October 7, 1995

Notre Dame at Washington Final Stats

By Jack Schaller, The Scholastic 1995 Football Review

Derrick Mayes, an Irish savior for three years, has always had the ability to make the impossible catch. Starting with his diving, one-handed miracle against Boston College in 1993, number one has reeled in his share of tough balls.

But while shagging the hard-to-reach balls might be his specialty, Mayes sometimes has a tough time hanging onto the tosses that hit him in the hands. This was never as evident as it was against the Huskies. Mayes dropped two sure catches, but that wasn’t even close to the worst of it.

With the Irish down 21-14 and driving, Ron Powlus found Mayes over the middle. The senior split end clawed his way to the 21-yard line before losing the football, which Washington recovered. Three of the most vivid visual images of the season followed: The first was Mayes, helplessly lying on the field after the fumble. “Maybe I’m trying to do too much,” Mayes said after the game. “You know a lot of times your team is relying on you, and you know it’s third down. You just want to go out there and do so much. Maybe you lose your concentration and try to hurry.”

The second image was again Mayes, this time on the sideline, head in hands.

The third image was once again Mayes, but this one was different. It was Mayes split out to Powlus’ left, all alone and waving. This one needs some explaining.

Following the afore­mentioned fumble, the Irish defense had made their best stand of the game, forcing the Huskies to punt. “When we fumbled the ball … that could have been disas­trous,” Holtz remarked. ”The defense rose to the occasion.”

The Huskies lined up to punt with 2:51 remaining, and backup punter John Wales (starting for the in­jured Geoff Prince) fumbled the snap. Mark Monahan smothered Wales and gave the Irish the ball on the Husky 18. Autry Denson dashed into the end zone from seven yards to bring die Irish within a point, setting the stage for that third image. When the Irish sent a receiver in motion,  Mayes was left alone on the side of the field. Completely alone.        

“When we were moving in motion, there was some confusion on their part,” Notre Dame Offensive Coordinator Dave Roberts said.

Realizing the Huskies’ miscue, Mayes signaled and yelled to Powlus, who noticed, but tried to act as if he didn’t.

“Right away, I knew,” Powlus said. “I didn’t want to stare out there too long and give it away. I didn’t know if I couldn’t see a guy out there for them or what.”

But his eyes weren’t deceiving him, and the junior quarterback sailed a pass to Mayes in the corner of the end zone, giving the Irish a scant 22-21 advantage.

It was Mayes’ 13th and 14th points of the game. The senior had already grabbed 10-yard and 30-yard touchdown passes. And to give credit where it is due, Mayes did have seven catches for 132 yards. But the two-point conversion play made up for his earlier mistakes, in addition to setting the stage for Allen Rossum.

A week earlier against Ohio State, Rossum fell and was beaten, and was out run – all on one play. With Terry Glenn’s 83-yard touchdown still fresh in the minds of Notre Dame fans, Rossum was beaten again by Husky receivers in this game.

But just when it looked like Husky quarterback Damon Huard would lead Washington down the field for an all too familiar last-second field goal, Rossum saved the day. Picking off an overthrown pass, the sophomore cornerback bobbed, weaved and sprinted his way 76 yards through the Husky offense for a touchdown and checkmate. “We really needed that,” Rossum said of his redemption. “I finally got my confidence back.”

For Defensive Coordinator Bob Davie, the result­ing feeling was more tangible. “One of the players commented that coming back to win this game and Rossum’s interception cut about two hours off that flight home. I said, ‘I was probably going home by bus if he didn’t come up with that interception.’ It cut a lot more than two hours off that flight for me.”

Mayes and Rossum’s fourth quarter heroics overshadowed an excellent Husky performance and a shaky Irish performance. Washington running back Rashaan Shehee rushed for 171 yards and two touchdowns on 32 carries, while Huard, except for the interception, was an efficient 10 for 13 for 109 yards.

Meanwhile, Powlus suffered through what he thought might have been his worst day under center at Notre Dame. Powlus was 12 of 28 for 197 yards, two touchdowns.and one inter­ception. But he badly under threw some receivers and killed a drive with an inter­ception that he threw while falling to the ground. On his way down, Powlus hurled the ball across the field, right into the hands of linebacker Reggie Davis. For the record, it was his third poor game on artificial turf, after Boston College and Michigan State last year.

“I don’t know what it was, but I couldn’t throw the ball right today,” he later commented.

Kevin Kopka continued to struggle, missing a 30-yard field goal just before halftime that could have killed the Irish, if not for the late- game heroics.

Despite the ease with which Shehee ran through the defense and the many mistakes the Irish made on both sides of the ball, it was nonetheless another win. “We beat a good football team away from home, a team which had won 32 of 34 games at home,” Holtz said. “To come in here and win it the way we did, with a lot of big plays, it’s a big win for us. We just have to go from here.”

Powlus agreed: “This is a huge win. Coming off Ohio State where we thought if we hadn’t turned the ball over we would have won the game, that was a real tough loss for us. We needed a win, and in a tough win like this, everybody came together.”