Vacating wins is a funny business. I don’t want to get too graphic, but I’ve always likened it to vomiting: Your stomach is empty, yes, but you still ate lunch. Similarly, the results are wiped from the record books, but we all saw the games.
Love Notre Dame or hate it—and there’s not much of an in-between, is there?—you remember the 2012 season for its action and its absurdity, with the Irish in the center of it all. Now, according to the NCAA, there’s a golden dome–shaped void in the story of that year in college football. On Tuesday Notre Dame lost its appeal of a 2016 ruling to vacate the Irish’s wins in 2012 and 2013 as the result of academic misconduct findings that allowed ineligible players to play during those two seasons.