Notre Dame vs. Southern California

Of all the great personalities to be associated with the Notre Dame
football program through the years, there was never a more charismatic
or influential one than the incomparable Knute Rockne. When he became
the head coach of Notre Dame's football team after the 1917 season,
taking over for his mentor, Jesse Harper, the program had already
enjoyed a great deal of success, having won over 78% of its nearly 150
games since 1887. "Rock," however, would take the program to unimagined
heights during his meteoric 13-season career on the Irish sidelines.

During his first season as head coach, Rock went a pedestrian 3-1-2
(.667). Aside from his one bad season as Irish head coach in 1928, when
N.D. only went 5-4, 1918 would be the only season that Rockne would win
less than 75% of his team's games in a given year. Overall, he would
end up winning over 88% of his games at N.D. Fans of the small Catholic
university's football squad must have known Rock was something special
by the end of his third season, by which time he had led N.D. to
back-to-back undefeated seasons. Rockne's win streak would extend to 20
games, the longest for the program until Frank Leahy's Irish broke the
mark with 21 straight victories between the famous 0-0 tie with Army in
1946, and a 14-14 tie with Southern Cal in 1948.

Rock's attempt to win 21 straight games would come to an abrupt halt
when the Irish traveled to Iowa City to play the Iowa Hawkeyes, and
their head coach, Howard Jones. The 10-7 victory by the Hawkeyes was
the only loss Rockne's teams would experience between 1918 and the last
game of the 1922 season. Aside from ruining Notre Dame's shot at the
program's first consensus national championship (N.D. would finish 10-1
that year), that early October contest between N.D. and Iowa was
notable because it was the first meeting in a great coaching rivalry
between Knute Rockne and Howard Jones, two of the best coaches in
college football history. The relationship between these two men would
give rise to the greatest rivalry in college football history.

After winning the national championship in 1924, N.D.'s first, Rock was
the star of the college football world. Continually constrained by the
strict regulations of the Holy Cross priests at Notre Dame, Rock looked
to greener pastures elsewhere. At one point following that national
title season, Rockne seriously considered an offer to take the vacant
head coaching job at Southern Cal. That university was looking to shore
up its fledging football program, and saw Rockne as a vehicle to
instant credibility. In the end, however, Rock ended up remaining at
his alma mater, but recommended for the job a promising coach that he
had faced before, Howard Jones. A man who had enjoyed football success
as a player at Yale, as well as coaching success in stints at Syracuse,
Yale, Ohio State, and Iowa, Jones was seen as an excellent second
choice when Rockne rebuked Southern Cal's overtures.

The following season, Rockne's squad was playing the last in a long
series of games against Nebraska. Frequent opponents on N.D.'s schedule
in the 1910s and 1920s, the Huskers handed the Four Horsemen their only
two losses in three years of varsity competition, in 1922 and 1923. For
whatever reason, the series was coming to an end after one final game
in Lincoln on November 26, 1925. On this occasion, Rock's wife, Bonnie,
accompanied the team on their journey. By a twist of fate during the
game she sat next to one of the graduate assistants of Southern Cal's
football squad, as well as his wife. The assistant's wife and Mrs.
Rockne chatted throughout the game, undoubtedly discussing the
sacrifices associated with their husbands' careers. At some point,
however, the conversation turned toward the weather in Southern
California, and how much better a place like that would be for the
Irish to play late season games than frigid places like Lincoln,
Nebraska. After the game, a 17-0 loss for N.D., Rock was persuaded by
his wife to look into playing Southern Cal. The rest is history.

Whether or not this apocryphal story is true, the relationship that
Rockne and Jones shared seemed to pave the way for the Irish and
Trojans to forge a series on the gridiron. Railroads were making it
easier for long-distance travel, and Rock was just the type of
individual to see the benefits of an ambitious trip to the West Coast.
With Nebraska leaving the schedule, a spot was opened, and Rockne and
Jones agreed to a yearly contest between N.D. and Southern Cal, making
Rock the first coach from the Eastern half of the country to take his
team to the West Coast for a regular season contest.

The series, of course, became an instant success. The very first game,
played in front of 75,000 fans in the newly built Los Angeles Memorial
Coliseum, was a hard fought N.D. victory, 13-12. The next season, a
crowd of 120,000 people at Chicago’s Soldier Field saw the Irish defeat
the Trojans in another nail biter, 7-6. In five meetings against the
Trojans, Rockne would enjoy a 4-1 record, while Jones would improve his
mark against the Irish when Rockne's less successful successors took
the reins in South Bend.

As we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the start of this great series,
it seems improbable that Rockne and Jones could have imagined what they
had started back in 1926. (Knowing Rock's mind for possibilities,
however, he might have conceived of it.) Since that time, these
schools, separated by thousands of miles, have played in some of the
greatest football games ever contested. Year after year, the series
seems to have some sort of bearing upon the national championship
picture, and coaches at both schools are measured in large part by how
well they do against the other. These schools are currently tied for
the lead in Heisman Trophy winners with seven apiece, while they still
rank #1 and #2 in the number of NFL first-round draft picks to have
come from their programs. While most programs are blessed to have a
list of two national-championship winning coaches, Notre Dame and
Southern Cal can boast lists of five and four, respectively. The game
exudes tradition with two of the nation's most famous marching bands
and fight songs.

Since 1926, these schools have played every year, with the exception of
a three-year hiatus from 1943 to 1945, when World War II travel
restrictions were in place. Overall, Notre Dame holds a 42-30-5
advantage in the series. No school has beaten Southern Cal more
frequently than Notre Dame, and no school has beaten Notre Dame more
frequently than Southern Cal. The Trojans have won four consecutive
games, dating back to 2002.

Obviously, there are too many classic games in this series to recount
in one email. Forty years ago in Los Angeles, the Irish clinched the
program's eighth national championship when they blanked the Trojans in
Southern Cal's worst-ever defeat, 51-0. Twenty years ago, Tim Brown
returned a punt for a touchdown and John Carney made an 18-yard kick as
time expired to key a furious 18-point fourth-quarter comeback as the
Irish prevailed at the Coliseum, 38-37. In the most recent series game
played at Southern Cal, Tyrone Willingham's last as head coach at N.D.,
Pete Carroll left his starters in well into the fourth quarter, running
up the score on a 41-10 defeat for the Irish, the last of Willingham's
program-record five losses by 30 points or more. Last season, Charlie
Weis's Irish executed a brilliant game plan, nearly snapping Southern
Cal's 27-game winning streak, before falling in the final seconds,
34-31.

\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \

Other notes:

-At least one team has been ranked in 59 of the 67 games played in this
series since the advent of the Associated Press poll in 1936. In 29 of
those 67 games, both teams were ranked.

-The last series game in Los Angeles to feature two teams ranked in the
top ten came in 2002, when the #6 Trojans walloped the #7 Irish, 44-13,
the first of Tyrone Willingham’s program-record five losses by 30
points or more.

-The Irish are 17-19-4 (.475) in series games played at Southern Cal.
The Irish are 1-4-1 in their last six games at Southern Cal, dating
back to 1994. Their sole victory in that stretch came in 2000, when the
#11 Irish defeated the unranked Trojans, 38-21.

-The Irish have lost to the Trojans more than four consecutive times
only once. Between 1978 and 1982, John Robinson's squad registered five
consecutive victories over N.D. Aside from the streak from 1978-82 and
the current streak, Southern Cal has never beaten Notre Dame more than
three straight times.

-Notre Dame and Southern Cal rank #2 and #8 in all-time winning
percentage, and #2 and #10 in all-time wins, respectively.

-Notre Dame last recorded an 11-1 season in 1993. Overall, the Irish
have won 11 or more games in a season five times (1973: 11-0, 1977:
11-1, 1988: 12-0, 1989: 12-1, and 1993: 11-1). In three of those
seasons, the Irish won the national championship, while in the other
two seasons the Irish finished #2.

-Since the start of the Holtz Era in 1986, the Irish are only 10-9-1
(.525) in regular season finales.

-With Saturday's win over Army, Notre Dame is guaranteed of 19 wins in
the last two seasons, the program's highest two-year win total since
1992-93, when the Irish garnered 21 wins. This represents an eight-game
improvement over N.D.'s win total in the previous two seasons.
Incidentally, Tyrone Willingham won only 21 games in his entire
three-year stint at Notre Dame.

-The Irish are 8-0 in true road games under Charlie Weis.

-The Irish are 5-0 in night games under Weis.

-Through Weis's first 23 games, the Irish have outscored their
opponents by 286 points (12.4 average per game), the highest cumulative
point differential (CPD) for an Irish coach at this point in his career
since Ara Parseghian (482 CPD, 21.0 average).

-Last week's 218-yard, 3 TD performance by Irish QB Brady Quinn moved
him up to #9 on the NCAA all-time TD passes list, and #13 on the NCAA
all-time passing yardage list. With 49 yards passing on Saturday night,
Quinn would move ahead of Trojan Heisman Trophy-winning QB Carson
Palmer in all-time passing yardage, becoming the most prolific QB from
either Notre Dame or Southern Cal.

-The winner of this game receives the Shillelagh Trophy, presented by
the Notre Dame Club of Los Angeles. The original trophy was purportedly
flown from Ireland by the pilot of billionaire-recluse Howard Hughes
for the 1952 game. Irish wins are represented by emerald shamrocks;
Trojan wins are represented by ruby Trojan heads. The original trophy
was retired after the 1989 game and is permanently displayed at Notre
Dame. The current trophy dates from 1990.

-These teams will continue to meet annually, as they have each year
since 1946.

-The Irish remained at #5 in this week's BCS rankings. Here's what the
top five schools have scheduled for this week:

#1 Ohio State (12-0): Season Complete.
#2 Michigan (11-1): Season Complete.
#3 Southern Cal (9-1): Hosts #5 Notre Dame (8:00 E.S.T. on ABC).
#4 Florida (10-1): Hosts unranked Florida State (12:00 E.S.T. on ABC).
#5 Notre Dame (10-1): Visits #3 Southern Cal.

-In the ongoing competition between Michigan and Notre Dame for college
football's all-time best winning percentage, here is where things stand
after last weekend:

#2 Michigan lost at #1 Ohio State, 42-39, dropping their record to
860-281-36 for a winning percentage of .7460. #2 Michigan's season is
complete.

#6 Notre Dame defeated unranked Army at home, 41-9, moving their record
to 821-267-42 for a winning percentage of .7451. This week, #6 Notre
Dame travels to #3 Southern Cal.

Michigan's lead drops to just over 8/10,000ths of a point, the
equivalent of about a one-game lead over the Irish.

The importance of this week's game cannot be overemphasized. The Irish
will look to avenge three consecutive 31-point defeats to the Trojans,
as well as last season's heartbreaking loss at home. All of N.D.'s hard
work this season comes down to another titanic clash with arch-rival
Southern Cal. A berth in the national championship game could be in
store for the winner. The game kicks off at 8:00 E.S.T. on ABC.

Have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving!

Go Irish! Beat Trojans!
Big Mike

A Heisman Trophy sponsor is giving fans the opportunity to vote for the
Heisman Trophy. Fans can vote once each week for the player of their
choice. If you have not done so already, go to
https://r.espn.go.com/espn/contests/theheismanvote/ and vote for Brady
Quinn. Whichever player has the most votes at season's end will receive
one actual vote for the Heisman Trophy.

copyright Michael D. McAllister 2006