No. 1 Is The Public Enemy

Whether Notre Dame is No. 1 or not, Ara Parseghian feels the pressure every week. Everybody always wants to beat Notre Dame.

"I never thought about it before I became the coach at South Bend," says Parseghian, "but looking back on when I was at Northwestern I guess I relished the four victories over Notre Dame more than anything else.

"We can all pretend not to be bothered by the pressure of being favored, but it's there. For instance, when we play a team that's not in the top rankings, we do everything possible to keep the team from letting down but sometimes nothing works. Take last season. We played Tulane a week after Ohio U. had beaten them 30-7. There was no way to get our team up. So what happened? Tulane pushed us around pretty good and even led at the half 7-0. We eventually won but it wasn't easy."

The Irish coach adds, "There's definitely an advantage in playing against a No. 1 team when you're pretty equal. They have something to lose and you don't. In our second game against Texas, the whole world was telling us we couldn't win, so we got great preparation and we were able to win. I knew, and so did Darrell, that there wasn't much difference in the teams but we had the psychological advantage.

"I know it's a clich�, but on any given day...."

For all of the debate that polls create, college football wouldn't be the same without them. That's what USC's John McKay believes. "I don't know anybody who doesn't read them or argue over them," McKay says, "and I don't know any coach who wouldn't want to be No. 1 at the end of the season. Polls stir up excitement during the dead part of the football week—Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday."

McKay has twice coached a national champion at USC and he'll take the pressure and attention it causes any old time over a mediocre season.

"Time is the big problem that success creates," he says. "There's no time to coach, once you're on top. You've got to meet constantly with all your new 'friends.' You've got to be interviewed and photographed all the time. They say it makes recruiting easier but every recruit wants to see the head man and if he's off at a banquet, you lose the kid. Pretty soon, you lose enough good ones and you're not off at banquets and clinics any more because nobody wants to hear you. You're a loser again."

Meanwhile, the good assistant coaches come and go. "You win and they go to head jobs, and now you've got to take a year off getting your new assistants conversant with your concepts and philosophy. It's a vicious circle," McKay admits, "but it's what we work for. Anyhow, it keeps me young."

For 1972, all of these problems fall again on Nebraska's Devaney. He wound up sharing No. 1 with Texas after the 1970 season, and he took all of the trophies last year. If Nebraska can do it again this season, Devaney, in his last year before retirement, will join a fairly select list of coaches who have won three national championships in a row.