(Ed. Note. This article originally ran on October 15, 2005. USC-Notre Dame meet for the 79th time Saturday in the oldest inter-regional rivalry in the history of college football. Sure, Notre Dame sucks this year and the 2007 edition of the battle offers little to excite football fans. But as recently as 2005 they met in a pivotal college football battle. We give the rivalry a mulligan this year, confident that it will someday renew its gridiron glory. In the meantime, we offer this CHFF classic from October 2005 as a way to reminisce about one of the great rivalries in North American sports. Remember, USC has added two more Heisman Trophy winners since then to add even more to some of the numbers offered below.)
No offense, folks, but if you fancy yourself a football fan and you're not more than a little excited about the USC-Notre Dame game Saturday, well, you're really not much of a football fan.
With the exception of the corporate leviathan that is the Super Bowl, the 2005 meeting pitting No. 1 USC at No. 9 Notre Dame is the single biggest football game in America this season. And, in terms of tradition, well – nothing the NFL can piece together even comes close. Look at it this way: 45,000 people packed Notre Dame Stadium – last night for the pep rally, one that featured Joe Montana, Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger, Tim Brown, and a galaxy of football legends.
"If (coach Charlie Weis) wants me tomorrow, I told him he can suit me up," said Brown, to the delirious crowd nearly 24 hours before kickoff. We feel the same way ... of course, we fully understand that nobody wants us to suit up for anything that involves physical skill.
But that's why we watch and enjoy.
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USC-ND is the only major intersectional rivalry in college football. All others feature traditional geographic ties.
Notre Dame has played USC every year but three since 1926, when coach Knute Rockne brought his team out to Los Angeles. Notre Dame won, 13-12. The Notre Dame football team was known as the "Ramblers" in its early years, because of its willingness to travel great distances to find worthy opponents. (According to ESPN, Rockne called that 1926 game the greatest he ever witnessed.)
The intersectional rivalry was an instant success. That first meeting drew more than 74,000 people, considered the largest crowd in football that season. The 1927 game drew the largest crowd in college football history, as 120,000 people packed Chicago's Soldier Field.
The rivalry was suspended for three years at the height of the war years, 1943-45.
This is the 77th meeting between the two schools. Notre Dame holds a 42-29-5 edge in the series. For the 17th time, both teams are ranked in the Top 10 by the Associated Press.
The 2005 Trojans are the first No. 1 team to visit South Bend since Sept. 9, 2000, when the Irish hosted No. 1 Nebraska. The Cornhuskers won, 27-24, in overtime.
Each university claims 11 national championships in football, more than any other school.
This is the fifth time the Trojans are No. 1 going into the Notre Dame game. USC has won all four previous meetings (1962, '67, '72 and 2004).
This is Notre Dame's 25th meeting against a team ranked No. 1 by the Associated Press. Notre Dame is 8-15-1 in the previous 24 games, and has won three of the last five.
Notre Dame Stadium, the House that Rockne Built, is celebrating its 75th anniversary. Rockne helped design the stadium, but coached in it just one year, 1930. He died in a plane crash in Kansas in the spring of 1931, at age 43. Rockne was on his way to Hollywood to work on a movie called "The Spirit of Notre Dame."
The death in a plane crash of one of the nation's most popular personalities prompted the creation of a new agency to oversee air travel, the Federal Aviation Administration.
Notre Dame Stadium currently seats 80,795 people. The 2005 USC-Notre Dame game is the 181st consecutive sellout at Notre Dame. The Irish have sold out 229 of 230 home games dating back to 1964. The lone non-sellout over the past 41 seasons was a 1973 meeting against Air Force on Thanksgiving weekend.
The Irish continue to be the biggest draw in pro or college football. Besides being the only team in North American sports with its own national broadcasting contract (with NBC), Notre Dame has played in front of 175 sellout crowds – home or away – in its past 200 games.
Notre Dame has beaten No. 1 teams at home three times in its history: 26-6 over Northwestern in 1936, 31-30 over Miami in 1988 and 31-24 over Florida State in 1993.
The USC-Notre Dame game was generally the last of the season until 1960. Starting in 1961, the games at Notre Dame (odd years) moved to October, while games at USC (even years) continue to be played at the end of the season.
Only once in the storied history of the rivalry have the teams been ranked No. 1 and No. 2. In 1988, the top-ranked Irish won, 27-10, at second-ranked USC. The Irish went on to win the national title, the most recent in their history.
Notre Dame boasts seven Heisman Trophy winners, more than any other school, but the last one played nearly 20 years ago: Angelo Bertelli (1943), Johnny Lujack (1947), Leon Hart (1949), John Lattner (1953), Paul Hornung (1956), John Huarte (1964) and Tim Brown (1987).
USC is second on the list with six Heisman Trophy winners, but boasts two of the last three, including 2004 winner and current quarterback Matt Leinart. USC's other Heisman winners are Mike Garrett (1965), O.J. Simpson (1968), Charles White (1979), Marcus Allen (1981) and Carson Palmer (2002).
Simpson is the only Heisman Trophy winner from either team – yes, the only one from either team – to kill his wife.
Notre Dame won 11 straight over USC from 1983 to 1993, the longest streak by either team in the history of the rivalry. The Irish went undefeated against the Trojans 13 straight years from 1983 to 1995.
USC's longest winning streak against the Irish is five games, from 1978 to 1982.
USC's biggest margin of victory over Notre Dame has been 31 points, which has happened four times – 1974 (55-24), 2002 (44-13), 2003 (45-14) and 2004 (41-10). If you're looking for a reason
why Ty Willingham no longer coaches at Notre Dame, look no further than these three consecutive 31-point losses to USC.
The 2005 meeting features two of the best offenses in America. USC ranks No. 1 in total offense (640.4 yards per game). Notre Dame ranks No. 9 (504.2 YPG).
USC boasts the longest win streak in the country, at 27 games.
Notre Dame has a rather impressive history of ending lengthy win streaks:
* In 1957, Notre Dame beat Okalahoma, 7-0, ending the longest win streak in college football history at 47 games.
* In 1988, Notre Dame beat Miami, 31-30, ending the Hurricanes' 36-game regular-season win streak. The Irish went on to win the national title.
* In 1953, Notre Dame beat Georgia Tech, 27-14, ending Tech's 31-game win streak.
* In 1971, Notre Dame beat Texas, 24-11, ending the Longhorns' 30-game win streak and its quest for back-to-back perfect seasons.
* In 1946, Notre Dame ended Army's 25-game win streak with the most famous tie in college football history (Notre Dame 0, Army 0) and ended the Cadets' run for three straight national titles. The Irish went on to win the national championship. The game was played at Yankee Stadium.
* In 1973, Notre Dame beat USC, 23-14, ending the Trojans' 23-game win streak. The Irish went on to win the national title.
In 1933, USC became the first visiting team to win at Notre Dame Stadium.
Notre Dame boasts the two winningest coaches in college football history, Knute Rockne (.881) and his protégé, Frank Leahy (.862). There is,
as we noted last season, a very direct lineage between Rockne and current Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis:
Rockne's protégé was Leahy. Leahy coached Vince Lombardi at Fordham. Lombardi's star player while the head coach at St. Cecilia's High School in New Jersey was a kid named Mickey Corcoran. While a high school coach in New Jersey, Corcoran developed his own disciple, Bill Parcells. Parcells' prize assistant for years was Bill Belichick. Belichick, of course, had a top assistant in Weis.
That's a mere six degrees of seperation between the man who launched the most tradition-filled program in sports and the man charged with waking up the echoes of his legacy. Hey, in college football, tradition matters. And no game has more tradition than USC-Notre Dame.
