Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/193620
✦ News & notes By Lou Somogyi The Game Is On Since 1936, the first year of the Associated Press poll, this will mark only the 11th time in the 74 meetings hence between Notre Dame and USC that neither team is ranked going into the game. Of the previous 10, five of them have been since 1997, and this will be third such encounter in the last four years. Notre Dame holds a 7-3 advantage in the series in such games, most recently the 20-16 victory at USC in 2010. The Trojans reciprocated with a 31-17 victory the following year in Notre Dame Stadium. This will mark the fourth consecutive year USC will come into the Notre Dame contest unranked, but that doesn't marginalize the game's value to either head coach Brian Kelly or his Fighting Irish team. The Notre Dame schedule over the years has consistently featured a state rival (Purdue), border rivals (Michigan and Michigan State), an esteemed military rival (Navy), a Catholic school rival (Boston College) and an "Academic Bowl" rival (Stanford). But there can be only one archrival. For Michigan, it's Ohio State. For Purdue, it's Indiana. For Navy, it's Army. For Stanford, it's Cal. And for Notre Dame, it's USC. "I think our players will be the first ones to admit that this is our rivalry game," Kelly said. "This is our game that we look forward to. … It's part of the history of Notre Dame football that they really recognize as that one singular game." One of the oddities about the series, though, is the way the pendulum tends to swing in streaks from one team to the other for a number of years: • After the death of Irish head coach Knute Rockne in 1931, USC took control of the series for the most part in the 1930s, The Irish and Trojans have been at each other's throats since 1926, with the Notre Dame improving their series advantage to 44-35-5 after a 22-13 win in Los Angeles last season. photo by bill panzica ✦ Page 11 putting together the first three-game winning streak (1931-33) by either team, and then also closing with victories in 1938 and 1939 — with the 13-0 triumph in 1938 costing No. 1 Notre Dame the national title in the season finale. • Notre Dame didn't lose a game to USC during the 1940s, going 6-0-1 (the two teams did not meet in 1943-45 because of World War II and cutting cross-country travel costs). • The 1950s balanced out a little more, but from 1957-66, the Irish still held an 8-2 advantage (with a controversial 1964 loss at Los Angeles). • In the 16 seasons from 1967-82, USC held an amazing 12-2-2 record against Notre Dame even though the Irish were a perennial top-10 power. The only two times the Irish emerged victorious — 1973 and 1977 — resulted in consensus national titles. • From 1983-95, Notre Dame shifted the tide with a remarkable 12-0-1 ledger versus the Trojans, highlighted by a series-record 11 consecutive victories from 1983-93. Irish head coach Lou Holtz forewarned of the day when all those Notre Dame wins would eventually even out down the road for USC. • From 1996-2001, each side accumulated three-game winning streaks. But then from 2002-09, USC won eight straight while outscoring the Irish 318-122 — an average of approximately 40-15 per game. Prior to last year's game, Kelly said Notre Dame-USC is "not a great rivalry right now" because of the Trojans' 9-1 advantage in the previous 10 meetings that had made it more one-sided. But now that the Irish have won two of the last three, notably last year's 22-13 victory to clinch a bid to the BCS National Championship Game, it's leveling out again. "We're past that," Kelly said on the one-