Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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4 OCT. 14, 2023 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED T o no fault of his own, Brian Kelly never really got his rightful chance to truly appreciate just how rich and lively the rivalry between USC and Notre Dame used to be because he could only provide half of the equation to lift it back to where it once was. During a period when USC wasn't holding up its end of the annual series under the weight of NCAA sanctions and restrictions, the former Fight- ing Irish head coach enjoyed tremen- dous success against the Trojans. Kelly snapped Notre Dame's eight-game los- ing streak to USC in 2010, and he won eight of the 11 games he coached against the Trojans from 2010-21 (COVID can- celed the game in 2020). For a variety of reasons, this series when Kelly was here never brought the attention or grabbed the gusto from pre- vious Irish eras and coaching regimes. Only once during the 11 games that Kelly coached against USC were both teams ranked. And in four of those 11 matchups, neither team was ranked. Simply put, the once proud Notre Dame-USC rivalry had lost much of its shine when Kelly coached in it. The perception and importance of this rivalry seemingly changed over- night before last season when Lincoln Riley became the new head coach at USC and Marcus Freeman took the top job at Notre Dame. The first-ever meeting between these two rising coaching stars to finish the 2022 regular season jump-started this rivalry because it marked the highest ranked that these two teams were at the time of the game — No. 13 Notre Dame and No. 5 USC — since 2006 when the Irish were ranked No. 6 and USC was No. 3. Both programs will be ranked again for a second straight game when they meet Saturday. The 2005 meeting — in the infamous "Bush Push" game — the Irish were ranked No. 9 and USC came to Notre Dame Stadium ranked No. 1. Those two games in 2005 and 2006 came inside of the 2002-09 window that remains one of the proudest stretches in this rivalry in terms of talented teams, at least from a USC perspective. During each of those eight games, one team or the other — and three times both — were ranked in the top 10 at the time of the meeting. Unfortunately for Fighting Irish fans, USC under head coach Pete Carroll won all eight of those games — three over Ty- rone Willingham, five over Charlie Weis. As contested and proud as this rivalry has always been, it has also been streaky. During his 11 seasons on the Irish side- line, national championship winning Irish head coach Lou Holtz went 9-1-1 against the Trojans, including an eight- game winning streak from 1986-93. The fact that one team or the other was ranked in all 11 of those games — and five times both — makes Holtz's series dominance even more impressive. At the root of what makes this argu- ably the best rivalry in college football is the sustained and remarkably similar success these two programs have shared. USC and Notre Dame (along with Oklahoma and Ohio State) are tied for the all-time lead with seven Heisman Trophy winners. And while some of the following title numbers have been disputed over the years, both the Notre Dame and USC programs claim 11 na- tional championships. Amazingly, from 1924-32, either Notre Dame or USC won or shared the national championship six times in those nine seasons. And from 1967-78, these two programs claimed seven of the 12 available national titles. Need more? As far as producing elite talent, Notre Dame holds the all-time lead with 525 NFL Draft picks. Not sur- prisingly, USC is second on that list with 523 selections of its own. The Irish won their last title in 1988, and USC hasn't claimed one since 2004, leaving a 19-year void without a national championship for either school. It's the longest combined title drought for these two teams since their football programs were launched more than 100 years ago. It's been a long time since the USC- Notre Dame game might qualify as one of the biggest and most impactful games of the entire college football sea- son, in terms of interest and national title implications. And that's the backdrop Saturday at Notre Dame Stadium when two of the brightest young coaches in the busi- ness add some new bite to an old rivalry that's been missing its teeth for almost 20 years. ✦ This year's matchup between the Fighting Irish and Trojans could be the first top-10 showdown between those two programs since the infamous "Bush Push" game in 2005. PHOTO BY JOE RAYMOND Notre Dame-USC Gets A Needed Boost UPON FURTHER REVIEW TODD D. BURLAGE Todd D. Burlage has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 2005. He can be reached at tburlage@blueandgold.com