November 30, 1996
Notre Dame at Southern Cal Final Stats
By Brian Hiro, The Scholastic 1996 Football Review
Through their cardinal-and-gold-colored glasses, USC fans saw this as the year The Streak would finally end. It must end. Sure, they reasoned, Notre Dame has God on its side, but how long must we suffer? The 10 plagues must have been tame compared to the inhumanity of 13 years without a win over the Irish.
Pretty convincing stuff, but Irish backers weren’t buying it. “This isn’t your year,” you could hear them say. “You ‘re 5-6; what do you have to play for? Nothing. We have a major bowl bid on the line, not to mention the Lou Holtz Farewell Tour. Plus, we’ve really gotten used to making fun of your ineptitude. Oh, and a streak can’t end on 13; it’s unlucky. No, not this year. You can win next year when Holtz is gone. We’re good at losing at home anyway.”
Into the middle of this debate stepped USC senior quarterback Brad Otton. After being knocked from the game with bruised ribs in the first quarter, he returned in the second half to lead the Trojans to three touchdowns, including the decisive score on the first series of overtime. As the Memorial Coliseum crowd roared loudly enough to erase 13 years’ worth of bad memories, Ron Powlus’s fourth-down pass to Malcolm Johnson on Notre Dame’s over time possession was batted down at the line of scrimmage. The USC faithful had to look twice to believe what they were seeing: USC 27, Notre Dame 20, on the scoreboard, and Trojan players jumping in celebration on the field.
Considering the way in which they lost the game – four fumbles and a missed extra point that led to the extra session – Holtz and the Irish had to look twice as well.
“I feel like somebody reached into my stomach and pulled out my guts,” Holtz said after the game. “I’ve never felt this low.”
You got the feeling this wasn’t Holtz’s famed hyperbole, either. Like last year’s finale against Air Force, this was an eight million-dollar affair. Win, and the Irish would be off to sunny Tempe for the Fiesta Bowl and a chance at a top-five finish; lose, and they would be home for the holidays. Such is Notre Dame’s good-bowl-or-no bowl status in the crazy adventure known as the Bowl Alliance.
But more importantly, the USC game was a chance to further straighten a wavering ship, a chance for Notre Dame to stamp itself as an upper-echelon program for the first time since 1993. Throw in the whole last-game-at-the-school twist and you can see why Holtz was so distraught at the postgame news conference.
And why the opposing coach and quarterback were so happy.
“This is one of the great moments of my life,” said USC Head Coach John Robinson, who was the subject of rumors earlier in the week that he would join Holtz in the unemployment line unless he beat the Irish. “This team has stayed together all along. We’ve experienced a lot of adversity, but this team hung in there.”
“We’ll always be known as the team that ended the streak, and that means a lot,” Otton added.
All the good luck the Irish had enjoyed in squeaking by the Trojans so many times during the Holtz era seemed to evaporate this night. When Powlus found receiver Cikai Champion wide open in the corner of the end zone from 25 yards out, the visitors took what appeared to be a comfortable 14- 6 lead into the final quarter, especially since the Irish defense had not yielded a single yard in the third. But nothing went right after that.
On Notre Dame’s next possession following a failed USC fake punt, Powlus hit Johnson over the middle for 33 yards, but Trojan safety Sammy Knight stripped the ball and recovered it himself just a yard away from another Irish score. Knight, in his USC finale, had a career game, finishing with 14 tackles (three for losses), two fumble recoveries and a sack.
“Sammy Knight is one of the best football players I’ve ever been around,” Robinson said. “He’s also one of the best people I’ve ever been around. He was just great to night.”
After the fumble, the Irish still had the Trojans backed up against their goal line. But on the first play, Otton found receiver Mike Bastianelli for 33 yards and some breathing room. In just two plays, the momentum had shifted dramatically.
It would get worse for the Irish. After the defense forced a punt, Allen Rossum fumbled his second punt of the game, this one at his own 12, to gift-wrap a score for USC. Otton accepted Notre Dame’s generosity, hitting Chris Miller for a 5-yard touchdown.
Only an unsuccessful two-point conversion prevented the Trojans from knotting the score.
But as they always have done under Holtz, the Irish answered an important score with one of their own. Autry Denson dominated the drive, getting the call on seven of the nine plays for 39 yards, including a 9-yard burst up the middle to give his team a 20-12 lead. As Knight did for the Trojans, Denson turned in a career-best performance with 33 carries for 160 yards and the touchdown. It marked his fifth consecutive 100-yard game, his seventh of the season and his 10th at the school.
But Jim Sanson’s ensuing PAT attempt, the point that could have sealed the win, sailed wide left and the Notre Dame lead remained at eight. You could almost see the Trojan spirits lift on the sideline, as if they sensed that fate was finally on their side.
Holtz had earlier switched holders for the first time all season, replacing Hunter Smith with Powlus, but he didn’t use that as an excuse.
“The young man seemed to kick better with Ron Powlus holding,” Holtz said. “He almost missed the first extra point, so I said, ‘Ron, you go ahead and hold it,’ and he boomed the second one. So we stayed with Ron.”
USC capitalized on the error, marching 67 yards in eight plays behind the passing of Otton and the running of tailback Delon Washington. Washington went the final 15 yards for the touchdown, darting right to pull the Trojans back within two. This time, however, they converted the two-point try, tying the game at 20 and sending the stadium into a frenzy.
But the crowd would get even louder. It got louder when the Trojans stymied the Irish on their final possession of regulation to ensure overtime. It got much louder when Otton tossed a 5-yard touchdown pass to Rodney Sermons to put his team up by seven and the pressure firmly on Notre Dame’s back. And it erupted when the Irish wilted under that pressure, gaining just one yard on four plays to seal the outcome. As Trojan fans rushed the field and mobbed the players, Holtz reflected on the devastating turn of events he had just witnessed.
“That’s probably as tough a loss as I’ve ever had,” he said. “So many things went wrong. The four turnovers, two by receivers…. The missed extra point was critical because it kept them in the game. Just when we got ready to put the nail in the coffin, we couldn’t quite do it. That’s life. Life goes on.”
It didn’t seem that way for the Notre Dame players when Holtz told them in the locker room that this would be their final game. There would be no bowl for the Irish for the first time since 1986. Ironically, that was Holtz’s first year at the school. But Holtz was in no mood for irony after his last appearance on the Notre Dame sidelines.
“This is one you’ll remember,” he said. “One you’ll remember for a long time.”
Thanks to USC, he has all the time in the world.