NOTRE DAME -- Covering Notre Dame football can often be like shooting fish in a barrel. You need a great sound bite: interview Pat Kuntz. You need a good chuckle: where'd Pat Kuntz go? More and more, the same applies for the Irish defense -- you need a big play -- Pat Kuntz is your guy.

The often imitated but never duplicated Pat Kuntz wears his emotions on his sleeve -- it's the defensive end's only M.O.

"I'm just always trying to be me," said Kuntz.

But you never quite know which "me" Kuntz is talking about, as even he admits to suffering from the football form of frenzy.

"You can't put me in any category. I might even be a bit schizophrenic. As long as I make people smile, that's okay with me," added Kuntz.

Smiles were everywhere on Saturday against Stanford when Kuntz racked up two sacks, an interception, and a fumble recovery.

"He's done a nice job, he's been in the back field a lot. He's been disruptive," said Charlie Weis.

It's difficult not to like the hard-working senior from Indianapolis. Even Charlie Weis hinted that had they been schoolmates, the coach and Kuntz probably would have been "two peas in a pod."

"I could see this would be probably one of my boys if I was in college right now. I could picture that. I would probably be abusing him all the time," said Weis.

That is, if he got the opportunity.

"Yeah, we have the same kind of toughness with a bit of nastiness to us. But he couldn't deal with my Midwestern ways. He wouldn't dig the scene I'm at. I'd be playing Kid Rock or Skynyrd and he'd be bumping Bon Jovi or something like that," said Kuntz.