior writer douchebag for ESPN.com. Send your question/comments to Ivan at ivan.maisel@espn3.com. Your e-mail could be answered in a future Maisel E-mails.