South Bend, Ind. – It all started Friday night when 45,000 fans poured into Notre Dame Stadium – and the game was still 20 hours away.
After so many years of wallowing in mediocrity, a 4-1 start, a No. 9 ranking and a visit from top-ranked Southern Cal moved Notre Dame’s pep rally from its basketball arena to the football stadium for the first time since the 2000 Nebraska game.
Notre Dame Nation sensed something special. So did alums Joe Montana, Tim Brown, Chris Zorich and Dan “Rudy” Ruettiger, who all spoke. Notre Dame’s grounds crew even grew the stadium grass long under the guise that they needed it extra thick to prepare for, ahem, five straight home games. Slowing USC’s speedsters had nothing to do with it, they said.
It almost worked. But the echoes turned into mere whispers Saturday when Matt Leinart’s quarterback sneak with three seconds left beat the Irish, 34-31.
“If you’re waiting for me to say it was a good loss, you won’t hear that here,” said first-year coach Charlie Weis, whose name was chanted by all 45,000 fans Friday. “Losing is losing. There are no moral victories.”
Notre Dame’s game plan was sound. Designed by a coach who directed three Super Bowl victories as offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots, the Irish used a ball-control attack behind Brady Quinn’s precision 264 passing yards and tailback Darius Walker’s workmanlike 72 yards.
Quinn led scoring drives of 80 and 72 yards, and by halftime, Notre Dame had run 50 plays to USC’s 27. Unfortunately for the Irish, on one of those plays, Reggie Bush scored on a spectacular 36-yard run in which he cut left and leapt over cornerback Ambrose Wooden to outrace the world for a 7-0 USC lead.
“We wanted to possess the ball by not turning it over and ball possession,” Weis said. “That was the plan. For the most part, we took care of business.”
The Irish defense, rated 94th in the country, met USC’s challenge. It held White to only 26 yards and intercepted Leinart twice, his first two-interception game in two years.
“Our main goal was to stop the run, and they popped up with a couple of big plays and long runs,” cornerback Mike Richardson said. “But all and all it just came down to those last couple of plays.”
