There aren’t a lot of firsts at Notre Dame. This was one of them

— Thirteen hours before the first college football game of its kind, with snow lacquering everything and bitter cold keeping it there, the cars and trucks lined Angela Boulevard. “Not many times in life you’re the first to do something.” In the previous 94 years and two months, ever since Knute Rockne had the sod from old Cartier Field removed and placed amid the 2 million-plus bricks constituting the new Notre Dame Stadium, there had not been a college football game played here on a Friday. “You don’t want to assume anything,” said Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua, who replaced Swarbrick in the spring. While Notre Dame wouldn’t keep the ticket revenue — that goes back to the College Football Playoff — it didn’t want a takeover by Indiana fans, either. On gameday eve at Corby’s, another quintessential Notre Dame watering hole, “Rudy” — a movie directed by an Indiana graduate — played on a projector screen hung directly above a banner that read “Welcome Hoosiers!” Joe Mittiga, the owner and Indiana Class of 1999 graduate, wore a crimson hoodie as he worked the bar during an alumni happy hour for his alma mater.