February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Big games don’t always live up to the advance hype but the collision between Notre Dame and the University of Southern California at South Bend did for sure. And then some.
On a perfect fall day, the sun glinting against the Golden Dome, Touchdown Jesus inviting the green-clad Irish to run harder in his direction, and the grass so thick and high that it might have been a field in County Meath, the legend that is Notre Dame football revived itself and squared up to the reality that is the best team right now in college football.
Even the likes of Boston College fans will scarcely quibble with the view that justice would not have been ill served if Notre Dame had managed to snatch this one at the tape.
But it was not to be.
Despite the heroics of the home side, the experience and know how of number-one ranked USC prevailed in the end.
And by that we mean the very end, the very bitter end.
Still, the result was quite a turn up for the form book. In the last three clashes between these sides, USC had run up 68 points in the second half to Notre Dame’s flat zero.
This time the margin in the second half was just three and that after a half time score of 21 points each.
It was a great win for Pete Carroll and USC, a character building defeat for Charlie Weiss and Notre Dame.
But the result is probably less important than the fact that the Irish are scrapping again for every yard and every point.
Their return to the Associated Press top 10 is, as a result, richly deserved and a huge relief for Irish fans who were living a form of sporting homelessness outside it.