Earlier this week, Tyrone Willingham walked briskly back to his office after attending his very first victory dinner. It's a small meal for the players, coaches and office staff held in the stadium. In a hurry to resume preparations for this week's opponent, Purdue, Willingham took his dessert with him, a bowl of vanilla ice cream. "The victory dinner is one of those traditions I wasn't aware of," he said. "But I guess it's a good one."

	Tyrone Willingham and ND may end up squeezing the 'Horns out of the BCS bowl mix.

On Saturday night, the curtain came down on Act One of the season amid roaring applause and heartfelt emotion. But what did we really see on the field? Sure, we saw the Irish unveil their version of the West Coast offense, and we saw a swarming defense pitch a shutout. But if you could assign a flavor to the 22-0 rout, it was decidedly vanilla.

No team, be it college or pro, completely reveals itself in week one. The football culture is an insular one, and one that prides itself on stealth as much as might. And Willingham is about as cryptic as they come. "We haven't really done anything yet, have we?" he says. "It's nothing that 100 other teams didn't do last week."

Willlingham doesn't mean just winning a game, he means holding something back. Purdue dropped 51 points on an overmatched Illinois State and they didn't exactly do it by using smoke and mirrors. Coach Joe Tiller admitted it was an "easy game plan," and Purdue quarterback Kyle Orton, who put the ball in the air 28 times last week, alluded to keeping a few rounds in the chamber. "We didn't want Notre Dame to see everything we do on offense," he said.

And the Irish don't want everyone to see what they do on defense, either. A few weeks ago, I told secondary coach Trent Walters I noticed his corners spent most of practice playing man-to-man defense. It's common knowledge that teams who rely on a diet of man coverage are usually teams who have no shortage of blitzes on the menu. "Does that mean you're coming after people?" I asked Walters. Just like his boss, he offered a chuckle, a smile and ambiguous response. "It takes guts to be out there all by yourself with a receiver."

Something tells me that Kyle Orton will rarely be by himself in the backfield on Saturday.

Alan Grant is a senior reporter with ESPN The Magazine.