A Catch—and Crash Goes Notre Dame!

'A FAIRLY SUFFOCATING THING'

The pass is called 84-Z and it is an old one in the University of Southern California's playbook. A receiver split wide to the left delays for one second after the snap, sprints dead ahead for five steps, fakes outside, then cuts sharply down and across toward the middle of the field. The quarterback drifts straight back and throws to the spot. Last Saturday in Los Angeles' Memorial Coliseum, with one minute and 43 seconds remaining in the last big football game of the regular 1964 college season, USC worked the play perfectly. Quarterback Craig Fertig threw the ball chest-high to Halfback Rod Sherman for 15 yards and a touchdown. And in that single dramatic instant, while 83,840 people screeched, gasped and whooped, as suddenly and with the finality of a Hollywood fade-out, able-bodied Notre Dame was no longer the No. 1 team in the nation. In a mad, mad, mad, mad season of upsets, USC scored the biggest one of all over the Fighting Irish, 20-17.

Unfortunately for Coach John McKay's feverish Trojans, the victory—another treasure to be filed away among USC's many illustrious deeds—was dulled before the evening ended. Faculty representatives of the Athletic Association of Western Universities curiously voted for co-champion Oregon State to represent the conference in the Rose Bowl against Big Ten champion Michigan. The decision on whether Oregon State or USC would go had been delayed for a week—until after the Trojans met Notre Dame. The Trojans, whose vote doubtless caused the delay, assumed with some justification that they would receive the Rose Bowl honor if they defeated the Irish and wound up the season with a fine 7-3 record. Oregon State had finished 8-2, but no one could argue that State had played as tough a schedule as USC.

The bad news arrived as McKay and his team were in the midst of a celebration dinner at a suburban restaurant. It was met with stunned silence. But not for long. USC Athletic Director Jess Hill finally said, "So far as I am concerned, this is one of the rankest injustices ever perpetrated in the field of intercollegiate athletics."

But if USC was disappointed, Notre Dame was crestfallen. The Irish, after all, had lost a much more valuable prize: the national championship. After its sixth game of the season Notre Dame became No. 1 and, carrying that sometimes awesome burden, it rumbled on past Pittsburgh, Michigan State and Iowa as Quarterback John Huarte passed his way to the Heisman Trophy, as End Jack Snow set record after record, and as Coach Ara Parseghian nervously tried to avoid being compared with Knute Rockne.

For Parseghian, this last role was especially difficult to act. Most of the members of the Notre Dame team were the same ones who managed to win only two games in 1963. Huarte had not even earned a letter. But here was Notre Dame with a glittering 9-0 record, the second best offense in the country, the best defense, with at least three players—Huarte, Snow and Linebacker Jim Carroll—already named to various All-America teams and now a 14-point favorite to destroy USC and launch one of the grandest celebrations Pershing Square has seen since the invention of sandals. USC Coach John McKay had his own part to play, and he handled it with ease. A witty, pleasant man with a white crew cut and, usually, a cigar, McKay said the Monday before the game: "I studied the Notre Dame-Stanford film for six hours last night and I have reached one conclusion: Notre Dame can't be beaten."

McKay knew what grim and worried thoughts must be traipsing through Parseghian's mind—his own Trojans had won the 1962 national title. He had another observation on Tuesday. "I've decided that if we play our very best and make no mistakes whatsoever we will definitely make a first down," he said.

Nor did the USC team appear, outwardly at least, to be consumed with intense dedication. The practice sessions were brisk but not laborious ( McKay has ordered a scrimmage only once in four years, anyway). And they were flavored by a caustic, mildly blasphemous (at least in South Bend) little chant concocted by a Trojan squadman, which went, "Offense, offense, win one for The Gipper."

By Wednesday McKay was joking more than ever, and making sure the local press broadcast his "game plan." Said McKay for worldwide quotation: "We can't run inside on Notre Dame. Their tackles weigh 262 and 245 and nobody has blocked them yet. We'll have to run outside and pass." Over a huge steak that night McKay lifted his knife and fork, shrugged, and then said, "The condemned man ate a hearty meal."

The day before the game the Trojans acted as if they had already won. The players tore down photographs of Notre Dame stars that had been tacked to the walls of their locker room and took turns doing weird dances on them while circles of teammates sang, chanted, hollered and clapped. "You know," said McKay in a corner, "if we knock these guys off I could probably become governor of Arkansas or Alabama [the only other undefeated, untied teams]. Well, just tell 'em to send money."